Category Archives: News Media

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 →

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Will the NY Times Rescind Its Invite to Project 2025’s Kevin Roberts?

Posted on September 11, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

Because it should. On Sept. 5, the New York Times announced that Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation and the impetus behind Project 2025, was one of their speakers at its ‘Climate Week NYC’, which is “an annual event … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, Ethics, News Media | 1 Comment

It’s Not Horse Race Journalism, It’s Super Bowl Journalism

Posted on September 10, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

One thing about political press media criticism I don’t like is referring to it as ‘horse race coverage’ or other similar metaphors. I think that metaphor gets something very wrong and misses why we’re in the trouble we’re in. Instead, … Continue reading →

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Fact Checking as Gaslighting: The Bleach Edition

Posted on August 26, 2024 by mikethemadbiologist

Last week, in an attempt to avoid the obvious reality that Trump would be a disaster, major media outlets engaged in an orgy of supposed fact checking. This week, I’ll document some of the worst of the bunch for posterity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Fucking Morons, News Media, Resistance Rebellion And Death | 2 Comments