[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
I have the unenviable opportunity to consume far too much broadcast TV these days, albeit second hand. I also have the unenviable opportunity to do this inside the same broadcast media market where Mar-a-Lago resides.
What I noticed after the end of the barrage of MAGA-laden Florida primary ads and coverage on Tuesday-Wednesday this past week is that viewers who rely on broadcast TV for their news will have learned abso-fucking-lutely nothing about Trump’s aide Natalie Harp or how the White House freaked out after Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioned her in a campaign speech last weekend.
You’ll see what I mean if you go to YouTube and do these searches:
abc world news tonight august 2026
nbc nightly news august 2026
cbs evening news august 2026
You’ll see videos of the telecast programs each of these three major broadcast TV networks have published online.
You’ll also see that ABC and NBC do a nice job of breaking out links to each of the stories they cover and including those links in the summary area below the video.
CBS, however, doesn’t do this. You’ll have to go through the news program to find each story they covered.
CBS also has an other interesting difference from ABC and NBC: there’s no August 19, 2026 program uploaded to YouTube at all. The telecast from the day before and the day after are both there, but not the 19th. Was this telecast video purged? Is this Bari Weiss and David Ellison’s work?
What all three networks share in common: not a single mention of Natalie Harp or Jon Ossoff’s mention of her.
A sizable swath of voters learned nothing about this national security risk, or how the White House has tried to protect Harp in spite of the risk she and her lack of security clearance have posed.
These broadcast TV viewers have been saturated with news about celebrity Hayden Pannetiere’s death, they’ll have learned more than they wanted about Meghan Markle and her spouse Prince Harry moving back to the UK, they’ll have been informed about damage from natural disasters and aircraft crashes.
But not a damned thing about Trump having handled Harp’s security clearance after she refused to get one for a year while working as his aide.
Cable news is very different; much of what the very-online learned about Harp’s relationship to Trump has been shaped by reporting by MS Now and CNN. These networks have programs published on YouTube which include coverage, discussion, and analysis of Harp’s relationship with Trump. (Did I check Fox News? Hah, of course not.)
The largest newspapers also pose a problem.
NYTimes has an article in Thursday’s issue, on A15; see the blurb at the bottom of the front page which reads, “’With all my heart, Natalie’ President Trump’s devoted White House aide and gatekeeper Natalie Harp is always by his side. What, exactly, does she do?”
https://d2dr22b2lm4tvw.cloudfront.net/ny_nyt/2026-08-20/front-page.pdf (Change the day’s date in the URL to see 8/19-8/22 front pages.)
But nothing more mentioned on Friday’s or Saturday’s front pages.
And nothing appeared on the front pages of these major US city newspapers:
Washington Post
https://dedq39jz5ilmb.cloudfront.net/20260819/A01_RE_EZ_DAILY_20260819.pdf (Change the day’s date in two places in this URL to see 8/19-8/22 front pages
Chicago Sun-Times
https://d2dr22b2lm4tvw.cloudfront.net/il_cst/2026-08-19/front-page.pdf (Change the day’s date in the URL to see 8/19-8/22 front pages.)Chicago Tribune
https://d2dr22b2lm4tvw.cloudfront.net/il_ct/2026-08-19/front-page.pdf (Change the day’s date in the URL to see 8/19-8/22 front pages.)Los Angeles Times
https://d2dr22b2lm4tvw.cloudfront.net/ca_lat/2026-08-19/front-page.pdf (Change the day’s date in the URL to see 8/19-8/22 front pages.)
If the same voters relied on these papers as well as broadcast network TV for their news, they don’t know about Natalie Harp let alone that she poses an enormous national security risk to the US as well as Trump.
If asked today these same voters are likely to respond, “Natalie who?”
Granted, you may also have zero interest in Trump’s fangirl-office-wife-side-piece. But if you’ve been reading this site regularly, you know Harp is a national security risk.
Imagine broadcast news media similarly failing to report on other national security risks. It’s not a stretch because I know the three major broadcast news networks are NOT reporting on Trump’s war on Iran in any depth as just one example; they’re not connecting it to inflation experienced in the US along with the rest of the world. The war gets the same or less coverage than any celebrity issue du jour.
It’s going to be on each of us to fix this — becoming our own form of distribution system, supporting news outlets doing better coverage — as our broadcast TV news media and major newspapers continue to fail us. Disney-ABC may finally have gotten a spine to fight back against Trump’s censorship, but they’re still under his thumb in their refusal to confront Trump by tackling controversial topics involving him.
This is an open thread, bring your off-topic material here as well as your media criticism.
The post Open Thread: Ask Broadcast TV Viewers, “Natalie Who?” appeared first on emptywheel.