CNS Maryland, Printing Hate: How White-Owned Newspapers Incited Racial Terror in America. CNS Maryland, Oct 2021.  A series of articles on how white supremacist newspapers fueled lynchings, racial fears and misunderstandings, etc.

Richard Wolff, Economic Update: How US Capitalism Uses Nationalism. Democracy At Work, May 3, 2021.  Wolff gives a helpful history since the late 1800s.

Saagar Enjeti, How Should We Really Think About Rush Limbaugh’s Legacy? Rising | The Hill, Feb 22, 2021.  Explains the development of right-wing media and its political impact.  

Michael B. Kelley, Study: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All . Business Insider, May 22, 2012.  Examines fear-based motivations and public opinion shaping.

Ashley Lutz, These 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America . Business Insider, Jun 14, 2012.  GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS explore the ramifications of for-profit corporations shaping public opinion, for example, on climate change, which they have a strong financial interest to deny or downplay.

Jane Mayer, The Making of the Fox News White House. The New Yorker, Mar 4, 2019.  Documents the history of the radicalization of Rupert Murdoch’s views.

Lyz Lenz, The Mystery of Tucker Carlson. Columbia Journalism Review, Sep 5, 2018  Documents Tucker Carlson’s shift into more radical views on immigration; Carlson’s show on Fox is the most watched show on television.

Rick Steves, Hitler Takes Power. Rick Steves Classroom Europe, 2017. In a short 5 minute video, tour guide and pop historian Rick Steves explains how Hitler used simple language and emotionality to construct a fascist Nazi government.

Michael Edison Hayden, The Fascist Underpinnings of Pro-Trump Media: An Interview With Author Jason Stanley. SPLC, Aug 27, 2020.  “What we find now is a culture war 24/7, which is highly reminiscent of really the 1930s where “communism,” “cultural Marxism” … utter hysteria about leftists, becomes married to classic antisemitic conspiracy theories about terrible crimes to children, blood libel (as the philosopher David Livingstone Smith recently made clear to me), and in this case pedophilia.”

Umberto Eco, Ur-Fascism. The New York Review of Books, Jun 22, 1995.  “14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.” See also this page on the Church and Language.

Ryan Arey, The Mandarin Was Right (And was Responsible for Tony's Snap!) | Iron Man 3 + Shang-Chi Explained. Screen Crush, Sep 7, 2021.  Iron Man 3 demonstrates how war and media propaganda are related, from the American Revolution onwards. There is a media-military-industrial complex. For an entertaining but informative take,

Ian Bremmer, Trump’s Not the Problem. He’s a Symbol of 4 Bigger Issues.. Big Think, Aug 1, 2018.  Neoliberal globalization drains work and wealth from people, making them resent immigrants for the opportunities and benefits they receive in the country; veterans return from wars feeling dejected and despondent; technology automates jobs away and drives people apart through social media. Compares populist movements to Japan, which largely rejected neoliberalism, immigration, war, and social media.

ABC News, How Murdoch’s Fox News Allowed Trump's Propaganda to Destabilise Democracy. Four Corners | ABC News, Aug 23, 2021.  A 45 minute video. Sarah Ferguson, Lauren Day, and Laura Gartry, Insiders Reveal How Fox News Became a Propaganda Outlet for Donald Trump. ABC News Australia, Aug 22, 2021.  Written version.

ABC News, Fox and the Big Lie: Trump Returns to Campaign Trail Amid ‘Stolen Election' Lawsuits. Four Corners | ABC News, Aug 30, 2021.

Dave Davies, Has Tucker Carlson Created the Most Racist Show in the History of Cable News? NPR, May 12, 2022.

Leeja Miller, How Right Wing Media Took Over America. Leeja Miller, Nov 18, 2024. Covers history and current ownership and links to conservative thinktanks.

Michael Burns, The Soviet Strategy Fueling America's Decline. Wisecrack, Mar 14, 2025. Mass lying.

David Greenberg, The Idea of “the Liberal Media” and Its Roots in the Civil Rights Movement. Journal of the Sixties, Dec 2008.  “Scholars often ask whether the mainstream news media exhibit a liberal bias, but rarely where the idea of such a bias first came from. This article traces the idea’s origins to the civil rights movement. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, white Southerners grew resentful toward national journalists who covered the movement, whom they saw as advocating desegregation. Losing the battle for public opinion, Southern spokesmen such as Alabama Governor George Wallace adopted a populistic idiom, promoting the notion that an elite, left‐leaning Northeastern media were distorting the news to fit their politics – an idea that soon, under President Nixon, became conservative dogma.”

Kim Zetter, Wikileaks Was Launched with Documents Intercepted from Tor . Wired, Jun 1, 2010.

Michael B. Kelley, Study: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All . Business Insider, May 22, 2012.

Ashley Lutz, These 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America . Business Insider, Jun 14, 2012.  and Vic Bishop, The Illusion of Choice: Ninety Percent of American Media Controlled by Six Corporations . Global Research, Aug 28, 2015.  GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS.

German Lopez, Imagine if the Media Covered Alcohol Like Other Drugs. Vox, Jun 15, 2015.

Mark Guarino, Misleading Reports of Lawlessness After Katrina Worsened Crisis, Officials Say. The Guardian, Aug 16, 2015.  “National guard coordinator and ex-governor say tales of violence and looting – which hampered rescue work and led to quasi-militia groups – were exaggerated.” See also Jacob Remes, Finding Solidarity in Disaster. The Atlantic, Sep 1, 2015.  “In banner headlines on September 2, 2005, both The New York Times and The Washington Post paired New Orleanians’ “despair and lawlessness,” suggesting that one of these states necessarily led to the other. The very next week, though, it emerged that the stories broadcast from New Orleans were, at best, exaggerations. Nobody could find the helicopter pilot who had supposedly been shot at. Violence on the ground, too, turned out to be much less common than imagined. “I kept hearing the word animal, and I didn’t see animals,” a woman named Denise Moore told the public-radio program This American Life about her time at the Superdome. Instead, she saw self-organized activities by “gangster guys” who broke into abandoned stores. Although they might have looked like looters, they were salvaging fresh clothes for those who needed them, “juice for the babies, water, beer for the older people, food, raincoats so that they could all be seen by each other.””

Susan Smarsh, Dangerous Idiots: How the Liberal Media Elites Failed Working-Class Voters . Guardian, Oct 13, 2016.

Sean Illing, Why Social Media Is Terrible for Multiethnic Democracies: Jonathan Haidt Interview . Vox, Nov 15, 2016.

Ruth Marcus, Breitbart Isn't Just a Publication. It's a Pestilence . Washington Post, Nov 23, 2016.

Matthew Sheffield, A Short History of Fake News: Conservatives Believed All Sorts of Crap Long Before Facebook . Salon, Nov 25, 2016.

Amanda Hess, The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space . NY Times, Nov 30, 2016.

George Monbiot, Frightened By Donald Trump? You Don’t Know the Half of It . Guardian, Nov 30, 2016.

Anthony DiMaggio, Post-Fact Politics: Reviewing the History of Fake News and Propaganda . Counterpunch, Dec 6, 2016.

Yascha Mounk, How to Resist Propaganda . Slate, Dec 13, 2016.

Timothy B. Lee, Fact-Checking Groups Are About to Become Facebook’s Fake News Cops. That Won't Be Easy. Vox, Dec 16, 2016.

Nora Young, How Fake News Spreads . CBC Radio, Dec 18, 2016.

Zack Beauchamp, The Key Findings from the US Intelligence Report on the Russia Hack, Decoded. Vox, Jan 6, 2017.  notes Russia Today

Rosie Gray, Breitbart Alumni Launch 'Populist-Nationalist' Group . The Atlantic, Jan 13, 2017.

Chris Zappone, Fake News: Why the West is Blind to Russia's Propaganda Today . Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 31, 2017.

Anastasia Edel, Want to Understand What Trump and Bannon Are Up To? Look to the Russian Revolution of 1917 . Quartz, Jan 31, 2017.  "control of telephone and telegraph"

Charles J. Sykes, Why Nobody Cares the President is Lying . NY Times, Feb 4, 2017.  indicting the Drudge Report and Alex Jones, from the right

William Kaufman, Climate Change Denial, Democratic-style . CounterPunch, Mar 9, 2017.  focuses on media coverage of climate change

Michael Corcoran, Media Find Room for ‘Trumpcare Too Progressive,’ but Not for Single-Payer . Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Mar 15, 2017.

David Roberts, Donald Trump and the Rise of Tribal Epistemology . Vox, Mar 22, 2017.

John Koblin and Nick Corasanti, One Nation, Under Fox: 18 Hours With a Network That Shapes America . NY Times, Mar 25, 2017.

Carole Cadwalladr, The Great British Brexit Robbery: How Our Democracy Was Hijacked . The Guardian, May 7, 2017.

The Atlantic, Church Militant: A Right-Wing Media Empire in the Making . The Atlantic, May 9, 2017.  video

Alvin Chang, We Tracked the Trump Scandals on Right-Wing News Sites. Here's How They Covered It . Vox, May 18, 2017.

Tobin Smith, Fear and Unbalanced: Confessions of a 14 Year Fox News Hitman . Medium, May 26, 2017.

John Oliver, Alex Jones . Last Week Tonight, Jul 30, 2017.

Alex Seitz-Wald and Corky Siemaszko, Seth Rich Case: Fox News Made Fake News to Protect Trump, Lawsuit Alleges . NBC News, Aug 1, 2017.

Jennifer Earl, Media’s Grim Addiction to Perseverance Porn . Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Aug 3, 2017.

Tara Isabella Burton, Understanding the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Force Behind the Latest Pro-Trump TV Newscast . Vox, Aug 5, 2017.

Dylan Matthews, A Stunning New Study Shows That Fox News is More Powerful Than We Ever Imagined . Vox, Sep 8, 2017.

Lee Fang, Islamophobic U.S. Megadonor Fuels German Far-Right Party With Viral Fake News . The Intercept, Sep 22, 2017.

Matt Gertz, Erik Wemple, Reed Richardson, David Lawler, The Fox Approach to Bad News: Deflect, Divert, Distract . Aljazeera, Nov 4, 2017.  Rupert Murdoch's news outlets protect Trump

Matt Taibbi, RIP Edward Herman, Who Co-Wrote a Book That's Now More Important Than Ever . Rolling Stone, Nov 14, 2017.  re: Manufacturing Consent, co-authored by Noam Chomsky, about American media

Francesca Tripodi, Searching for Alternative Facts: Analyzing Scriptural Inference in Conservative News Practices. Data & Society, 2018.  “This report is an ethnographic account of how two Republican groups search for truth in the contemporary news environment. Drawing from a conservative Christian worldview, these groups critically interrogate media messages in the same way they approach the Bible. This practice of  scriptural inference  bolsters their mistrust of mainstream media and supports their need to “fact check” the news.”

Jeet Heer, Trump, Fox News, and the Mainstreaming of White Nationalism . New Republic, Jan 19, 2018.

Susan B. Glasser, The Russian Bots Are Coming. This Bipartisan Duo Is On It . Politico, Feb 26, 2018.

Carole Cadwalladr, The Cambridge Analytica Files: "I Made Steve Bannon's Psychological Warfare Tool" - Meet the Data War Whistleblower . The Guardian, Mar 18, 2018.

Matthew Rosenberg, Cambridge Analytica, Trump-Tied Political Firm, Offered to Entrap Politicians . NY Times, Mar 19, 2018.  

Ken Parry, Galen on Fake News . International Network for Byzantine Philosophy, Mar 23, 2018.  a timely and entertaining quote from the classical Greek physician-philosopher

Mark Oppenheimer, Inside the Right-Wing YouTube Empire That’s Quietly Turning Millennials Into Conservatives.  Mother Jones, Mar/Apr 2018.  Oppenheimer closely examines PragerU, especially its content, funding sources, and vested interests.

Brian Resnick, We're Underestimating the Mind-Warping Potential of Fake Video . Vox, Apr 23, 2018.  

Dara Lind, President Donald Trump Finally Admits That "Fake News" Just Means News He Doesn't Like . Vox, May 9, 2018.

Alvin Chang, The Stories Fox News Covers Obsessively - and Those It Ignores - in Charts . Vox, May 30, 2018.

Dylan Matthews, The Internet Was Supposed to Save Democracy. I Asked 4 Tech Optimists What Went Wrong . Vox, Jun 8, 2018.

Alvin Chang, Scott Pruitt Is Mired in Scandals - But You Wouldn't Know It from Watching Fox News . Vox, Jun 8, 2018.

Jason Schwartz, FoxNews.com Readers Put 'Head in the Sand' on Family Reparations . Politico, Jun 19, 2018.

April Glaser, How Conservative Videos on Facebook Boosted Trump’s Message on Immigration . Slate, Jun 24, 2018.

Yuval Noah Harari, Why Technology Favors Tyranny . The Atlantic, Oct 2018.

Travis Waldron, Jessica Schulberg, and Nick Robins-Early, A Brief History Of The Wall Street Journal’s Support For Right-Wing Authoritarians . Huffington Post, Oct 11, 2018.

The Young Turks, Fox News Turns on Trump . The Young Turks, Nov 14, 2018.  over the White House's suspension of Jim Acosta; note the tweets from Trump supporters who apparently prefer Trump to the First Amendment

Freedom from Facebook (website) about the antitrust implications

Craig Timberg, Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Russian Disinformation Teams Targeted Robert S. Mueller III, Says Report Prepared for Senate . Washington Post, Dec 17, 2018.

Jason Wilson, How Conservative Media Transformed the Covington Catholic Students from Pariahs to Heroes. The Guardian, Jan 23, 2019.

Joshua Cho, New York Times' ‘Desire for Control’ Over Political Perceptions. FAIR, Mar 6, 2019.  re: poor coverage of Bernie Sanders in favor of pro-Wall Street interests

Samantha Bee, The Fox News White House. Full Frontal on TBS, Mar 6, 2019.

Charles Maynes, A Russian 'Troll Slayer' Went Undercover at a Troll Factory and Found That Hundreds of Russians Were Working as Paid Trolls in Rotating Shifts. Business Insider, Mar 18, 2019.

Cody Johnston and David Christopher Bell, Why Is Tucker Carlson. Some More News, Mar 19, 2019.  since Carlson’s show is the most watched television show in the U.S., it is important to examine; this is an entertaining, sourced critique of Carlson’s views and also a narration of how Carlson shifted to supporting more radical views on immigration, etc. Sources include Jane Mayer, The Making of the Fox News White House. New Yorker, Mar 4, 2019.  who includes the history of the radicalization of Rupert Murdoch’s views. Also Lyz Lenz, The Mystery of Tucker Carlson. Columbia Journalism Review, Sep 5, 2018.  who documents Carlson’s shift.

Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg, How Rupert Murdoch Remade the World . NY Times, Apr 3, 2019.  “Murdoch and his children have toppled governments on two continents and destabilized the most powerful democracy on earth. What do they want?”

Cody Johnston and David Christopher Bell, Candace Owens, Congress, and How They Helped Each Other Lie . Some More News, Apr 16, 2019.  on Owens, Prager U, denials of white nationalism, denials of “the Southern Strategy”

Eliza Mackintosh, Edward Kiernan, Finland is Winning the War on Fake News. What It’s Learned May Be Crucial to Western Democracy. CNN, May 2019.  

Joshua Cho, NYT Presents Social Security Cuts as ‘Solution’ to Problem of Social Security Cuts . FAIR, Jun 25, 2019.

Cody Johnston and David Christopher Bell, Perhaps Ben Shapiro Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously By Anyone About Anything. Some More News, Jun 25, 2019. . See also David Pakman, Joe Rogan Explains Systemic Racism to Ben Shapiro. David Pakman Show, Jul 23, 2020.  when Shapiro admits that historical factors matter but personal choices are the only way out. Cody Johnston, Katy Stoll, and Will Gordh, How Ben Shapiro Pretends Nothing Can Be Done About Systemic Racism . Some More News, Aug 8, 2020.  comments on Shapiro’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s show.

Troy Patterson, “The Loudest Voice” Eviscerates Roger Ailes and Fox News . The New Yorker, Jun 30, 2019.  

Dean Baker, How the Media Fools Us About Trade . Jacobin Magazine, Aug 26, 2019.

Parker Molloy, PragerU Relies on a Veneer of Respectability to Obscure Its Propagandist Mission . Media Matters, Sep 19, 2019.

John Iadarola, Trump Seeking New Safe Space . The Damage Report, Oct 8, 2019.  on Fox News and Breitbart News pushing right-wing conspiracy theories

Brian Williams, Senate Intel Report: Russia Hacked 2016 Election And They're Still At It . The 11th Hour | MSNBC, Oct 9, 2019.  a very helpful suggestion that candidates not use doctored videos, false reports about opponents, manipulated media, etc. This comes from a bipartisan Senate report affirming that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections and plan to continue

The Young Turks, Fox News Host Quits . The Young Turks, Oct 11, 2019.  re: Shepard Smith departing; TYT explains the role of Fox News in handing the 2000 Presidential election to G.W. Bush instead of Al Gore

Cody Cain, Republicans Must Lie to Survive: They Have No Other Choice . Salon, Oct 12, 2019.  “From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, the path to Republican political success is rooted in profound deception.” Evidence of why right-wing media groups play an outsized role in politics.

David Pakman, Why Shep Smith No Longer Works at Fox News. The David Pakman Show, Oct 16, 2019.  a series of clips from Shep Smith’s program which countered Trump-Fox News talking points

Philip Bump, What You Learned About the Impeachment Hearing Depended on What Channel You Watched. Washington Post, Nov 14, 2019.  and Julia Davis, In Russia, Putin’s State TV Apparatus is Busy Defending Trump. Washington Post, Nov 14, 2019.

Saagar Enjeti, Michael Bloomberg Exposes Oligarchal Control of Media . Rising | The Hill, Nov 25, 2019.

Igor Derysh, “We Made It Up”: Ex-Infowars Editor Says He Published Lies About Muslim Community to Spread Hate. Salon, Dec 6, 2019.  “A former Infowars video editor admitted that the outlet fabricated lies about a Muslim community in New York to push host Alex Jones’ threats of sharia law in the United States. Josh Owens, who spent years working for Infowars, wrote an essay for The New York Times Magazine describing how Jones' media empire made up facts to fit its narrative and how employees were subjected to Jones’ angry, violent outbursts.

Brian Tyler Cohen, Chris Wallace Issues Scathing Rebuke of Trump at Public Forum . Brian Tyler Cohen, Dec 12, 2019.  re: attacks on the free press

Susan B. Ridgely, Conservative Christianity and the Creation of Alternative News: An Analysis of Focus on the Family's Multimedia Empire . Journal of Religion and American Culture, Winter 2020.

Lee Fang, TV Pundits Praising Suleimani Assassination Neglect to Disclose Ties to Arms Industry . The Intercept, Jan 6, 2020.  and The Young Turks, Fox News Pundits With Ties To Military Contractors . The Young Turks, Jan 8, 2020.  note that right-wing media passively and actively endorsed Obama’s drone strikes in the Middle East.

Rachel Maddow, Congress Unimpressed By Trump Admin Explanation For Iran Attack . Rachel Maddow | MSNBC, Jan 9, 2020.  highlights member after member of the House and Senate - both Democratic and Republican - complaining about the Trump administration giving no specific intelligence that Suleimani’s attack was immanent. See also Alex Emmons, Trump Administration Failed to Convince Members of Congress Its Assassination of Suleimani was Justified . The Intercept, Jan 8, 2020.  The misinformation given by the Trump administration about “an immanent attack” is akin to the misinformation given by the Bush administration in 2003 about “weapons of mass destruction” which led to war in Iraq. Lawrence O’Donnell, John Kerry Fact Checks Trump's Lies About The Iran Deal. The Last Word | MSNBC, Jan 9, 2020.  Shows how Trump fed the public misinformation about Obama supposedly “funding” Iran’s war capacity by releasing financial accounts it had frozen.

