Top 5 Most Underreported Stories of 2025
Dan Hart – WashingtonStand.com
The Washington Stand published a number of important stories that were largely ignored by the mainstream media in 2025. Here are the top five.
1. The Apparent Decline in Trans-Identifying Youth
As reported by TWS’s Joshua Arnold in October, two studies were released that month showing that a decreasing number of young adults are identifying as transgender. One study showed that between 2023 and 2025, trans identification among students at colleges and elite prep schools declined by half or more. A second study conducted by San Diego State University professor Jean Twenge revealed that “the percentage of U.S. 18- to 22-year-olds identifying as transgender declined from just over 6% in 2022 to just over 3% in 2024” and that “the percentage identifying as nonbinary declined from 5% in 2023 to 2% in 2024.” As noted by Arnold, “While environmental factors like better mental health play a role, so do societal factors, including widespread backlash against the overreach of transgender ideologues and effective leaders showing young people a better way to live.”
2. Chick-fil-A Doubles Down, Keeps DEI on the Menu
In December, TWS’s Suzanne Bowdey reported on how corporate officials at the once Christian-identifying Chick-fil-A restaurant franchise announced that they were fully embracing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies after concerned customers queried the company about why a restaurant in Utah publicly celebrated the marriage of a same-sex couple on their Facebook page. The franchise’s doubling down on DEI comes as dozens of other corporations have dialed back their public support for the controversial policies amid growing consumer outrage and the rescinding of federal DEI policies by the Trump administration.
3. Massive Lobbying Dollars Aid Health Care Insurers in Protecting Their Obamacare Jackpot
In October, TWS’s Mark Tapscott reported that health care insurance lobbyists spent over $439 million “lobbying Congress, executive branch departments, and regulatory agencies,” with a “decisive majority of those donations go[ing] to Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).” As Tapscott noted, a primary reason for the flurry of lobbying activity by health insurers is that billions of dollars have been pouring into the companies’ coffers as a result of the extended Obamacare subsidies that began in 2021 during the COVID pandemic under the Biden administration, and the insurers want Congress to make these subsidies permanent to keep the money flowing. So far, Republicans in Congress have narrowly avoided extending the subsidies, which were originally intended for low-income families but were extended to high-income families under Biden. Extending the subsidies for another decade is projected to cost taxpayers $410 billion.
4. Experts Warn Betting Company with Trump Family Ties Could Pose ‘Economic National Security Risk’
In June, TWS’s S.A. McCarthy reported on a concerning nominee that the Trump administration put forward to potentially serve as commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Brian Quintenz serves as a board member of Kalshi, Inc., which launched a betting platform in 2021 that allows users to bet on virtually anything at any time. But experts and lawmakers swiftly raised concerns that Quintenz would potentially serve on the commission that is supposed to regulate the betting company that he serves on the board for, creating a conflict of interest that experts estimate could financially benefit Kalshi by billions of dollars. In addition, the Trump administration put forward the nomination just a month after Donald Trump Jr. was announced as an advisor to Kalshi. Experts further warned that Kalshi’s unlimited betting platform could destabilize America’s financial and economic systems, creating a national security issue.
In September, the Trump administration withdrew Quintenz’s nomination.
5. Iowa Runner Keeley Knobloch’s Stand against Transgender Competition
In August, TWS’s Sarah Holliday reported on a sub-elite distance runner from Iowa named Keeley Knobloch, who ran for a local club called Running Wild Elite in the Quad City area. After Knobloch discovered that a biological male who identified as transgender was being allowed to compete in the women’s division of the Bix 7 road race, she withdrew from her team so that she would not have to compete directly against the male. The decision cost her a prime starting spot, a chance to improve her women’s division ranking, a chance to win the prestigious Eloise Caldwell award for top Quad City woman, a cold response from her club, and rejection from her teammates. Despite the rejection, Knobloch chose to run the race, not for medals, but for principle, her Catholic faith, and for biological truth.
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James D. Agresti -IssuesInsights.com
For the purpose of media accountability, Just Facts has summarized 40 misleading claims spread by journalists, commentators, and so-called fact checkers during 2025.
Each example quotes a specific media outlet, but the vast bulk of these falsehoods and half-truths were spread by multiple news sources, and some were propagated by dozens.
1: Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss
An Associated Press article published by PBS in December claimed that “climate change” is making “biodiversity loss worse.”
In fact, a prestigious scholarly journal published a study in October that found “extinctions related to climate change have not significantly increased over the last approximately 200 years.” Just Facts documented similar facts more than a decade ago.
2: Food Stamps & Inflation
PolitiFact claimed that a Republican bill to reform Food Stamps “would bar increases to monthly SNAP benefits” for “inflation” and “in effect become cuts.”
In fact, the Republican bill barred presidents from increasing SNAP benefits above and beyond the rate of food inflation, like Joe Biden did for the first time in the history of the program.
As detailed by the Government Accountability Office, the Biden administration raised SNAP benefits by “21 percent compared to the previous inflation-adjusted” amounts without adequate “economic analysis,” “disclosure,” or “documentation.”
1: Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss
An Associated Press article published by PBS in December claimed that “climate change” is making “biodiversity loss worse.”
