Ken Dilanian's Pattern of Faulty, Partisan Reporting Disqualifies Him from Journalism
Source: Brianna Lyman. "Ken Dilanian Shouldn't Be Allowed Within 500 Feet Of A Newsroom." October 16, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author says Ken Dilanian keeps reporting shaky or false stories that make Republicans look bad, from the Russia investigation to the Hunter Biden laptop to a false claim that Kash Patel was in Russia. She argues that this many errors, all pointing the same way, can't be an accident, so he shouldn't work in journalism.
Conclusion
Ken Dilanian's record of publishing false or dubiously sourced stories that harm Republicans and help Democrats shows deliberate partisan propaganda rather than mere incompetence, so he should not be allowed to work in a newsroom.
Premises
- Dilanian reported on live television that FBI Director Kash Patel had landed in Russia, citing two sources. The claim was false, and he retracted it less than three hours later without revealing his sources.
- In 2017 Dilanian's reporting on the Trump Jr. meeting (the 'donations' notes) required a correction that, in the author's view, nullified the thrust of the story, and his reporting on Senators Burr and Warner corroborating the Steele dossier was contradicted by the senators' own statements.
- In 2020 Dilanian published an 'exclusive' suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop was linked to a foreign intelligence operation. The laptop was later authenticated, and the false Russian-disinformation framing helped suppress the story before the election.
- Dilanian speculated during the Mar-a-Lago raid about highly sensitive materials (CIA sources, spy satellite imagery) that were never reported to have been recovered.
- The Intercept reported that Dilanian, while at the LA Times, submitted drafts to CIA press handlers and promised positive coverage, and that this sometimes changed published stories.
- A single error could be negligence, but a repeated pattern of errors that consistently damage Republicans and benefit Democrats suggests intent rather than incompetence.
Assumptions
- The pattern of errors is consistently one-directional and is not explained by ordinary error rates, source failures, or being fed bad information.
- The author's characterizations (e.g., that the dossier stories were wrong, that the Mar-a-Lago speculation was baseless) are accurate and fully attributable to Dilanian.
- A one-directional pattern of errors is best explained by partisan intent rather than reliance on official sources who were themselves mistaken or misleading.
- Dilanian's past and present errors, plus the CIA-coordination report, are sufficient grounds to bar him from newsrooms, and the standard applied to him would be applied equally to journalists with opposite biases.
- The lack of public disciplinary action by MS NOW signals tolerance of, or complicity in, partisan misreporting.