Philly Plain Dealer

Last night the White House sent out nine emails from 5:06pm to 6:30pm about a varying degree of topics. To pull back the journalism curtain, one of the main ways that journalism is done (especially at the corporate level) is through the sharing of press releases. Throughout my career I have sourced a few stories from press releases but I often am hesitant to cover stories that I “discover” this way, because press releases come with the narrative of the sender baked into it. 

Meaning last night the White House sent out nine distinct press releases attempting to get members of the media to speak about the following things:

1. “Sanctuary” Policies Put Accused Killer Back on the Streets
2. Updating Permitting Technology for the 21st Century
3. RESTORING COMMON SENSE TO FEDERAL OFFICE SPACE MANAGEMENT
4. LOWERING DRUG PRICES BY ONCE AGAIN PUTTING AMERICANS FIRST
5. ENSURING NATIONAL SECURITY AND ECONOMIC RESILIENCE THROUGH SECTION 232 ACTIONS ON PROCESSED CRITICAL MINERALS AND DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS
6. ENSURING COMMERCIAL, COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS IN FEDERAL CONTRACTS
7. RESTORING COMMON SENSE TO FEDERAL PROCUREMENT 
8. Preventing Illegal Aliens from Obtaining Social Security Act Benefits
9. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Lower Prescription Drug Prices

An interesting factoid about these press releases is that they are written in different styles, formats, and fonts. 

Emails about executive orders were typed in a thin, very official looking font oftentimes putting words and subject lines in capital letters like “RESTORING COMMON SENSE TO FEDERAL PROCUREMENT” which announced the roll back of regulations on the federal government’s purchases. However the formal press releases like ““Sanctuary” Policies Put Accused Killer Back on the Streets” is written in a more common newsletter style akin to something that would be made in MailChimp.

Throughout Vladimir Putin’s time as the leader of Russia he became famous for unleashing a “firehose of falsehood” across the world to cause widespread misinformation about a variety of topics. According to the RAND, the four characteristics of perpetuating a firehose of falsehood are: 

1. High-volume and multichannel
2. Rapid, continuous, and repetitive
3. Lacks commitment to objective reality
4. Lacks commitment to consistency.

I’ve been on Donald Trump’s email list since he was kicked off of Twitter in 2021, because I’m a journalist and he was the former President at the time. Since then I’ve been bombarded with emails from his camp, but in 2025 those emails went away and “White House” emails began arriving. On April 9th I was sent 16 emails from press@mail.whitehouse.gov, on 8 on April 2nd, and more than 104 since April began sixteen days ago. 

The contents of the emails appear important because the words “White House” are stamped across the letterhead, yet many of them are petty grievances about Donald Trump’s perceived foes.

If I were to have taken each of these emails seriously, I would have had to write 104 articles in the last sixteen days, high volume. The nine emails I received yesterday came in a one hour and 24 minute time period, multiple of which were about the same subject matter, rapid, continuous, and repetitive. Look no further than Trump’s executive order “MAINTAINING ACCEPTABLE WATER PRESSURE IN SHOWERHEADS” which arrived in my inbox April 9th which cites the “Obama-Biden war on showers” as an example of lacking consistency to objective reality. The ‘showerhead email’ came less than 24 hours after the email announcing an increase in tariffs imposed on China, a lack of commitment to consistency.

The way in which the official White House communication team is utilizing its press releases and correspondence with the press meets all of the markers of firehosing. They are intentionally releasing tons of information, some true, some false, some bias, and some factual in an attempt to obfuscate the narrative around what they are doing.