It is time for our annual rundown of the run-down journalism seen from America’s media complex: The Townhall 50. Throughout the entire year, we compile the worst examples of violations in journalism ethics in the daily “Riffed From the Headlines” column, and from this, we collate the names of repeat offenders.
In order to measure and rank the worst journalists, we apply a strict and regimented, arbitrary formula based on media reach, the output of content, impact of reporting, and influence wielded by the individual.
Under this rubric, we find many dropped off contention as they went independent, such as Mehdi Hasan, Jim Acosta, Joy Reid, Jennifer Rubin, and others. Bill Kristol is an example of someone with an inventory flush with content, but he has spiraled far enough to the Left that he has entered irrelevancy. So, armed with these metrics, here they are, in ascending order, the worst examples of journalism malpractice, ethics violators, and miscreants found in the media in 2025.
Behold, The Townhall 50.
50. Bakari Sellers – CNN: The sane-sounding member of a number of CNN panels actually delivered head-scratching commentary on the regular. He slammed Trump as unaccomplished on the international stage, but was completely unaware of the peace deals that were brokered. He accidentally confirmed Joe Biden directed indictments. Bakari touted a Black Friday boycott, and it led to a huge retail buying increase this year.
49. Philip Bump – Washington Post: The columnist was in expected unhinged behavior, but his ranking was hindered by his departure from WaPo in the summer. He blamed Republicans for not blaming the California wildfires on global warming. As DOGE worked its wonders, Phil declared Elon Musk did not find any waste. When Zohran Mamdani was exposed for having claimed to be a black student on a college application, Phil defended him by essentially arguing, “It’s complicated.”
48. Gayle King – CBS News: She makes the cut since the network insists the hostess of its morning show is a journalist. King was part of the female crew on the Jeff Bezos rocket Uber ride to sub-space, and she and the network behaved like it was a historical event. She complained about the lack of black people visible during the inauguration. When speaking to a Delta Airlines CEO, she tried clinging to a narrative to blame Trump for the crash...which took place in Toronto, Canada.
47. Alex Thompson – Axios: The co-author of the book “Original Sin” with Jake Tapper is a largely solid reporter, but he struggled with the exposure of the press his book provoked. While accepting a journalism award from the WHCA, he described the Joe Biden health protection racket as something the journalists in the room “missed.” While he was promoting his book, he had nothing to say on the congressional hearing on Biden. When it was shown with a series of video clips that Tapper had previously defended Biden’s condition, Thompson actually resorted to the Biden excuse of them being cheap fakes. Alex made the declaration that when a source is shown to have lied, they void the protection of anonymity – yet their book is based on a large number of anonymous sources who lied about Biden’s condition.
46. Eddie Glaude – Washington Post/MS NOW: The reliably race-obsessed Princeton professor was fond of delivering emotional pleas that sounded more fitting delivered from a podium. He was upset with the “manly” renaming of the Department of War. When the L.A. Riots erupted, he gave a rambling speech about slave-catchers in order to steer the topic back to his race-baiting about blacks. Professor Eddie gave a commentary on how cops do not make streets safer, which was ignorant enough to cause Joe Scarborough to push back on his theorizing. He was brought on to give a hysterical filibuster about how millions wanted to destroy the country rather than vote for a black woman.
MSNBC’s Eddie Glaude launches unhinged, self-righteous rant blasting Trump supporters as racist:
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) April 8, 2025
Says 78M Americans who voted for Trump would rather “destroy the Republic” than "elect a black woman." pic.twitter.com/E4oHMmQwnz
45. Chuck Todd – NBC News/Independent: Though he left NBC News early in the year, Chuckles managed to still cause a ripple in the news occasionally. He reported that a Florida sheriff wanted to use riots as an excuse to shoot people. In defending the rights of Americans to protest, he also obliviously claimed credit for shutting down criticisms of the protests. He continued his revisionist reporting history when he acted surprised that Biden is not a strong family man.
44. Stephanie Ruhle – MS NOW: Still plying her trade in the night’s eleventh hour in the cleverly titled The 11th Hour, the lightly seen hostess strains for relevance with the Left. She hit Texas Governor Greg Abbott by suggesting the ADA is the same as DEI. She had an ALL-CAPS rant about illegals and health coverage that did little to make her sound clever. On a panel, she laughably tried denying that her network has a leftist bias.
43. Laura Barron-Lopez – PBS/MS NOW: The pundit was a frequent leftist voice heard infrequently on the underwatched PBS. She was certain the president would attack trans individuals in his State of the Union speech. When covering the new administration appointments, she tried painting President Trump as an antisemite. Laura unobjectively went on the defense of Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan, who shielded an illegal immigrant from ICE agents. She left the public broadcaster ahead of defunding by making a lateral move to MSNBC-MS NOW.
42. Glenn Kessler – Washington Post/Independent: The Washington Post’s fact-checker continued with his brand of truth aversion. He had so many errors in his fact-check of the SOTU address that he needed correcting. Said Trump had lied entirely about FEMA paying to house illegals (four Pinocchios!), and then it was proven the agency was putting them up in hotels in New York City. For his final piece at WaPo, he unintentionally admitted that he failed as a fact-checker because disinformation won.
My final #FactChecker --> The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims. Falsehoods are now winning. https://t.co/x9F8IDRXJy
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) July 31, 2025
41. David Folkenflick – National Public Radio: NPR’s media analyst, essentially a warmed-over Brian Stelter, had a tough year defending his outlet from defunding pressures. Claimed in a report that South Dakota residents cried over a loss of PBS, but most said they watch Fox News or use the internet. After a House hearing, David was there defending NPR’s decision not to report on the Hunter Biden laptop story. When CNN lost a defamation case, the argument Folkenflik made was that a jury is just too stupid to understand how newsrooms operate.
