OPINION

The Heckler Awards, Part 4 – The Continued Celebration of the Bottom of Journalism in 2025

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Dec 30, 2025
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We continue handing out our awards for the worst seen from the journalism industry in 2025. 

In this installment, we continue delivering honors involving the categories we cover in our daily column “Riffed From the Headlines.” These are the recurring actions seen in the press as they deviate from journalism ethics on the regular. For each category, we compiled the final nominees and declared the winner. It has been a rough process of winnowing down the copious examples collected, but we have come up with the exemplary performances in each instance.

Heckler Awards Pt. 1          Heckler Awards Pt.2         Heckler Awards Pt.3

Honorees are vying for our illustrious pyrite-plated trophy featuring our trademarked back-row popcorn tosser, encrusted with nylon faux-marble, ensconced on a base of crafted domestic pressboard, and a high gloss coat of Onyx Krylon. The judges have turned in the batch of envelopes and are currently recuperating with prescribed pork shoulder doses and a bourbon IV drip. So, with ceremonial introductions aside, let us commence with the pageantry of awarding The Hecklers!

BLUE-ANON (Lapses Into Conspiracies)

  • Margaret Brennan — CBS News: In a verbal bout with Marco Rubio, she stated the Nazis “weaponized free speech to conduct a genocide.”

  • Ali Velshi — MSNBC: His guest Elie Mystal declared the Supreme Court ruled that now Donald Trump can murder journalists he does not like, and Velshi nods as if this was deeply trenchant analysis.

  • Christiane Amanpour — PBS: “I must say, I was afraid. I’m a foreigner, I don’t have a green card, I literally prepared to go to America as if I was going to North Korea.” She said this about her trip to Boston to speak at Harvard.

  • Lawrence O’Donnell — MSNBC: Larry suggested that JD Vance was behind the release of the lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein from Donald Trump, so he could rise to the position of president.

WINNER 

Nikki McCann Ramirez – Rolling Stone   

When Tulsi Gabbard was releasing the Durham Annex exposing the false Russian collusion narrative, Ramirez had a perfectly sane explanation: The evidence of the Russian collusion narrative being manufactured was manufactured by Russia! It goes something like this… we think:

Yeah, see — Russia planted emails that claim it was all a false flag investigation, so the collusion conspiracy is NOT disproven, based on the conspiracy that Russia created emails inside a U.S. foundation run by George Soros that claim to be creating the Russian collusion conspiracy. And this conspiracy inception only works if you believe Russia planted disqualifying emails back in 2016 — just in case the other information they planted prior to that was found out.

BORDER-LINE OBSESSION (Hiding Justification for Deportations, to Demonize ICE)

  • Seema Mehta, James Queally — Los Angeles Times: In the jarring story of a 13-year-old who was killed by his soccer coach, the duo from the LA Times saw fit to omit the detail that this coach was an illegal alien who sexually abused other boys. When the paper later updated the piece with this detail added, it admitted that they had been provided the immigration status months earlier.

  • CNN: While highlighting three cases of individuals picked up by ICE, the network sympathetically labeled them as “pillars of their community.” CNN had to leave off that all three had extensive criminal records.

  • Fox Channel 11: The very fact that they describe one detention as ICE arresting a baby was bad enough. But the station had to downplay how the father endangered the infant as he battled with ICE agents.

  • Sarah Stillman — The New Yorker: The effort here is to draw sympathy for a man in this country for 50 years and deported to a nation he has never been to. You need to overlook that he was convicted of armed robbery and murder, and had a 2009 deportation order.

WINNER  

Eli Saslow — The New York Times  

In an amazing dose of criminal sympathy, the paper detailed how an illegal alien had used the identity of a citizen to get work, a separate driver's license, and amass debt and a tax burden for the other man. The Times tries to weave them together as mutual sympathy tales. The illegal has been deported repeatedly, has a DUI, and recently ran over a girl and her grandfather, who was killed.

