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A Media Shallow Dive on Kash Patel 'Desecrating' Snorkeling Trip; Press Headaches Still With Biden's Mind

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  May 18, 2026
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Matching Media Memorandum – VARIOUS OUTLETS

  • This is taking a shallow dive on a baseless accusation and becoming disproven in the process.

There was a flood of grousing on social media this weekend about FBI Director Kash Patel allegedly desecrating a historic landmark. This was fed by a series of hysterical press reports full of accusations and also provided the disqualifying details, amid their flood of hysterical outrage.

Patel was discovered to have taken a snorkeling trip around the Pearl Harbor historical site, where the U.S.S. Arizona rests at the bottom of the harbor. This is all sold as Patel acting unacceptably, until you find the buried details.

He visited on a VIP trip, where he was invited by the acting admiral in the region, and was escorted on the dive by Navy SEALs. And while most of the outlets managed to find people to give their personal versions of outrage at this alleged desecration, they had to admit that these types of excursions for notable military and/or political figures have taken place since at least the Obama administration.

Pathological Media Amnesia – MS NOW

  • You know, researching his past comments is offensive to his current claims.

On Morning Joe, Jonathan Lemire was a bit salty over the impression that President Trump is not facing the same level of criticism over his age issues that Joe Biden had faced. Hearing this from a member of the press is beyond tolerable.

For one, where has Jon been?! Barely a day goes by that Trump is not badgered in the media over his alleged doddering, nodding off in meetings, his bruising on his hands, and calls for the 25th Amendment to be enacted. But hearing this from of all people, Lemire is what is toughest to swallow.

Here he is previously on the same show, as he is completely discounting the criticisms of Biden’s condition, unlike his current diligent reporting on Trump’s alleged mental slide.

News Avoidance Syndrome – AXIOS

  • The expert who wrote the definitive book is two years behind the rest of us.

Alex Thompson was the writer who teamed with Jake Tapper for “Original Sin,” the book about the (non)coverage of Joe Biden’s mental decline. On the two-year anniversary of the now-infamous calling out by Biden of Donald Trump to join him on the debate stage, Thompson makes a curious observation.

We say “curious” not because he adroitly recognized a detail, but because he noted all of the edits in the extremely brief 14-second video – a sign of the multiple takes needed for the then-president to spit out a few lines. So Thompson managed to pick up on a detail that many of us were making the very day the video had been released.

Reporting on the Mirror – NEW YORK MAGAZINE

  • Just the fact that it came to this point is baffling.

We previously covered how Ross Barkin of New York Magazine came under fire for a piece on Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire that clearly mirrored segments from a Washington Post piece published earlier that same week. Now it has been revealed that this was not an isolated incident with Barkin, and the outlet is possibly taking action, rather late.

At NPR, Bobby Allen looked into Barkin’s written history and found a pair of other instances where it would appear his overreliance on artificial intelligence (AI) to “write” his pieces has led to other examples of him having lifted portions of previously published content.

Barkin completely denies using AI and has denied plagiarizing any content, insisting he uses proper attribution and provides hyperlinks to previous work on the topic he was covering. He says this despite the fact that, in one instance, entire passages were word-for-word copies of something previously written, without quotation marks or other attribution. New York Magazine is now reviewing all of Barkin’s work.

Legalized Press-titution – WASHINGTON POST

  • The latest case of a “silenced” figure who will not shut up.

At WaPo, its media correspondent Scott Nover sat with disgraced journalist Georgia Fort to speak about her past few months. She was among the crowd with Don Lemon and the BLM activists who stormed a church in Minneapolis this past January.

We said he spoke with her, correct? Good. Because Nover – after sane-washing her actions that day as “covering protests” – goes on to have her claim that since that fateful Sunday, she is being silenced. This is a curious detail to sell, as she is given a profile in a national news outlet, coming soon after she was speaking at Howard University. This all follows months of Ms. Fort being profiled, having her court case fully covered, and additional follow-up reports where she was given a platform for her defense and her views.

But, she’s been silenced, you understand.

Reporting on the Mirror – CBS NEWS

  • We hope he manages to land on his feet somewhere.

Last night was Anderson Cooper’s final appearance on 60 Minutes, after a 20-year stint with the program. In his sendoff, there was a thinly veiled commentary on the current upheaval at the network news division, as well as the scrapes between Bari Weiss and the staff of this news show:

“Things can always evolve and change, and I think that’s awesome, and things should evolve and change, but I hope the core of what ’60 Minutes’ is always remains. I think the independence of ’60 Minutes’ has been critical. I think the trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of ’60 Minutes.’ When you see a ’60 Minutes’ story, and you’re like, ‘That was a really good story.’ It was a good story because it requires time, it requires patience, it requires money. I hope that’s known and honored and valued and continues.”

If interested, in the post-broadcast entry 60 Minutes Overtime, they gave a career retrospective of Cooper’s work over the decades.