Chris Cilizzia, This 1 Chart Explains How Bad Fox News is for Our Politics. CNN, Jan 27, 2020.  “Asked to name media companies in which they have trust, 65% of Republicans named Fox News. One in 3 named ABC. Not a single other news source was trusted by even 33% of self-identified Republicans in the Pew poll. That's in stark contrast to both Democrats and the population at large. More than 1 in 3 Democrats named 13 media sources they trust. For the general public, that number was 8: ABC (48% trusted), CNN (47%), NBC (47%), CBS (45%), Fox News (43%), PBS (42%), BBC (35%), The New York Times (35%) and MSNBC (34%).”

Liz Dye, Internal Fox News Memo Shows They Knowingly Broadcast Ukraine Dezinformatzya . Wonkette, Feb 7, 2020.  contains a copy of the memo

Christiane Amanpour, One of the Largest Disinformation Campaigns Ever Conducted. PBS, Feb 20, 2020.  “When McKay Coppins, a journalist for The Atlantic, created a Facebook page so he could follow pro-Trump social media accounts and communicate with online Trump supporters, he uncovered something remarkable: a campaign-coordinated effort to undermine journalists and the mainstream press on a mass scale. Coppins told Hari Sreenivasan about his findings.”

David French, The Church’s Real Political Correctness Problem . The Dispatch, Feb 23, 2020.  “The religious right has created a mirror image PC complete with cancel culture and performative anger.” French cites very important, poignant, and painful anecdotes.

Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman, Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups . NY Times, Mar 7, 2020.

Jack Holmes, Fox News Is Still Peddling Coronavirus Misinformation to Its Extremely At-Risk Viewers . Esquire, Mar 13, 2020.  and Washington Post, How Fox News Has Shifted Its Coronavirus Rhetoric. Washington Post, Mar 17, 2020.  and Brad Reed, ‘A Danger to Public Health’: Internet Stunned by Poll Showing Fox News Viewers Blowing Off Pandemic . Raw Story, Mar 18, 2020.  See also Chris Hayes, Murdochs Failed To Rein In Fox News ‘Hoax’ Narrative Amid Coronavirus: NYT . All In | MSNBC, Mar 23, 2020.  Davey Alba and Sheera Frenkel, Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right . NY Times, Mar 28, 2020.  “Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency virus measures, faces a torrent of false claims that he is mobilizing to undermine the president.” Jeremy W. Peters, Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media’s Coronavirus Distortion . NY Times, Apr 1, 2020.  “Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing commentators turned a pandemic into a battle of us vs. them — the kind of battle President Trump has waged for much of his life.”

Andrew Rossi, After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News. HBO, Mar 19, 2020.

The Young Turks, Republicans Release Anti-Fox News Ad. The Young Turks, Apr 4, 2020.  discusses The Lincoln Project ad

John Oliver, One America News Network. Last Week Tonight, Apr 6, 2020.  

Cody Johnston, Katy Stoll, and David C. Bell, That Time Everyone Tried to Defend Injecting Bleach. Some More News, May 28, 2020.  on the right-wing media ecosystem that tries to defend Trump

Krystal Ball, Fox News Caught Faking CHAZ Photos as Protest Propaganda Collapses . Rising | The Hill, Jun 15, 2020.

Natalie Moore, Study Finds More COVID-19 Cases Among Viewers Of Fox News Host Who Downplayed Pandemic . NPR, May 4, 2020.

Vivian Kane, Fox News Argues in Court That Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Have an Obligation to Tell the Truth. The Mary Sue, Jun 18, 2020.  

Ryan Grim, National Review Is Trying to Rewrite Its Own Racist History. The Intercept, Jul 5, 2020.

David Doel, Bari Weiss Resigns From New York Times With Hilarious Letter . The Rational National, Jul 14, 2020.  features examples of left-wing or anti-war voices like Phil Donahue and Jesse Ventura being cancelled

Brian Stelter, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Atria/One Signal Publishers | Amazon page, Aug 2020.  see interview by Stephen Colbert, "Fox Has Lost Control Of The Monster That It Created" - Brian Stelter On Fox News. The Late Show, Aug 11, 2021.

Terry Gross, 'Hoax' Traces The 'Grotesque Feedback Loop' Between President Trump And Fox News. NPR, Aug 25, 2020.

Michael Edison Hayden, The Fascist Underpinnings of Pro-Trump Media: An Interview With Author Jason Stanley. SPLC, Aug 27, 2020.  “What we find now is a culture war 24/7, which is highly reminiscent of really the 1930s where “communism,” “cultural Marxism” … utter hysteria about leftists, becomes married to classic antisemitic conspiracy theories about terrible crimes to children, blood libel (as the philosopher David Livingstone Smith recently made clear to me), and in this case pedophilia.”

Second Thought, Capitalism And Monopolies: How Five Companies Control All US Media. Second Thought, Aug 28, 2020.  a helpful examination of the problem and its consequences for democracy, information, fairness

John Iadarola, Fox News Kept Proud Boys Alive For Years. The Damage Report, Oct 10, 2020.

John Iadarola, Tucker Carlson’s Months of Masks Lies Exposed. The Damage Report, Oct 17, 2020.  

John Iadarola and Jayar Jackson, Poll Reveals How Racist Republicans Really Are. The Damage Report, Nov 2, 2020.  show the impact of Fox News especially on survey responses, commenting on Harold Meyerson, How Racist Are Republicans? Very.. American Prospect, Oct 22, 2020.  who summarized PRRI Staff, Dueling Realities: Amid Multiple Crises, Trump and Biden Supporters See Different Priorities and Futures for the Nation. PRRI, Oct 19, 2020.

Brian Stelter, Fox News Has Never Seen Competition Like This in Its History. CNN, Nov 15, 2020.  shows graphs of viewership of OANN and Newsmax

Daniel Morrison, “Qanon” is Propaganda, and We Know Who’s Responsible. Noteworthy - Journal blog, Nov 18, 2020.  ““Psychological Operations” have been around for a while, as retired Lt. Colonel MichaelAquino has explained. While they were usually the domain of the military, there is now an entirecommercial industryserving this space. Psy Group is an Israelicompany founded by Joel Zamel, which specialised in online perception management, through social media manipulation, influence campaigns, opposition research, honey traps, as well as clandestineon-the-groundactivities. In April 2016, during the Republican primaries, Trump Campaign official Rick Gates asked Psy Group for a proposal. They responded with a quote for $3,125,000 plus media costs, and promised to make it virtually untraceable.”

James P. Sutton, Giving the People What They Want. The Dispatch, Nov 25, 2020.  “Why Trump supporters have flocked to Newsmax and One America Network since the election.” Ewan Palmer, Newsmax CEO Defends Airing Unverified Election Fraud Claims in the Name of Free Discourse. Newsweek, Nov 25, 2020.  