DEMOCRATIC CUSTODIAL SERVICES  (Offering Politicians the Chance to Repair Their Public Image)

  • Jacob Soboroff — MSNBC: With Southern California smoldering, Soboroff brought on Gavin Newsom to clean up his image, and the governor managed to have his tongue bath interview go awry.

  • Gregory Svirnovskiy — Politico: With the Democrats expressing outrage over GOP redistricting efforts there was a problem: All of the Democrat-held states that have already been gerrymandered. Politico rode in to help, describing these previous moves as the “tactical use of redistricting.”

  • Associated Press: As the Jay Jones texting scandal erupted, the AP did its best to help him out. The syndicate only ran two pieces on his violent messaging problem: One declared it to be an old story barely worth a mention, and the other declared it was only a story because the Republicans were seizing on it.

  • Tim Miller — The Bulwark: With Zohran Mamdani having more of his past extremist comments welling up and threatening his campaign, Miller strode in with the perfect explanation: While he may have espoused communist platforms before, somehow he managed to “deprogram himself” from those problematic positions.

WINNER 

Pod Save America  

The leftist podcast was there to help when Graham Platner was enduring his controversy for having a Nazi tattoo. In a supplicant interview, they did everything in their power to spin away the deeply uncomfortable reality.

STOLEN VALIDITY (Taking Credit for Prior Reporting)

  • Tim Burke — Deadspin: He faced a trial for breaching the servers of Fox News and disseminating the content.

  • Andrew Kaczynski — CNN: Andrew claimed it was an “Exclusive” to publish photos of Jeffrey Epstein that “reveal fresh details” about his relationship with Donald Trump. They were shots from decades ago when Epstein attended the wedding to Marla Maples, when they were known friends, and Epstein’s presence at the wedding was long known. The pictures had been circulating on Reddit years ago.

  • Axios: After outlets like The New York Times retracted stories about a starving Gaza infant who actually has a congenital disease, Axios went forward and repurposed the discredited pic.

  • The Bangor Daily News: The paper was covering cases of Somali services taxpayer fraud and claiming it was all original reporting. The Maine Wire has been investigating that very issue since March.

WINNER 

Jonathan Karl — ABC News  

Jon kicked off a media firestorm when he “broke” the story of Qatar providing President Trump with a new airliner to become Air Force One. While the press became enraged over possible influence peddling, they praised Karl’s reporting. Except, The Wall Street Journal had reported on this transaction a week earlier, and they provided more disqualifying details that disrupted the narrative.

ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA (The Press Acting Up on Other Platforms)

  • Evan Hill — Washington Post: For entirely non-journalistic reasons, the reporter was posting coordinates where Iranian missiles had landed in Israel.

  • Jenny Gold — Los Angeles Times: She posted a video advising California wine-moms how they can help protect the illegals who are serving as their maids or nannies.

  • Bluesky: The vice president decided to start a Bluesky account. After a few posts concerning a SCOTUS decision on transgender youth, JD Vance was suspended after about 15 minutes.

  • Donie O’Sullivan — CNN: He interviewed Taylor Lorenz to discuss the affection shown online for Luigi Mangione, and the two were chortling over the concept of being infatuated with the murderer. 

WINNER 

Terry Moran — ABC News (formerly)  

Moran went on a tweet storm about Stephen Miller one night, and after raising eyebrows across the country, he pulled down the unhinged thread, but the damage was done. He was soon suspended, and then later entirely dismissed by the network.

PRE-WRITTEN FIELD REPORTS (Examples of a Narrative Being Established Before an Interview)

  • Peter Alexander — NBC News: During Karoline Leavitt’s first press conference, Peter challenged her on the suspension of some government spending. After wanting her to explain how the programs were affected, she asked him to clarify which programs; when he was unable to pinpoint any, she explained it would be difficult for her to answer a hypothetical.

  • Margaret Brennan — CBS News: Speaking with Rand Paul about the defunding of PBS, Maggie had to bring up the talking point about the effect this has on Sesame Street, seeming to be unaware that the show has not been a PBS property for a decade.

