Right-wing media’s dystopian Portland coverage feeds into Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard
On September 27, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he was “directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland” and was “also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
Trump has additionally sent troops or surged Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — or threatened to do so — into several other cities led by Democratic mayors, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Chicago, Baltimore, and New York City, much to the delight of right-wing media. The deployment to Portland appears to be a fulfillment of a threat Trump made on September 5, during remarks where he said television coverage of the city brought it to his attention.
Conservative pundits have long fueled narratives around crime and disorder in Portland, especially during the George Floyd uprisings in the summer of 2020. One of the many right-wing media voices who called for Trump to use troops and federal forces on protesters in Portland that summer is now-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was a Fox & Friends Weekend co-host at the time.
The latest push by right-wing media to portray Portland as a city in “constant chaos” appears to have begun on September 2, when Fox News picked up video coverage of an anti-ICE protest captured by a reporter from the conservative website The Post Millennial.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors