At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, Axios reporter Alex Thompson delivered a blunt critique of the press corps, admitting that journalists—including himself—failed to adequately report on former President Joe Biden’s deteriorating health.
Thompson, who was awarded the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage, used his acceptance speech to reflect on how the media mishandled one of the biggest political stories of the last year: Biden’s sharp decline and his eventual decision to exit the 2024 race.
“Being truth-tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves,” Thompson told the room packed with reporters from the nation’s top outlets. “We, myself included, missed a lot of this story.”
He continued, “President Biden’s decline—and the efforts by those around him to cover it up—are reminders that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception.”
Biden’s Collapse in Public View
Biden’s now-infamous debate performance against President Donald Trump was a breaking point, with Americans witnessing firsthand his frailty, confused responses, and weakened voice. Public scrutiny of Biden’s fitness for office exploded, and not long after, he announced he would end his reelection bid.
In the aftermath, many journalists admitted they had overlooked warning signs or failed to press harder on questions about the president’s health.
A Crisis of Trust
Thompson warned that the media’s failure had done real damage to the public’s already-eroding trust in journalism.
“Some people trust us less because of it,” he said. “We bear responsibility for the fact that faith in the media is at historic lows. Acknowledging errors builds trust; being defensive about them only makes it worse.”
He ended his speech with a sobering conclusion: “We should have done better.”
Recent Gallup polling from October 2024 showed that just 31% of Americans had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence that the media reports news accurately—a reflection of growing disillusionment.
Broader Media Accountability
Thompson’s comments come amid larger debates about credibility within the news industry. Earlier this year, NPR CEO Katherine Maher also admitted before Congress that her organization “made a mistake” by downplaying the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 election.
“I do want to say that NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner,” Maher said.