Leavitt Exposes Bias of Omission and Manufactured White House Sourcing
Karoline Leavitt has detailed the precise method certain reporters use to construct negative stories about President Trump and the White House, identifying a pattern that relies on distant or nonexistent sources while networks ignore positive developments and on-the-record corrections from officials who were actually present.
Leavitt explained that the process begins when a journalist decides on a narrative before gathering facts. The preferred storyline typically centers on internal conflict or palace intrigue rather than policy substance. Once the angle is chosen, the reporter searches for individuals willing to confirm it, even if those sources hold no meaningful access to the events in question.
Karoline Leavitt systematically breaks down how fake news actually gets manufactured.
A reporter invents the hit, finds someone who wasn’t even there, calls another person who wasn’t there either to say “yeah that sounds right,” then runs it on the front page and literally…
— JJ🕊️ (@jesseyjay94) September 23, 2026
In many cases, the person quoted as “a source close to President Trump” may have volunteered on the campaign for a single day and currently holds no White House role. That individual was never in the room for the conversations or decisions the story claims to describe. The reporter then contacts a second person with similarly weak ties, who responds that the claim “probably sounds right.” With those two data points, the story advances to publication.
Leavitt noted that even when White House officials issue aggressive, on-the-record denials from firsthand witnesses, outlets proceed with the original framing. The manufactured account appears on the front page the following day, and subsequent stories sometimes cite the earlier unsourced piece as supporting evidence for new claims built on the same thin foundation.
She estimated that roughly 90 percent of her time in her prior press role involved responding to such accounts, a workload that stretched from early morning until midnight each day. The outlets involved, she said, view themselves as arbiters of truth and believe they serve the public interest, yet the sourcing practices reveal consistent slant that favors damaging angles over accuracy.
The second element Leavitt identified is what she called the most dangerous form of distortion: the bias of omission. Major networks and publications routinely decline to cover executive orders, speeches, and other presidential actions that do not fit an adversarial narrative. Entire days of official activity disappear from the airwaves, leaving audiences without a complete record of what the President is doing.
Leavitt recalled watching cable news coverage around the clock to anticipate and prepare responses. She observed that when President Trump signed significant executive orders or delivered substantive remarks, certain networks would simply fail to mention the events. When she contacted network leadership to ask why the President’s public addresses were not carried live, the common reply was that other matters took priority and that editorial judgment favored different coverage.
She argued that viewers deserve to see the full range of presidential activity and should be allowed to form their own opinions rather than have the material filtered in advance by producers who have already decided it does not warrant airtime. The combination of selective sourcing and deliberate omission produces a distorted picture that persists across news cycles, with each new manufactured claim building on earlier ones that were never properly sourced in the first place.
The pattern Leavitt described aligns with longstanding conservative criticism of mainstream press coverage, which often emphasizes conflict and controversy while downplaying policy achievements and routine governance. Her account provides a behind-the-scenes view of how that imbalance is constructed daily through editorial choices that prioritize narrative over verification and omission over completeness.
As press officials continue to navigate hostile briefing-room dynamics, the structural problems Leavitt outlined remain unaddressed. Outlets continue to rely on distant sources with minimal access, continue to ignore on-the-record corrections from officials with direct knowledge, and continue to decline coverage of presidential actions that do not support a negative frame. The republic’s press corps was designed to inform the public, not to act as gatekeepers who decide in advance which facts the audience is permitted to see.