Category Archives: News Media

Material Reality Versus Propaganda ‘Reality’

Posted on July 9, 2025 by mikethemadbiologist

The relative importance of material reality versus propaganda, as Brian Beutler notes in this bit about immigration, is something professional Democrats need to wrap their heads around (boldface mine): I think it’s definitely fair to say Biden and Democrats underestimated … Continue reading →

Posted in Democrats, News Media | 3 Comments

ABC News Suspends Terry Moran For Saying What Most Political Reporters Know

Posted on June 9, 2025 by mikethemadbiologist

Even if they don’t tell us what they know. Over the weekend, ABCNews reporter Terry Moran was suspended for writing the following on Twitter*: What Moran posted is obvious to anyone paying attention to Miller. There has been plenty of … Continue reading →

Posted in News Media, Resistance Rebellion And Death | 1 Comment

ALL UR CONDOMS ARE BELONG TO HAMAS?

Posted on January 30, 2025 by mikethemadbiologist

Among the firehose of awfulness yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karolina Leavitt claimed, “DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.” This appears … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, News Media | 2 Comments

The Tragedy of the Washington Post

Posted on January 17, 2025 by mikethemadbiologist

Somehow, I don’t think a new motto is going to save the paper. Recently, Semafor reported: Washington Post subscribers quit the paper en masse following owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to withhold its endorsement of outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris. But … Continue reading →

Posted in News Media | 3 Comments

NBC News President Accidentally Tells on Herself–And Legacy Media

Posted on January 2, 2025 by mikethemadbiologist

Semafor asked various news people what they got wrong this year, and NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein burbled this inanity that highlights two common flaws with news reporting in 2024 (boldface mine): The enduring power of inflation on politics: Even … Continue reading →

Posted in News Media | 4 Comments

The Media Won’t Do the Work for Democrats

Posted on December 9, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

Outsourced to Josh Marshall (boldface mine): This brings me back to a more general point. Democrats need to organize their future politics around the simple reality that the establishment media is structural[ly] hostile to the Democratic Party. This doesn’t mean … Continue reading →

Posted in Democrats, News Media | 1 Comment

Rebuilding a Left-ish Media

Posted on November 29, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

When I think about the billions Democratic candidates spent this cycle, it seems ridiculous that some of that money couldn’t have been spent instead on building a better media environment*. One obvious thing that could be done would be to … Continue reading →

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Jeff Bezos Tells Us What a Second Trump Term Would Look Like

Posted on October 28, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

It appears that, last week, Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, made the decision to pull an endorsement of Vice-President Kamala Harris by the Washington Post editorial board, after he met with Donald Trump. As others have pointed out, … Continue reading →

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Confrontational Interviews Aren’t Necessarily Useful

Posted on October 9, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

Josh Marshall comments on the unwillingness of Vice President Harris to do interviews with (some of) the large news organizations (boldface mine): But there’s something a bit different in this presidential cycle. Harris has now taken questions from the inside … Continue reading →

Posted in News Media | 1 Comment

One Reason Why U.S. Political Journalism Is Failing at Being the First Draft of History

Posted on October 7, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

Rick Perlstein, in an interesting piece about undecided voters, notes the following about political journalism (boldface mine): The first is that mainstream journalism’s rigid genre conventions—granting equal weight to “both sides,” passing on what both say without “editorializing” as to … Continue reading →

Posted in News Media | Comments Off on One Reason Why U.S. Political Journalism Is Failing at Being the First Draft of History