Saagar Enjeti, NYT's Pornhub Victory Shows Conservatism Is Irrelevant . Rising | The Hill, Dec 10, 2020.  refers to Nicholas Kristof, An Uplifting Update, on the Terrible World of Pornhub. NY Times, Dec 9, 2020.  “Young heroes lead in confronting pornography companies that monetize rape and child abuse” and Nicholas Kristof, The Children of Pornhub. NY Times, Dec 3, 2020.  “Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?” Enjeti argues that social conservatives have isolated themselves into grievance-oriented media bubbles and fail to speak to the country’s center-left culture, which speaks the language of harm and not religion, tradition, or sacredness. Co-host Krystal Ball suggests that libertarian economic conservatives and neoliberals reign in both the GOP and Dems, though.

Chris Hayes, Murdoch Gets Vaccinated As His Media Outlets Spread Lies, Attack Essential Workers . All In | MSNBC, Dec, 18, 2020.

Matt Beat, Debunking a PragerU Video About U.S. Immigration. Mr. Beat, Dec 20, 2020.  response to Michelle Malkin’s video

Mike Fannin, The Truth In Black and White: An Apology from The Kansas City Star. The Kansas City Star, Dec 20, 2020.  a remarkable admission based on a detailed audit held up against journalistic standards

Sam Seder, PragerU Releases Hilariously Bad Video To Defend Robert E. Lee Statues. The Majority Report, Dec 23, 2020.

Sara Fischer, How Right-Wing Media Explained the Pro-Trump Siege of the Capitol. Axios, Jan 7, 2021.

Bill Keveney and Maria Puente, How Conservative Media Stoked Baseless Election-Fraud Claims that Motivated DC Rioters . USA Today, Jan 11, 2021.

Kyle Kulinsky, MSNBC Suddenly Realizes Bernie Was Right. Secular Talk, Jan 12, 2021.  Joe Scarborough suddenly praises Nordic social welfare programs as the best way to do capitalism - health care, education, labor, etc.

Tommy Beer, Fox News Viewership Plummets: First Time Behind CNN And MSNBC In Two Decades. Forbes, Jan 16, 2021.

Julia Horowitz, Why You Won't Find Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson on British TV. CNN, Jan 18, 2021.  “Though the UK media scene is defined in part by a freewheeling and often partisan tabloid press with its own share of conspiracy theories, its TV newschannels largely frame their coverage down the middle, with broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV maintaining high levels of public trust. Rupert Murdoch's Fox News is no longer on air in the country after failing to generate a significant viewer base. A big factor in this is media regulator Ofcom, which enforces rules on impartiality and accuracy for all news broadcasters. Those who breach the rules can be censured or fined — putting pressure on TV channels to play stories fairly straight.”

Christine Amanpour, CNBC Host Reveals Why He Left Fox News. CNN, Jan 19, 2021.  interviews Shep Smith, who talks about the news vs. opinion hosts at Fox. He wanted to counteract the opinion hosts with real news. “At some point, I realized that I hit the point of diminishing returns, and I left.” After the Jan 6 failed insurrection at the Capitol, James Murdoch, son of founder Rupert Murdoch, said without taking responsibility, “Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years.” Shep Smith says, “If your opinion is based on fact, then you’re certainly entitled to it… but when they start lying to us, they’re off my [media] diet, and their managers shouldn’t let them be there. They shouldn’t, but they do.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Conservative Media REVERTS To Attacking Unions While AOC Joins Picket Line. Rising | The Hill, Jan 22, 2021.  Ball points out how The Washington Examiner (conservative media.  is slanted against unions, slamming Biden’s firing of NLBR general counsel because he was a Trump pick who wanted to smash unions. Enjeti gives important conservative perspective on labor movements and civic engagement in the 20th century. Labor is a vital non-governmental institution. “This is a way to increase wages without having to set a wage. This is a way to allow people to govern themselves without [government] having to step in and run the company for you. So in a way, it’s one of the ways to save American capitalism, but since the Reagan era, we’ve gone in such a terrible direction.”

Margaret Sullivan, Fox News is a Hazard to Our Democracy. It’s Time to Take the Fight to the Murdochs. Here’s How.. Washington Post, Jan 24, 2021.  “In recent days, Fox has taken a sharp turn toward a more extreme approach as it confronts a post-Trump ratings dip — the result of some of its furthest-right viewers moving to outlets such as Newsmax and One America News and some middle-of-the-roaders apparently finding CNN or MSNBC more to their liking. With profit as the one true religion at Fox, something had to change. Eighty-nine-year-old Rupert Murdoch, according to a number of reports, has stepped in to call the shots directly. Most notably, the network has decided to add an hour of opinion programming to its prime-time offerings. The 7 p.m. hour will no longer be nominally news but straight-up outrage production… So if reality-based America wants to communicate clearly with Fox News leadership, they’ll have to do it in a language they understand. The language of money.”

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, David Sirota: WAPO Fact Check CLAIMS Bernie Wrong, Trump Tax Cuts Didn’t Benefit Rich. Rising | The Hill, Feb 5, 2021.  a sign that Jeff Bezos being the owner of WAPO shapes its culture; even though WAPO is often thought of as left-leaning, their corporate outlook is right-leaning.

Casey Gane-McCalla, Rush Limbaugh’s Most Racist Quotes: A Timeline Of Destructive Commentary. Newsone, Feb 17, 2021.  “Rush Limbaugh was a lightning rod for controversy -- and racism -- over his career that spanned nearly five decades.” See also Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American. Facebook, Feb 17, 2021.  on Limbaugh’s “white men are victims” because others aren’t “pulling their own weight.” See also Jacob Rosenberg, Rush Limbaugh Taught Me How to Think Like a Piece of Shit. Mother Jones, Feb 18, 2021.  Saagar Enjeti, How Should We REALLY Think About Rush Limbaugh’s Legacy?. Rising | The Hill, Feb 22, 2021.  explains the development of right-wing media and its political impact. Bruce Bartlett, I Was a Rush Limbaugh Whisperer. The New Republic, Feb 18, 2021.  narrates how RL became more unhinged and conspiratorial.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Our Favorite Media Screwups: Newsmax Accuses ROMNEY Of Full Blown Communism. Rising | The Hill, Feb 20, 2021.

Ana Kasparian, Alex Jones: I Wish I Never Met Trump, I'm So SICK of Him. The Young Turks, Mar 7, 2021.  entertaining commentary: Grifters recognize other grifters.

CNN, Pentagon Fires Back After Tucker Carlson Mocks Women in Armed Forces. CNN, Mar 12, 2021.  Tucker Carlson says the Chinese military is “becoming more masculine.” See also John Oliver, Tucker Carlson . Last Week Tonight with John Oliver | HBO, Mar 15, 2021.