In fact, a prestigious scholarly journal published a study in October that found “extinctions related to climate change have not significantly increased over the last approximately 200 years.” Just Facts documented similar facts more than a decade ago.
2: Food Stamps & Inflation
PolitiFact claimed that a Republican bill to reform Food Stamps “would bar increases to monthly SNAP benefits” for “inflation” and “in effect become cuts.”
In fact, the Republican bill barred presidents from increasing SNAP benefits above and beyond the rate of food inflation, like Joe Biden did for the first time in the history of the program.
As detailed by the Government Accountability Office, the Biden administration raised SNAP benefits by “21 percent compared to the previous inflation-adjusted” amounts without adequate “economic analysis,” “disclosure,” or “documentation.”
3: Obamacare for Illegal Immigrants
CNN’s chief “fact checker,” Tom Foreman, claimed that Democrats didn’t demand Obamacare benefits for illegal immigrants in exchange for ending the government shutdown. The alleged evidence for this, he said, is that “the law itself says” that the “only people who could get” these benefits are “‘lawfully present in the United States’.”
In fact, the Democrat bill to reopen the government would have given about $91.4 billion of Obamacare benefits to illegal immigrants and other non-citizens over the next 10 years and multiples of that thereafter.
Like virtually every other major media outlet, CNN denied that reality by misportraying aliens who have been granted a temporary reprieve from deportation as legal immigrants. This included DACA recipients and millions of people that Biden illegally paroled into the country. The Biden administration even admitted that “DACA is not a form of lawful status” before making these illegal immigrants eligible for Obamacare benefits.
4: Violent Crime in Washington, D.C.
Reporting on President Trump’s takeover of the District of Columbia police force, ABC News claimed:
The president declaring an emergency, saying crime in D.C. is spiraling out of control, even though the district’s official figures showing violent crime recently hitting a 30-year low, down 26 percent since last year, numbers the president has baselessly called phony.
In fact, the “district’s official figures” aren’t a record of all violent crimes but exclude crimes not reported by the public to the police and crimes not reported by the police to the federal government. Thus, the FBI explicitly warns against “making any direct comparison” of such crime data over time because:
changes in police procedures, shifting attitudes toward crime and police, and other societal changes can affect the extent to which people report and law enforcement agencies record crime.
Murder is the best-measured and most violent crime, and FBI data show that the 2024 murder rate in D.C. was 83% higher than in 2012 and five times the average for all metropolitan areas in the nation.
5: Enhanced Obamacare Subsidies
ABC’s David Muir repeatedly claimed that health insurance premiums were going to “skyrocket” unless Republicans went along with Democrats’ plans to renew the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
In fact, Obamacare recipients paid an average of $74 per month for health insurance during 2025, and when the enhanced subsidies expire in 2026, they will pay just $159. The reason this figure is so low is because the original Obamacare subsidies will remain. Under these, taxpayers bear 83% of the premium costs, while Obamacare recipients pay an average of just 17%.
The much larger premium payments showcased by media outlets are outliers who comprise less than 0.1% of the U.S. population, are nearly old enough to receive Medicare, and have incomes that exceed four times the federal poverty level.
6: Motive of the Minneapolis Child Killer
The New York Times claimed that the “motive” of the transgender shooter who murdered two children at a Catholic school in Minneapolis “is a mystery.”
In fact, the shooter wrote in his journal and on his gun messages that accord with the grievances and agendas of leftists, such as:
- “Kill Donald Trump”
- “Free Palestine”
- “Defend equality” (with a trans pride flag)
7: Motive of Charlie Kirk’s Assassin
CNN’s Kaitlin Collins claimed that “law enforcement hasn’t laid out a direct motive” for the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
In fact, the official charging document recorded that Tyler James Robinson “intentionally selected Charlie Kirk because” of his “belief or perception regarding Charlie Kirk’s political expression.”
Moreover, the charging document detailed the following facts which specify the precise nature of Robinson’s motive:
“Robinson’s mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”
“Police interviewed Robinson’s roommate, a biological male who was involved in a romantic relationship with Robinson.”
Robinson texted the roommate that he killed Kirk, a leading conservative, because, “I had enough of his hatred.”
“Each round in the rifle contained an etched inscription,” one of which says, “Hey Fascist! Catch!”
8: Shunning Democratic Values
The New York Times claimed that JD Vance “shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference” by telling them to stop shunning “far-right parties.”
In fact, Vance told these European leaders to stop shunning “our shared democratic values” and learn from the “living memory of many of you in this room” that the Europeans who “censored dissidents,” “closed churches,” and “cancelled elections” were “not” the “good guys.” This refers to the Nazis and Soviets who killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century.
9: Nazis & Free Speech
Margaret Brennan of CBS News claimed that “free speech was weaponized” in Nazi Germany to “conduct a genocide.”
In fact, free speech was censored in Nazi Germany to conduct a genocide. In the words of Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, “National Socialism” (a.k.a Nazism) outlawed free speech to place itself “beyond the possibilities of criticism.”
To drive that point home, Goebbels added that “the right to criticize” can “be granted only to the wiser people over the more stupid ones and never the other way around.”
10: Global Warming
The New York Times claimed that the “burning of fossil fuels is dangerously heating the planet.”