40. Juliette Kayyem – CNN: The reactionary contributor had a tough year grappling with immigration and other issues. She humorously ran with a false story of the LL.A.Dodgers blocking ICE, then, once exposed, tried to blame that on DHS not correcting the story quickly enough. She barked about the Iran bombing because, of course, she supports a terror nation. After she complained that Trump blocked the LL.A.protest, she was reminded of how she called for the government to step in and end the Canadian truckers' protest. In a reactionary fashion, Juliette was blaming Texas flash flood deaths on Trump-DOGE cuts.
39. Aaron Katersky – ABC News: The network’s breaking news correspondent was adept at delivering slanted versions of the hot stories. He was intentionally deceptive about the Minnesota school shooter, trying to paint him as a Trump supporter while leaving off that he wrote “KILL Trump” on his weapon. After the assassination, Aaron suggested that Charlie Kirk should not have even been on campus to speak. Aaron later drew a list of reasons speculating why National Guard troops were shot, but he left off the Afghan shooter and his words shouted as he murdered one and wounded another.
38. Eugene Daniels – Politico/MS NOW: As president of the White House Correspondents' Association, he came off looking impotent after the many changes President Trump made regarding the press. Daniels hired Amber Ruffin as the featured speaker at their annual Correspondents' Awards Dinner, then later dismissed her as the emcee of the Nerd Prom after her caustic comments about President Trump. The event managed to be an even more tepid affair as a result. He revealed his party of choice when he coached Democrats on how to attack Trump and Elon Musk. He moved from Politico to being a full-time correspondent at MSNBC and co-host of the new weekend show “The Weekend,” with Jonathan Capehart. Tried to mock “snowflakes” upset over Cracker Barrel, after his network was outraged about the Sydney Sweeney jeans commercial. Joined the cadre of journos who try to deny that Antifa is a valid organization.
37. David Brooks – PBS: The man who described the late David Gergan as “a good PBS conservative, like me,” had a rough go of things. Brooks defended the Wisconsin judge who protected an illegal immigrant, while admitting he did not know the details of the story. Exposed his non-conservative side when raving about the No Kings protests. And David delivered one of the quotes of the year when he looked at the redistricting effort in Texas and made the declaration that this was Trump “using mustard gas on democracy.”
PBS’ David Brooks likens Trump redistricting effort to Germans attacking civilians in WW1: Says Trump ordered a “mustard gas" attack on democracy.
— Johnny Midnight ⚡️ (@its_The_Dr) August 19, 2025
Pretty obvious why we should not support PBS. pic.twitter.com/BMWEUF44qW
36. Tim Miller – The Bulwark: Tim is quite prolific on social media and a frequent guest on MS NOW, but is also quite pedantic and predictably left-wing. Tim has occupied much of his time opposing ICE detainment efforts and went so far as to turn virulently racist toward Matt Walsh. He defended Zohran Mamdani’s communist past by insisting the candidate somehow “deprogrammed himself” from past viewpoints. Tim wanted to suggest that Candace Owens was more than an online influencer by noting the opinions of the kids on TikTok. Tim believed some of the dumbest claims to come out regarding the treatment of detainees at Alligator Alcatraz.
35. Catherine Rampell – Washington Post/MS NOW: The columnist who last year declared Doug Emhof a sex symbol was her typical, imbalanced self. The economic expert tried to blame Trump for inflation, before he was in office. She had no problem with Christian nationalism when “faith groups” sued the administration. She opposed the decision to cut college funds over “one trans swimmer.” Catherine insulted Pete Hegseth’s military career, calling him only a TV host. She was among those who took a Washington Post buyer offer to become a regular on MS NOW.
34. John Dickerson – CBS News: He was teamed with Maurice DuBois to replace Norah O’Donnell on The CBS Evening News, and the ratings dropped enough after just three weeks that the network wanted to rework the format. On St. Patrick’s Day, he compared Irish residents to Tren de Aragua gang members. John complained when Trump used executive powers as the president. He announced he was leaving the desk after Bari Weiss was hired as head of the news division, but it appears he was replaced, as Tony Dokoupil took over the show on January 1.
31-33. (Three-way tie) – Chait, Frum, and French: The trio of one-time conservatives were so reliably anti-conservative as to be indistinguishable from each other.
- Jonathan Chait – Got angry over employees being laid off at USAID. He contradicted himself on Sen. John Fetterman’s condition. He, of course, was happy about the No Kings protest. Slammed Trump for divisive rhetoric after calling him a Nazi repeatedly. Jon acted surprised to learn about Karine Jean-Pierre's verbal incompetence.
- David Frum – He has a bit of an obsession with Trump taking over the midterm elections, citing any event as proof that he will do this. He was imbalanced by blaming Trump for a list of Biden issues. He gave an odd psycho sexual assessment of MAGA. He laughably said Trump would chicken out on the Iran bombing, one day before the bombing took place. He bizarrely said Hegseth using “Franklin” in memes is transactional organized crime.
- David French – Said Stephen Miller is violating the Constitution by enforcing immigration laws. Expectantly, he complained about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, but previously cheered when Roseanne Barr had been fired by the same network. Attended the No Kings protest and raved about it. When Democrats promoted military opposition to Trump, he gave his fractured take on the Seditious 6. In Frum-like fashion, French stated that Trump will arrest those voting against him.
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