Chris Hayes, Tucker Carlson’s Not Stupid, He Just Thinks His Audience Is. All In | MSNBC, Mar 16, 2021.

Fadel Allassan, White Supremacist Propaganda Distribution Doubled in 2020, Report Finds . Axios, Mar 17, 2021.

Mehdi Hasan, Why Matt Gaetz Is A Product Of The Modern Republican Party . All In | MSNBC, Apr 2, 2021.  features John Boehner’s book criticizing the modern Republican Party shift to the far-right and conspiracy-theorists

Meredith Conroy, Why Being ‘Anti-Media’ Is Now Part Of The GOP Identity. FiveThirtyEight, Apr 5, 2021.  “starting in 2015, trust among Republicans took a nosedive, falling from 32 percent to 10 percent in 2020… In its study of the media landscape in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election cycle, the Pew Research Center found that of the 30 news sources it asked about, only Fox News was trusted by a majority of Republicans. . Republicans’ second-most-trusted source, ABC News, wasn’t even a close second: 33 percent said they trusted ABC News for political and election news compared with 65 percent who trusted Fox News.) This finding stands in stark contrast with the views of Democrats, who said they trusted a variety of news sources, and it marks a further decline in Republicans’ trust of other news sources since Pew last conducted a similar survey in 2014. This is in part because animosity toward the other party is at an all-time high and Republicans increasingly associate the news media with the Democratic Party. That means they are more likely to dismiss a source that isn’t Fox News (or One America News Network or Newsmax) as politically biased. For example, in a January YouGov/American Enterprise Institute poll among people who said they voted for then-President Trump in 2020, a staggering 92 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that “the mainstream media today is just a part of the Democratic Party.””

Dan Price, Right-Wing Media Called Me a ‘Socialist’ When I Gave My Workers a $70k Minimum Wage. My Business Flourished. UK Independent, Apr 30, 2021.  “I was making thirty times what my lowest-paid employee was making. I was forced to re-evaluate my contribution to income inequality in the United States.” CEO Dan Price voluntarily reorganized the distribution of wages, giving himself a pay cut, and for this he gets called “socialist” by right-wing media.

Richard Wolff, Economic Update: How US Capitalism Uses Nationalism. Democracy At Work, May 3, 2021.  A helpful history since the late 1800s.

Ashley Rindsberg, The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions, and Fabrications Radically Alter History. Midnight Oil Publishers | Amazon page, May 2021.  Starts with the NYT declaring that Poland had invaded Germany, and pro-Hitler coverage. See interview with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Author: How Financial Interests Influence News Making Decisions. Rising | The Hill, May 14, 2021.  Arguably, although the NYT today represents more of a corporate Democratic establishment view, the corporate structure of our media environment is an issue defended most vociferously by the libertarian and pro-corporate right.

Brian Tyler Cohen, How to Finally Defund Fox News. Brian Tyler Cohen, May 10, 2021.  refers to UnFoxMyCableBox.com. There are about 90 million cable subscribers, and maybe 3 million Fox viewers.

Brian Stelter and Peter Wehner, This Fox News Data Proves Liz Cheney Right. CNN, May 16, 2021) 66% Republicans, 86% Fox News watching Republicans, and 96% of Newsmax watching Republicans believe the “Big Lie”

Anne Nelson, Inside the Disinformation Machine: How Far-Right Media Brainwash Millions Daily. Flux, May 16, 2021.  “Christian fundamentalists have quietly built massive propaganda empires that most Americans have never even heard of.” See also comments by Matthew Sheffield, editor of Flux (Twitter, May 16, 2021)

Krystal Ball, Right-Wing “Cancel Culture” Hypocrisy Exposed by AP Firing Of Emily Wilder. Rising | The Hill, May 24, 2021.  criticizing the State of Israel makes one a target of the right, even at the Associated Press

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Fox Host Called Out Live for Lying to Viewers About Tax Enforcement On Rich. Rising | The Hill, May 24, 2021.

Ryan Grim, Fox News Workers Have Their Own Corporate Vaccine Passport. Rising | The Hill, Jul 19, 2021.  and see this picture

Ryan Grim, Cable News Hiding Defense Industry Ties Of Its Military Analysts. Rising | The Hill, Aug 19, 2021.  former military leaders become corporate investors and leaders and consultants, and then media spokespeople advocating for more war

ABC News, How Murdoch’s Fox News Allowed Trump's Propaganda to Destabilise Democracy. Four Corners | ABC News, Aug 23, 2021.  is a 45 minute video; see also Sarah Ferguson, Lauren Day, and Laura Gartry, Insiders Reveal How Fox News Became a Propaganda Outlet for Donald Trump . ABC News Australia, Aug 22, 2021.  for written version. ABC News, Fox and the Big Lie: Trump Returns to Campaign Trail Amid ‘Stolen Election' Lawsuits. Four Corners | ABC News, Aug 30, 2021.

Ryan Arey, The Mandarin Was Right (And was Responsible for Tony's Snap!) | Iron Man 3 + Shang-Chi Explained. Screen Crush, Sep 7, 2021.  on how war and media propaganda are related, from the American Revolution onwards. There is a media-military-industrial complex.

CNS Maryland, Printing Hate: How White-Owned Newspapers Incited Racial Terror in America. CNS Maryland, Oct 2021.  a series of articles on how white supremacist newspapers fueled lynchings, racial fears and misunderstandings, etc.

Ari Melber, 'He’s A Liar': Tucker Carlson Makes False Vax Claim As Fox News Colleague Reveals Viewer Death Wish. The Beat | MSNBC, Oct 27, 2021.  spotlights Neil Cavuto’s pro-vaccine posture and the death threats he received, in part because of the falsehoods promoted by Cavuto’s colleagues at Fox News

Chris Hayes, Fox News Caught Deceptively Editing Biden Speech. All In | MSNBC, Nov 12, 2021.

Thom Hartmann, The Secret Hedge Fund Gutting Newsrooms Exposed? (w/ Mickey Huff). Thom Hartmann Program, Nov 26, 2021.  Huff directs Project Censored, a media watchdog and media literacy organization.

Amber Ruffin, Copaganda: How Fictional TV Police Make Real Cops More Dangerous . The Amber Ruffin Show, Dec 10, 2021.  highlights how media portrayals of police started with Dragnet, which the LAPD required influence over, to hide their racially discriminatory practices. Media also suggests that crime is rising constantly, that policing is one of America’s most dangerous jobs, and that black people are criminal. See also Ryan Grim, How TV Shows Like Law & Order TEACH Americans To Root For The Police. Rising | The Hill, Dec 20, 2021.

