Oliver Darcy was senior media critic for CNN, when he left to start his own Substack, called Status. There he reports on the latest buzz.

Here he writes about the moral collapse of the mainstream media in the Second Coming of the Convicted Felon. Despite the many admonitions by scholars of authoritarianism not to “obey in advance,” the media is normalizing the new Trump regime. Yesterday Trump unleashed a blizzard of executive orders and rescissions of Biden policies. Just a few: Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Accord (again) and from the World Health Organization. He declared that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. He rolled back Biden’s limit of $2,000 per year for the cost of prescription drugs for those on Medicare and Medicaid. He pardoned the J6 criminals, even those who violently assaulted police officers.

He wrote:

Four years ago, moments after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, Jake Tapper delivered a blistering sermon about Donald Trump’s legacy live on CNN. He looked into the camera and bluntly described Trump’s four years in office as a “time of cruelty,” a “time when truth and fact were treated with disdain,” and an “era of just plain meanness.” 

“It must be said, to paraphrase President Ford: For tens of millions of our fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over,” Tapper concluded, ending his unsparing mini-monologue. 

That Jake Tapper was nowhere to be found on Monday as Trump was sworn back into office, becoming the 47th president of the United States. Instead, appearing on CNN was a Tapper incapable or unwilling to deliver the type of no-holds-barred commentary that sent his star soaring during Trump’s first administration.

As he narrated Monday’s proceedings, Tapper, CNN’s lead Washington anchor, glossed over how Trump was twice-impeached and a convicted felon. He made no mention about how the Capitol Rotunda was stuffed with right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists. Instead, Tapper largely avoided delivering any commentary that might be perceived by the MAGA movement as inflammatory. Outside the physical body, the Tapper of 2025 shared little in common with the pugnacious Tapper of 2020.

To be fair to Tapper, he was not alone. In fact, Tapper embodies a larger trend gripping the news media, which has tamped down its once aggressive posture toward Trump. The appetite for hard-hitting reporting and stinging analysis has dissipated in the c-suites of several major news outlets, with executives wary of offending the new president and the muscular movement he leads.

That was all reflected in Monday’s inauguration coverage. Across the entire television news landscape, the reporting on Trump’s inauguration lacked firepower. The profession’s stable of news anchors and correspondents who branded themselves as truth-telling journalists willing to hold power to account were present on screen, but their fervid spirit had unmistakably evaporated. It was like the invasion of the body snatchers — familiar faces delivering the news, yet devoid of the passion and conviction that once defined them, as if their former selves had been hollowed out. 

It’s not like there wasn’t plenty to discuss. Trump repeated lies about the January 6 insurrection, claimed the 2020 election was rigged, and falsely alleged the Democrats tried to rig the 2024 election, among other things. He welcomed conspiracy theorists to the inaugural ceremony, such as Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Vivek Ramaswamy, andRobert F. Kennedy Jr. And he put on display how he had bent the most powerful figures in Silicon Valley to his will.

In other words, it was a highly abnormal affair to watch. But the way in which television news outlets covered it — with the exception of MSNBC — was out of sync with that reality. Most of the commentary focused on the years-old traditions and ceremonies of Inauguration Day, which in turn framed the events as fairly ordinary. 

A search of closed captioning revealed that most networks almost entirely avoided using terms like “twice-impeached” or “convicted felon” when discussing Trump during the hours and hours of special coverage offered to viewers. In fact, no one on the Mark Thompson-led CNN (which found time to interview an outside expert about Melania Trump’s outfit choice) used either of those terms a single time, according to the closed captions search that I conducted. Yes, really. That important context was somehow missing from broadcasts of Trump’s resurgence to power.

After years of sounding the alarm about the very real threats that Trump poses to America’s bedrock democratic principles, and after years of watching Trump and his allies wage a historic disinformation war on the country, the on-air coverage was muted and failed to meet the moment. Even Trump took notice, lauding the press for its coverage. “Maybe the fake news is changing,” Trump said.

The dose of coverage the country was treated to on Monday is likely a sign of what is to come. Billionaire owners like Jeff Bezos and corporate parents like Warner Bros. Discovery have signaled that they want their outlets to be less hostile to the MAGA movement. They do not wish to be the so-called #Resistance. They would much rather be allies of the president, particularly while they have high-wire business matters before the federal government.

Which means that at a time when Trump, by all accounts, poses more of a threat than ever, the news media is less willing than ever to treat him to the tough coverage the moment calls for. It’s a troubling shift that will have far-reaching consequences for the country. And, frankly, it’s just bad journalism.