Pete Hegseth’s latest excuse is much of the same: It’s the media’s fault

In late March, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published an extraordinary story.

Goldberg revealed that Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, texted American plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen to top U.S. intelligence and military officials. But, stunningly, included in that insecure text chain was Goldberg himself.

It was an unimaginable breach of security to text someone outside of security clearance.

And what was Hegseth’s response? To attack the well-respected Goldberg as a journalist, saying he was a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” (None of which is remotely true.) Hegseth also downplayed what he wrote in the texts, saying they weren’t war plans, although clearly it was proven to be sensitive material when Goldberg and The Atlantic released the transcripts of the texts.

In the end, Hegseth’s response was essentially to blame the media for his inexcusable irresponsibility.

Then, believe it or not, something similar happened again. On Sunday in The New York Times, reporters Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman wrote that Hegseth “shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.”

The Times story also made this excellent point: “Unlike the chat in which The Atlantic was mistakenly included, the newly revealed one was created by Mr. Hegseth.”

And what was Hegseth’s response this time?

Same as the last time, same as it is every time: Blame the media.

Hegseth was asked about the Times’ story during an Easter event on the White House lawn Monday and went on a bizarre rant, first talking about “leakers” and “disgruntled former employees” and complaining about the media quoting anonymous sources.

He added, “So I’m happy to be here at the Easter egg roll with my dad and my kids because this is what we’re doing it for. These kids right here. This is why we’re fighting the fake news media. This is why we’re fighting slash-and-burn Democrats. This is where we’re finding hoaxsters, hoaxers. This group, no, no, this group right here, full of hoaxers that peddle anonymous sources from leakers with axes to grind. And then you put it all together as if it’s some news story. And when we know it, we know exactly what it is.”

There was a bit more, but you get the gist.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, pulled out his favorite phrase — “fake news” — to describe his take on the latest Hegseth mess. And then chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell put out a lengthy statement, saying, in part, “The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda.”

It all sounds like a bunch of nondenial denials.

The New York Times then responded with its own statement: “We’re confident in the accuracy of our reporting, which revealed that the defense secretary shared sensitive information in a Signal chat that included his wife and brother, among others. The Pentagon has not denied the existence of the chat, and its assertion that there was no classified information shared in any chat is beside the point when it comes to our story, which did not characterize the information as classified.”

And, it also should be noted that CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Jake Tapper, Haley Britzky and Zachary Cohen confirmed the Times’ initial report in “Hegseth shared detailed military plans in second Signal chat that included his wife and brother.”

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So now what?

So what happens to Hegseth?

Trump has publicly thrown his support behind Hegseth. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday’s “Fox & Friends” that Trump “stands strongly behind” Hegseth. And Trump himself told reporters on Monday that Hegseth is “doing a great job.”

But is that also what is going on in private?

Two respected news organizations reported two very different things less than an hour apart on Monday afternoon.

First, Politico’s Dasha Burns, Eli Stokols and Jake Traylor reported that Trump has told Hegseth “that he’s sticking by him, reinforcing his public support for the embattled Defense secretary who has faced calls for his ouster amid growing turmoil at the Pentagon.”

That comes one day after John Ullyot, former chief Pentagon spokesman who worked in Trump’s first administration, wrote an op-ed for Politico that said, “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership. President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account. Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”

Ullyot, who resigned from the Pentagon last week, added, “In short, the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”

Ullyot added, “Yet even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration.”

But Monday’s Politico story said, “The message to Hegseth behind closed doors was consistent with the public one, according to a person familiar with the conversation granted anonymity to discuss the private discussion. Trump, at least for now, is voicing his support for Hegseth, according to the person and two others with knowledge of Trump’s stance.”

But NPR’s Tom Bowman and Quil Lawrence reported Monday afternoon: “The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.” Bowman wrote, “The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.”

Hmm, so Politico is reporting Hegseth is staying and NPR is reporting Hegseth appears to be on his way out.

My take is that both news organizations have sources inside the Pentagon and/or White House, but those sources might have very different agendas. There are both supporters and detractors of Hegseth, and both are trying to shore up the narrative they want out there.

Then again, in Trump World, what is true one minute might not be true the next.

For the record, Leavitt posted on X, “This ⁦@NPR story is total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about. As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind ⁦@SecDef.”

Seeking a turnaround, National Trust for Local News names a new CEO

For this item, I turn it over to my colleague Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business analyst.

Faced with serious operational and financial issues, the nonprofit National Trust for Local News named a new CEO Monday. He is Tom Wiley, president and publisher of The Buffalo News for the last five years.

Wiley succeeds Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, co-founder of the Trust, whose academic work was the basis for its unusual structure. The organization buys struggling groups of newspapers, then removes expectations of profitability and aims to help with building revenue, local philanthropy and digital transformation.

The last year was a tough one for the Trust. The largest of its three groups, based around The Portland Press Herald in Maine, experienced nearly total turnover in its executive ranks. There were business staff cuts there, and several of the Trust’s small weeklies in Colorado closed.

Hansen Shapiro told me last summer that execution had been a soft spot that she was trying to remedy by adding high-level expertise from big chains. When she left as CEO in January, the Trust seemed likely to look for someone with more executive experience and a newspaper background. That pretty exactly describes Wiley, who has had decades in the business, much of it in ad sales and is now running one of the largest outlets of the publicly traded Lee Enterprises group. 