  • Ramishah Maruf — CNN: When Cracker Barrel relented and reverted to its original logo, this was deemed a result of an “intense right-wing backlash.” Of course, it was not just right-wingers who were displeased by the initial change.

  • George Stephanopoulos — ABC News: There was slight tension as the host debated Thanksgiving pricing with the head of Walmart. First, George had to be corrected that turkey prices were actually lower. Next, he tried to insist to the retail expert that the economy was hurting families, but was again shown to be wrong.

WINNER 

Daily Mail  

At the confirmation for Robert Kennedy Jr., one Daily Mail reporter was caught with a pre-written piece and headline ready to go, before the hearing took place.

HARDEST HITTING NEWS (When Dire Stories Have a Need to Show Select Groups Are Adversely Affected)

  • Babar Dogar — Associated Press: When DOGE cuts to programs were taking effect, we learned it could affect transgenders in Pakistan taking cooking classes.

  • Laura Barron-Lopez — PBS: With cuts coming to the Department of Education, we got the tired trope that this will impact the poor and black communities the most.

  • Dorany Pineda — Associated Press: Cuts to DEI programs have led to inner city communities not having trees planted that are sorely needed. 

  • Katherine Maher — NPR: After making the lengthy argument that people in rural communities are most affected by the loss of NPR, now it is POC communities and Native Americans suffering even more. So those groups in rural areas will be suffering the most!

WINNER 

Shafiq Najib — ABC News  

When looking at the devastation of the California wildfires, it seems difficult to see so many people losing everything yet managing to rank certain groups as losing more, somehow. But this is why we are not working at a major network, as we learn that in the Los Angeles area, transgender and non-binary residents were the hardest hit.

GILDED REFRAME (When the Reporting Makes a Shift From the Original Narratives)

  • David Goldman — CNN: It was an uncomfortable reality that egg prices refused to stay high for the media “experts.” As the cost plummeted, the recalibration became that Trump was lying then, but now he seems accurate.

  • Eli Stokols — Politico: As the release of the Russian collusion files was facing the press, the people who were positively obsessed with the subject during Trump’s first term now wanted nothing to do with disqualifying documents — they began demanding the Epstein files instead.

  • David Klepper — Associated Press: The AP had to sheepishly adjust its piece claiming Tulsi Gabbard said Trump and Vlad Putin were good friends. She had been referring to another world leader.

  • Scott Simon — NPR: As the defunding of public broadcasting took effect, Simon boasted they were still going strong and serving the public – which defied the previous years of promises that defunding would cause irreparable harm.

WINNER 

Alison Withers, Stine Jacobsen — Reuters  

After generations of global warming threats, promises of record high temperatures, and claims the planet has a fever, we now get this revision; we may be on the brink of an ice age.

DNC PR FIRM (Serving As the Promotional Arm of the Democratic Party)

  • Jake Tapper — CNN: In an interview with George Clooney, ahead of his network showing a live performance of his Broadway show, Jake and the actor discussed the past election, and how the Democrats can recover in 2028 in an unbiased, nonpartisan discussion.

  • Adam Wren — Politico: After years of declaring the Stars & Stripes to be problematic, the struggling Democrats were said to be “reclaiming the flag.”

  • Dana Bash — CNN: The hostess did what she could to launch a Bernie Sanders campaign, going so far as to tell the Jewish politician he was on a level with the Pope.

  • CNN: In an interview with Nancy Pelosi, she was allowed to say any unhinged thing about President Trump, calling him the worst thing on the planet, and received no pushback when she claimed that the president had abolished the House of Representatives.

WINNER  

Molly Jong-Fast — Vanity Fair  

On “Morning Joe,” the panel discussed Molly’s article about the struggle of Democratic female candidates, including Abigail Spanberger running in Virginia. The default whining about sexism meant they were ignorant of the fact that Spanberger was running against another female.