David Doel, Fox Hosts' Texts To Trump Revealed. The Rational National, Dec 14, 2021.  shows the duplicity of the Fox News hosts

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Alabama Miners Slam Corporate Media Blackout Of Struggle. Breaking Points, Dec 21, 2021.

Amanda Mull, The Great Shoplifting Freak-Out.  The Atlantic, Dec 27, 2021.  Mentions the right-wing media focus recently on shoplifting, to induce fear or racial animus.  But using 2020, when many people stayed home due to the pandemic, as a baseline for 2021, is very misleading.  “The deeper you search for real, objective evidence of an accelerating retail crime wave, the more difficult it is to be sure that you know anything at all.  To determine what, if anything, is up with shoplifting in America, we have to answer two questions: Is theft really more common than it was in the recent past, and is current theft really more severe or harmful? You would think that answers to both of these questions would be readily available, if only because the topic has been discussed so much, but the reality of the situation is not quite so clear-cut.”  See interview and discussion with Chris Hayes, Debunking The Right-Wing’s Shoplifting Freak-Out.  All In | MSNBC, Dec 29, 2021.  

David Doel, Fox News & MSNBC Join Forces To Spread Absurd Lie.  The Rational National, Jan 22, 2022.  Gives helpful polling data on the popularity of various Build Back Better proposals, like student loan forgiveness, infrastructure, child care, etc..

Like Stories of Old, The Myth of Heroic Masculine Purpose.  Like Stories of Old, Feb 22, 2022.  A 32 minute video about the depth and drawbacks of the heroic masculine quest for purpose.

CNN, See How Russian State TV is Covering the War in Ukraine.  CNN, Feb 26, 2022.  Russian media show footage of tanks in the Eastern Ukraine region, regarding the two breakaway republics.

CNN, Son in Ukraine: My Dad in Russia Doesn’t Believe We’re Being Bombed.  CNN, Mar 9, 2022.  A good example of Russian media influence, denying the war as merely a “special military venture” to stop “the Nazis from killing Ukrainians,” and the Russian troops are passing out food and blankets.

Ali Velshi, China Joins Russia In Alarming New Bioweapon Propaganda Campaign.  MSNBC, Mar 12, 2022.  The false claim that Ukraine has chemical weapons.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Exclusive: Jon Stewart Sounds Off On Fox News, Russiagate, Mainstream Media.  Breaking Points, Mar 17, 2022.

Paul Kirby, Russia's State TV Hit by Stream of Resignations.  BBC, Mar 18, 2022.  

Deutsche Welle, China Amplifies Russian Narrative of Ukraine War.  Deutsche Welle News, Mar 21, 2022.  

Michael M. Grynbaum, Chris Wallace Says Life at Fox News Became ‘Unsustainable’.  New York Times, Mar 27, 2022.  “As he starts a new streaming show at CNN, the longtime TV anchor reflects on his decision to leave Fox News after 18 years.”  

CNN, Russian News Anchor Says Millions of Russians Feel Invasion is a Catastrophe.  CNN, Mar 6, 2022.  Russian channel TV Rain shut down their business because Putin declared that journalists would face 15 years in jail for calling his invasion of Ukraine “an invasion.”  The Russian public is divided terribly, believing the Russian state propaganda that NATO is the provocateur and that someone is coming for Putin, who helps people be free and proud.

Sarah K. Burris, Fox Viewers Are Less Likely to Believe Lies After Being Paid to Watch CNN for 30 Days: Study.  Raw Story, Apr 3, 2022.  

Dave Davies, Has Tucker Carlson Created the Most Racist Show in the History of Cable News? NPR, May 12, 2022.

Seth Myers, The Right's Embrace of Racist Replacement Theory Is Both Dangerous and Dumb: A Closer Look.  Late Night with Seth Myers, May 16, 2022.  When 18 year-old Payton Gendron carried out a white supremacist shooting in Buffalo, NY on May 14, 2022, he cited the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory promoted by Tucker Carlson.  

Ari Melber, Tucker Carlson Backtracks After Peddling A Conspiracy Theory Cited By NY Mass Shooting Suspect.  The Beat | MSNBC, May 18, 2022.  Melber analyzes Carlson’s own words, and rejects his claim that he is not pushing the Great Replacement theory.

Ari Melber, Trump’s Fox News Nightmare:  Fox News Touts Huge Win for Biden as Carlson Gets Emotional.  The Beat | MSNBC, Aug 2, 2022.

Amy Goodman, Alex Jones Proved That Lying Pays. Can Sandy Hook Lawsuits Help Turn the Tide on Disinformation?  Democracy Now, Aug 9, 2022.  Highlights the financially lucrative position that right-wing grifter Alex Jones built after Sandy Hook.  A fluke unintentional disclosure by Alex Jones’ attorney revealed a great deal.  “The messages were first revealed in court last week in Austin, Texas, just before a jury ordered InfoWars host Alex Jones to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages to the parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. For years Alex Jones spread conspiracy theories that the Newtown shooting was a government hoax and the victims’ families were paid actors, resulting in online harassment and death threats for Sandy Hook families. “He will never change, but it does send a message … that this is just so important to push back against the lies and disinformation,” says New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth.  Dutton | Amazon page, Mar 2022.

David Doel, Fox News Rages Over FBI Raid Of Trump Estate.  The Rational National, Aug 9, 2022.  Even though this was totally premature.  Trump could simply disclose the search warrant to the public could see its contents, as Christian conservative columnist Howard Hewitt called for.  Also, the rationale could simply be that the National Archives wanted to protect national security interests by recovering the 12 boxes that Trump did not return in January 2022, and Trump does not place those documents under proper security.  According to 18 U.S. Code 793, Trump is vulnerable to up to a 10 year prison sentence for the possession of documents related to national security.  See interview with Laurence Tribe by Lawrence O’Donnell, The Obscure Law That Could Mean Big Trouble For Trump.  The Last Word | MSNBC, Aug 9, 2022.  The media hysteria is also telling, since many right-wing media pundits called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to be condemned, along with the person who appointed him, but that person was Trump himself.

Ben Meiselas, Fox Loses Big Motion for Spreading Election Lies, Faces Massive Liability.  The Meidas Touch, Sep 29, 2022.  “Fox News and Lou Dobbs just lost a critical motion to dismiss in federal court in a defamation lawsuit filed by a Venezuelan businessman who Fox and Dobbs made false claims about his involvement in election fraud with Dominion and Smartmatic.”

John Oliver, Crime Reporting. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Oct 10, 2022. Brilliant critique of the police as an interest group and journalists as lazy when they report, “Police say…”

ABC News 7 Bay Area, Why Elon Musk's Conspiracy Theory Tweet About Paul Pelosi Attack Is 'Dangerous'.  ABC News 7 Bay Area, Nov 1, 2022.  Points out that retweets of false information like Musk’s circulate far more than retweets of true information.  This does not bode well for democracy.