In a brief interview, Wiley said he was attracted to the Trust’s hybrid structure, especially because “the cash flow gets reinvested (as) required by charter” rather than being funneled to shareholders or fund owners looking to extract profit.

Putting on his ad sales hat, Wiley said, “I’ve studied markets, especially at Lee … and found anywhere and in print or digital, newspapers attract an audience that’s upper income, more highly educated and (heavy with) homeowners with kids.” That’s a “uniquely valuable demographic,” he said, and there is a strong case that advertisers will get a better response from newspaper placements than from other news and nonnews alternatives.

While the four-year-old Trust has raised $50 million from philanthropic backers, its results in Maine, Colorado and Georgia would not suggest that it is in shape right now to take on additional acquisitions and turnarounds.

Wiley conceded as much. “I can’t give you a hard yes or no (on when the Trust will be ready for expansion),” he said. “We want to be opportunistic, but acquisitions come at the cost of diluting talent and funding. … (The pace will) be metered by our capacity to manage.”

In announcing Wiley’s appointment, the Trust also said that Hansen’s co-founder Marc Hand is stepping down as board chairman. Hand is a consultant specializing in recapitalizing public broadcast for the digital/streaming era. His successor, Keith Mestrich, is a financial services executive.

The Trust’s press release included a vote of confidence from Jim Brady, vice president of journalism for the Knight Foundation. “Tom Wiley is a creative, results-oriented leader who loves local journalism,” Brady said, “and has a track record of building the audiences that sustain it.” That signal of support from the organization’s lead funder will likely reassure other prospects.

All signs at the beginning of 2025 pointed to urgency for a turnaround at the Trust. Wiley, a race car driver in his youth, begins the new job in mid-May and told me he likes to “move with speed. … I’m tolerant of mistakes if we take steps to recover quickly.” 

Passing of the pope

Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, died on Monday. He was 88. He had been in declining health in recent weeks, although he had a meeting with Vice President JD Vance on Easter Sunday, as well as a meeting with King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Media coverage across the world, and all platforms, was particularly impressive, and you can see those excellent remembrances in coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press and many others.

After remembering Pope Francis’ impact and legacy, the next particularly intriguing coverage focused on who might be his successor.

These stories did a good job of looking at the possibilities:

• The Washington Post’s Gaya Gupta, Anthony Faiola, Daniel Wu and Marisa Bellack: “Who will be next pope after Francis? Key contenders ahead of conclave.”
• The Associated Press’ take: “Which cardinals are seen as contenders to be the next pope?”
• The New York Times’ Emma Bubola, Elisabetta Povoledo, Gaia Pianigiani and Neil MacFarquhar: “Who Will Be the Next Pope? Here Are Some Possible Contenders.”

Also, be sure to check out The New York Times’ Jason Horowitz with “For a Times Reporter Who Covered Him, Francis Was Always a Surprise.”

Moving on

Ryan Lizza, who was Politico’s chief Washington correspondent for the past six years, has left Politico to start his own Substack called “Telos.”

In his first post, he explained why he left Politico.

“The main reason? Their style of political coverage is not meeting the unprecedented moment of democratic peril we are facing. I know that sounds dramatic, but the gap between what is actually happening in Washington and how it was being framed and reported became much too wide.”

He added, “I don’t mean to pick on my friends in the media. All the people and institutions on Trump’s enemies list are struggling with how to respond.”

That was just how he started his first post, but there is much, much more to what he has planned.

Last year, Lizza was caught up in journalism gossip when it was learned that the woman he was dating, then-New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi, reportedly had what was called a personal, but nonphysical relationship with someone she had written about — former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Nuzzi left New York magazine as a result.)

That scandal also included Nuzzi filing a protective order against Lizza, although that request was later withdrawn. Lizza vehemently denied all accusations against him. He stopped working on the daily newsletter, but remained Politico’s chief Washington correspondent.

Lizza did not mention any of that in his Substack debut post. Instead, he focused on journalism reasons for why he left Politico to start his own thing.

Oh, one more thing …

Lizza wrote in his debut post that his first big investigative piece will drop later this week. He wrote, “It’s a lengthy investigative article about the roots of the kind of lawfare that this administration is trying to perfect. It tells the story of the MAGA world’s recent legal efforts to silence press critics — and how they backfired spectacularly, partly because they relied on a lawyer who turned out to be a fraud.”

He went on to write, “I assure you that the article is worth the Telos subscription price.”

Media tidbits

• The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell with “The 40-something single dad shaping liberal media from his laptop.”
• Semafor’s Max Tani with “How Nexstar dodged a Trump lawsuit.”
• Interesting piece here from Philip M. Napoli — the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy and the director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University — with “News Distortion: The New Fake News.”
• Andrew Freedman is joining CNN’s climate and weather division as a senior reporter. He moves over from being a senior climate reporter at Axios, where he covered climate science and policy, extreme weather and the energy transition. Freedman has also broken multiple key stories on the Trump administration’s plans for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service.
• Here’s a good Q&A. Awful Announcing’s Michael Grant talks to longtime sports journalist-turned-professor in “J.A. Adande on the legacy of ‘Around the Horn’ and life as a Northwestern professor.”

Hot type

If you haven’t caught up on the latest episode of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” do not read this story. Major spoilers. But if you have seen it, you’ll enjoy this analysis from The Ringer’s Daniel Chin: “The Last of Us’ Just Leveled Up. Episode 2 of Season 2 is a triumphant TV spectacle.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].