The following article, Reporter Gets Obliterated for Fake News, was first published on The Black Sphere.
The fake news machine continues to churn, though its gears are grinding slower and with far less influence than before.
With so many left-leaning journalistic outlets collapsing under the weight of their own credibility crises, one might expect the remaining scribes to recognize the stench of their dying industry and abandon the tired practice of lying for clicks, clout, or political agendas.
Since Donald Trump’s election in 2024, the media landscape has undergone a kind of Darwinian triage—a survival-of-the-fittest purge that has seen some of the most prominent faces in journalism either resign, get fired, or quietly shuffled off to the land of forgotten talking heads. It’s almost as if the universe decided to conduct its own performance review, and let’s just say, the results were brutal.
Take Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, for example.
A stalwart of the op-ed page, Marcus was known for her sharp pen and sharper opinions. But as the media’s credibility crisis deepened, her brand of highbrow scolding began to feel increasingly out of touch. Then there’s Jim Acosta, CNN’s once-ubiquitous correspondent, who turned White House press briefings into his personal wrestling arena. His combative style made him a hero to some and a headache to many, but in the end, even CNN seemed to realize that shouting matches aren’t a substitute for journalism.
Norah O’Donnell, the polished anchor of CBS Evening News, managed to survive longer than most. But even she couldn’t escape the industry’s downward spiral. Chuck Todd, the bow-tied maestro of Meet the Press, once the gold standard of Sunday morning political shows, found himself increasingly irrelevant as viewers tuned out in droves. Andrea Mitchell of NBC, a veteran foreign correspondent, seemed to lose her footing in the era of hyper-partisanship, while Chris Wallace, the erstwhile star of Fox News Sunday, jumped ship to CNN+—a move so ill-fated it lasted about as long as a Snapchat story.
Joy Reid of MSNBC, known for her fiery takes and unapologetic partisanship, managed to cling to her perch far longer than she should have. But as the USAID money dried up, so did Reid’s career.
Neil Cavuto, the steady hand at Fox Business, faced health challenges and a growing sense that his brand of even-keeled reporting was out of step with the network’s shift toward outrage-driven content. Katie Phang, a legal analyst for MSNBC, and Jonathan Capehart, a Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor, have managed to hang on, but their roles feel increasingly niche in a media ecosystem that rewards bombast over nuance. And Lester Holt, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, though a calm, measured presence in a sea of chaos, he got the axe because in the end he’s just a well-disciplined Leftist.
The irony, of course, is that many of these departures were framed as “new opportunities” or “personal decisions”. However when to ship is sinking, even the first-class passengers start looking for lifeboats.
The media’s reckoning has been a long time coming, and while some of these exits were undoubtedly deserved, others feel like collateral damage in a war the press largely brought upon itself. The lesson? When you spend years peddling narratives instead of facts, eventually the audience stops buying what you’re selling. And when that happens, even the most polished anchors and pundits find themselves updating their LinkedIn profiles.
Still, for many, the habit is too deeply ingrained. Years of benefiting from sensationalism, half-truths, and outright fabrications have left them trapped in a cycle of deceit, unable—or unwilling—to break free. It’s a tragic case of muscle memory, where the instinct to distort overrides the journalistic duty to inform.
This dynamic was on full display during a recent interview between Patricia Kimes, a reporter from Military.com, and Richard Collins, the Director of Veterans Affairs.
What unfolded was a masterclass in media accountability, as Collins turned the tables on Kimes, exposing the subtle but pervasive biases that have come to define so much of modern journalism. Kimes, perhaps expecting a routine softball interview, instead found herself on the defensive as Collins calmly and methodically dismantled her assumptions and forced her to confront the narrative she was attempting to construct.
What’s particularly striking about this exchange is the venue: Military.com, a publication one might assume would be immune to the “woke” ideological bent that has infected so much of the media landscape. After all, this is a platform ostensibly dedicated to serving the military community—a group not exactly known for its appetite for progressive pieties. Yet, even here, the insidious influence of modern journalistic trends seems to have taken root. Kimes’ line of questioning, laden with implicit bias and framed to fit a predetermined narrative, revealed just how far the rot has spread.
Collins, however, was having none of it. Armed with facts, clarity, and a firm grasp of the issues at hand, he deftly navigated the interview, refusing to let Kimes steer the conversation into the murky waters of misinformation. His performance was a reminder that, even in an era where truth is often treated as optional, there are still those willing to stand up and hold the media accountable for its transgressions. It was a rare moment of accountability in an industry that desperately needs more of it.
Transcript:
DOUG COLLINS: One of the issues that we’re having is, and it’s something here, I need your help on something. I need your help because all I seem to be doing lately is fighting back against innuendo and rumor stories. And this is what I seem to be fighting about all the time.
In fact, Patricia, part of it is with you. And I just need your help because when you start headlines with “there’s a rumor going around,” and “we’ve heard that,” that hurts my veterans. That scares my veterans. That scares my employees because it’s not true.
Will you commit to not doing that in the future?
PATRICIA KIME: Well, there was a DOGE representative at the VA.
Note the attempt at subterfuge, ergo a justification of her fake news. However, Collins was more than prepared for this.
Collins snaps back.
DOUG COLLINS: I have a VA employee who is our DOGE liaison. You knew that, and you could ask that question. But when you got the answer, my question here is, I need you to commit to not starting off, “Rumors began circulating…”
It’s either true or false, Patricia. And then you go to Patty Murphy saying that we’ve heard and DOGE may have barged into the VA today. Unconfirmed hearsay. You know what you’d have done if I was a member of Congress and probably done that? Unconfirmed report, but you didn’t put “unconfirmed report.”
So Patricia, I wanna work together with you, but I need you to commit to me that you’re not gonna do this.
PATRICIA KIME: That’s fair, I’m working on it, and I have, I have been oh actually I have another question based on that. Thank you very much.
Kimes attempts to shift the discussion. But Collins was having nothing less.
DOUG COLLINS: No, I want to hear the answer first. Are you committing not to do rumors because you’re scaring my VA employees about this and you’re scaring my veterans.
PATRICIA KIME: That’s fair, a rumor is different than if I have a source–
DOUG COLLINS: Then you source it to our PR people and let them know, because you know something, I’ve got people who are reporting stuff right now who aren’t even calling us. They don’t even get a they don’t even get something from. They don’t even call us to check it.
PATRICIA KIME: Well, that’s not right.
DOUG COLLINS: Well, this isn’t right either.
PATRICIA KIME: OK. Well, that’s fair, but I did call about that. I did call.
DOUG COLLINS: And you got the answer, but yet you still reported it as a rumor. Which is it? Is it a rumor or did you get it confirmed?
Collins addresses what the so-called media has been doing for decades: making up facts with fictitious contacts.
PATRICIA KIME: There is a DOGE person there. There is.
DOUG COLLINS: Nobody hid that from you. Nobody. We answered it, but it was reported as a rumor.
PATRICIA KIME: I take issue with you parsing out my stuff.
DOUG COLLINS: And in the headline of the story–
PATRICIA KIME: I didn’t write that.
DOUG COLLINS: I don’t care who wrote it, it’s your byline. Think about what it says here. “Elon Musk aide is now working at VA accessing computer systems”
Ooohhh.
So now Kime is pointing her finger at one of her staffers or the editor. No matter who it blame, it’s her name on the “by line”.
PATRICIA KIME: That’s a true statement.
DOUG COLLINS: “A DOGE employee,” which is funny because they’re VA employees, a liaison.
PATRICIA KIME: I was not told that. It was a DOGE employee, one DOGE employee.
DOUG COLLINS: As we look at this, Patricia, I want you to know something. When you look at this headline, “accessing computer system.”
I want to work with you a lot as we go forward. We have a lot of time together. But I’m not gonna have any reporter scaring my employees and scaring the veterans, and that’s what this is doing. Let’s get it right. I’m the most transparent VA secretary we’ve had yet. I’m on video, I’m on interviews, I do everything I possibly can To push back against everything I’m hearing. We got a team that will help you, but I need your to help me too, OK?
Congratulations to Doug Collins and President Trump for full transparency and calling out people publicly.
The press must be held accountable and these interviews accomplish that. They let reporters know that the Trump administration will fact-check you, so come prepared.
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