Hello, Danger Corps! It’s Monday, September 21, 2026, and apparently one of America’s hottest political accessories is no longer the red hat. It’s the microphone, specifically deciding who gets one.
Over the weekend, reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied access to the White House after Donald Trump announced that the three organizations were banned because of coverage he characterized them yet again as “fake news.” Reporters for the organizations said their credentials were deactivated, or confiscated, when they attempted to enter. The White House Correspondents’ Association and press freedom organizations have objected, arguing that excluding news organizations because of their reporting raises serious First Amendment concerns.
And here is where Project 2025 becomes considerably less theoretical. Project 2025 says there is no legal entitlement to permanent media space on the White House campus, and recommends that a future administration reconsider the balance between media demands and White House space. It also suggests examining the administration’s relationship with the White House Correspondents’ Association and considering whether a different coordinating organization might be preferable.
That does not mean Project 2025 contains a sentence saying, “Kick CNN, MS NOW and Politico out.” But restructuring the traditional relationship between the White House and the press was explicitly part of the blueprint.
At almost the exact same time, another argument over speech was unfolding somewhere considerably louder than the White House briefing room: Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour.
Macklemore was removed from the remaining U.S. dates of Sheeran’s tour after several venues objected to his pro-Palestinian remarks. Macklemore said venues threatened to cancel shows if he remained on the lineup. He has defended his comments as criticism of the Israeli government and advocacy for Palestinians, rather than criticism of Jewish people. Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft, meanwhile, said the decision was related to what he described as a history of antisemitic rhetoric.
Then Ed Sheeran responded. Sheeran said the decision to remove Macklemore was made through the promoter and venues, and that he had tried to mediate the dispute. At his Philadelphia concert Saturday, Sheeran described the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic and unjustifiable,” while also condemning the October 7 attacks in Israel. He said his concerts were intended to be places of love, hope and unity, but acknowledged that he had been pulled into a much larger debate about politics and freedom of expression.
Which created a strange outcome.
Macklemore essentially said: I am going to keep talking about Palestinian suffering. Sheeran essentially said: I may not have planned on making my concert a political forum, but I am not going to pretend the suffering is not happening either.
Put the two stories here beside each other and the cultural contrast is hard to miss.
On one stage, people were arguing about whether there should be more room to talk openly about something controversial. At the White House, the argument was over whether journalists whose coverage angered the president should still get into the room.
America has apparently entered the phase of the information age where we are no longer merely debating what people are saying. We are debating who gets through the door before they say it.
And that makes figuring out what is actually true a little more important.
The good news is that fact-checking does not require a journalism degree, six monitors and a corkboard connected by red string.
When you see a political claim, start by asking a very boring question: Where did this come from? If somebody says the president signed an executive order, find the executive order. If Congress supposedly passed a bill, look for the bill and the vote. If someone posts an explosive quote, search for the full interview, speech or transcript. Fifteen seconds of video can tell you what somebody said for fifteen seconds. It cannot magically tell you what happened during the other forty-five minutes.
Pay attention to the verbs, too. “Proposed,” “announced,” “alleged,” “ordered,” “ruled” and “proved” are very different words. The internet occasionally takes something somebody suggested and has it halfway through Congress before lunch.
Nobody needs to find one magical reporter, television network or website that is correct about everything. A healthier standard is finding reporting that shows where the information came from, links to evidence when possible, distinguishes reporting from opinion and corrects mistakes when they happen.
Because whether the microphone is sitting on a concert stage or inside the White House, the principle underneath all of this is pretty simple: People need enough information to hear the arguments, check the evidence and make up their own minds. Nobody gets to outsource that part of democracy.
While everybody else fights over who gets the microphone, we thought you could use a laugh!! 😂
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