AXIOS: Behind the Curtain: Mad media vs. beat-up Biden.

A true Washington psychodrama will unfold today a mile from the White House, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

• A red-hot press corps — which feels ignored, used and deceived — will get its first true unfiltered crack at grilling President Biden, the most media-sheltered president of modern times. “The dogs are loose,” a Biden adviser told us.
• Biden, bitter over media coverage of his age and acuity, gets his shot at redemption — a chance to show the press and public he can think fast, handle the heat, and spar and speak improvisationally without glitching.

Why it matters: The stakes are even higher than during the first presidential debate. If Biden looks weak and wobbly, his Democratic critics will pounce and crank up resignation calls. If he looks strong and steady, the anti-Biden campaign could stall.

• Biden’s every word and move will be dissected, every mangled sentence scrutinized, every stiff move or mind freeze discussed.

The big picture: Senior Democrats are increasingly bearish about the chances Biden stays at the top of the ticket. “I think this weekend is critical,” said a former top government official. “I expect key conversations to happen at the end of the week after NATO. But the reality is setting in. The numbers are bad. The money is frozen. The path isn’t there.”

Kurt Schlichter writes: Biden Aside, the Regime Media Is Toast Too.

Yes, for the next couple of decades, every time the regime media says anything to us, our response needs to be, “What about Russiagate, Laptopgate, and Dementiagate?” To the limited extent that any Republican ever again goes on any of those regime channels or talks to any of the regime reporters, the first thing out of his mouth needs to be, “You’ve already shown yourself to be liars by pretending Joe Biden wasn’t senile until he senile all over himself on the debate stage, so I don’t expect to be treated fairly here. I expect you to continue to lie to your viewers and to me, and I’m going to point it out. Now, what are your loaded questions?”

The regime media could never endure for long pretending to be objective to get the benefits and respect an objective outlet is entitled to while simultaneously shrimping the toes of the Democrat Party. This collapse was inevitable. This humiliation was deserved. And this farce will never be forgotten.

Mark Judge, at the Washington Examiner: Recovering from the journalism crisis: Reporters need to learn to apologize.

Don’t laugh. The media once knew how to do this. The best example is the Richard Jewell story. In 1996, after Jewell, a security guard, discovered a bomb at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park and helped clear the crowd, he was declared a hero by the press.

Days later, reporter Kathy Scruggs was told by a law enforcement source that Jewell was the FBI’s foremost suspect. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran the story that made Jewell the villain. CNN reported the AJC article, and for the next 88 days, Jewell was hunted by reporters. He was one of the first victims of what would become known as “trial by media.” When his name was finally cleared, Jewell, who died in 2007, sued the New York Post, NBC News, and CNN and settled with all three.

In what today would be considered an astonishing move, CNN producer Henry Schuster actually wrote an apology to Jewell: “I made Richard Jewell famous — and ruined his life.”

Imagine a journalist in 2024 having this kind of integrity and self-reflection. Russiagate, the Covington Catholic students, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Kyle Rittenhouse, the conservatives who sounded the alarm about President Joe Biden’s health years ago and were mocked, the child who dressed up in face paint for the Kansas City Chiefs and was accused of using blackface — the list of those wronged by the press is long. Yet reporters now seem sociopathic, incapable of remorse or human feeling. They won’t ever simply apologize.

Where would they start?

UPDATE: Scoop: Biden poised to face “deluge” of fresh calls to drop out.