Breakdown of Никакие СМИ не писали об этом.
не
not
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
писать
to write
о
about (о, об, обо)
Questions & Answers about Никакие СМИ не писали об этом.
Why do the modifiers and verbs agree in the plural (никакие, писали) if СМИ is an acronym?
СМИ stands for средства массовой информации (means of mass information). With an indeclinable acronym, Russian assigns its grammatical gender and number based on the main word in the full phrase. Here, the main word is средства, the plural of the neuter noun средство. Because the headword is plural, the acronym triggers plural agreement in никакие and писали.
Since СМИ ends in И, does that automatically make it plural?
No, that is just a coincidence! The И comes from the first letter of информации. As an initialism, СМИ is completely indeclinable and never changes form. If you were talking about a single media outlet (one средство), the abbreviation would still be СМИ, but the surrounding verbs and adjectives would take neuter singular endings instead. In everyday speech, however, it is almost exclusively used in the plural.
Is the double negative in Никакие ... не required here?
Yes, Russian requires a strict double negative. Whenever you use a negative pronoun like никакие (no or not any), you must also place the negative particle не directly before the verb.
Why use об instead of the standard preposition о for "about"?