David Doel, Fox News Turns On Trump Following Midterm Stunner.  The Rational National, Nov 10, 2022.  An interesting compilation of clips and narrative demonstrating that the political right is very influenced, if not led, by media companies like Fox News.

Ben Meiselas, The Hilarious Moment MAGA Influencers Realize They Are Losers.  The Meidas Touch, Nov 16, 2022.  A 14.5 minute video with clips of Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, etc.  

Lawrence O’Donnell, The Republican Party Is ‘In Ruin’.  The Last Word, Nov 17, 2022.  O’Donnell begins with how Murdoch-owned NY Post excoriated Trump.  He predicts a GOP House making investigations and impeachment their priority.

Richard Wike et.al., Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. is a Major Outlier.  Pew Research Center, Dec 6, 2022.  “Most think social media has made it easier to manipulate and divide people, but also say it informs and raises awareness.”

WhatRaySay, Thomas Sowell and Right-Wing Dishonesty. WhatRaySay, Jan 14, 2023. Evidence that Sowell lies about his own personal narrative then demands evidence from his opponents but not from his own position.

Alec Karakatsanis, How the Media Enables Violent Bureaucracy. Alec’s Copaganda Newsletter, Jan 27, 2023. “One of the core truths about the punishment bureaucracy is that police, prosecutors, prisons, probation, parole, courts, and the constellation of multi-billion dollar industries that evolve in symbiosis with them use their own violence, waste, and ineffectiveness to justify getting more resources in an endless cycle of “reform.” Each failure becomes a reason to spend more trying the same things harder.  This cycle is not accidental.  Luminaries from Michel Foucault to David Graeber to my one-eyed cat housemate have pointed out the connection between perpetual growth of bureaucracy and narratives around “reform.””

Max Matza, Donald Trump Assails Rupert Murdoch Over Defamation Testimony.  BBC, Mar 1, 2023.  

Jack Shafer, Rupert Murdoch Rides the Trump Tiger — and Gets Eaten.  Politico, Mar 1, 2023.  “The Dominion lawsuit has exposed the powerlessness of the Fox News titan.” Shafer writes insightfully, arguing Murdoch contributed to political and social and financial forces that wound up consuming him.

Mehdi Hasan, The Truth About the Covid 'Lab Leak' Theory.  The Mehdi Hasan Show | MSNBC, Mar 8, 2023.  To date, the most systematic treatment of scientific literature, questions, and media coverage. 

Chris Hayes, The Tucker Carlson Villain Origin Story.  All In | MSNBC, Mar 8, 2023.  When Carlson, at a CPAC in 2009, pointed out that the political right has no credible journalism or reliable media comparable to the NY Times, and was booed.  Carlson was launching The Daily Caller, which he had tried to soft-launch.  Carlson found there was no audience for it, so within a few months, The Daily Caller had become a generator of fake news and outrage.  Hayes cites Alex Shepard, How Tucker Carlson Lost It.  The New Republic, Sep 16, 2021.  More coverage is given by Ari Melber, Leaked Texts Expose Tucker Carlson in Billion Dollar [Fox News vs. Dominion Voting] Scandal: I ‘Hate’ Trump.  The Beat | MSNBC, Mar 8, 2023.  Melber does a good job explaining the context of Tucker Carlson’s quotes in the lawsuit.  Actual court transcript shown by Ben Meiselas, Tucker Secret Messages in Court Filing Reveal He ‘Hates Trump Passionately.'  Meidas Project, Mar 8, 2023.  A very humorous satire is given by Stephen Colbert, Tucker’s Transparent Jan 6th Propaganda.  The Late Show, Mar 7, 2023.  

Caleb Ecarma, How Rod Dreher’s Blog Got a Little “Too Weird” for The American Conservative. Vanity Fair, Mar 10, 2023. Revealing, in that one large mega-donor bankrolled the entire salary of a fairly influential blogger, and then left:

“It never got weird enough for me,” once spoken by Hunter S. Thompson, is an apt mantra for the dedicated fans of eccentric conservative blogger Rod Dreher. Over the last 12 years, Dreher, whose blog at The American Conservative will post for the last time Friday, has built a cult following with some of the most bizarre diatribes in opinion journalism. He has warned that so-called sissy hypnosis porn is “profoundly evil;” detailed the “formal” Catholic exorcism of a friend’s suicidal wife; and recalled—in unsettling detail—the time he witnessed a Black classmate's uncircumcised penis.

But one particular reader, upon reading the last of said posts, determined the blog had simply gotten too weird, according to two sources familiar with the publication. That disgruntled reader was Howard Ahmanson Jr., the heir to a California banking fortune and the sole benefactor of Dreher’s six-figure salary at TAC, which is published by American Ideas Institute, a nonprofit. This unique funding arrangement—a single donor choosing to cover one writer’s entire salary—was paired with an even more unusual editorial arrangement: Dreher was allowed to publish directly on TAC’s site without any revisions or legal oversight, according to the two sources.”

Brian Fung, NPR Criticizes Twitter for Slapping It With a ‘State-Affiliated Media’ Label.  CNN, Apr 5, 2023

Andrew Perez, The Paid Pundits Defending Clarence Thomas And His Billionaire Benefactor.  The Lever, Apr 11, 2023.  “Right-wing pundits rushed to defend Harlan Crow’s gifts to Clarence Thomas and his Nazi memorabilia collection — without disclosing their ties to the mega-donor.”  “Hours after ProPublica dropped its report on Thomas, Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the right-wing think tank Manhattan Institute, tweeted, “Unless Harlan Crow has some business before the Court, the @propublica report about Justice Thomas is a big breathless nothingburger.”  Unmentioned: The Manhattan Institute, where Shapiroleads an amicus brief filing program lobbying the Supreme Court to rule certain ways on issues like student debt cancellation and corporate taxation, boasts Crows’ wife Kathy on its board of trustees and has been called “wonderful” by Crow himself.”

Lawrence O’Donnell, Rupert Murdoch and Fox Surrendered. Truth Won Big. Rupert Lost.  The Last Word | MSNBC, Apr 18, 2023.  The civil suit being settled means Dominion Won.  Fox continues to be sued by other parties.

Amy Goodman, Fox Pays Dominion $787.5 Million in Historic Settlement But Won't Apologize for Election Lies.  Democracy Now, Apr 20, 2023.  Amy Goodman examines what was uncovered in discovery leading up to this court case.

Mehdi Hasan, Blame Rupert Murdoch and Fox for Iraq, Trump, and The Big Lie. The Mehdi Hasan Show | MSNBC, Apr 20, 2023. Also, Brexit.

Ari Melber, See Tucker Carlson Fired: Fox News Finally Forced to 'Pay For It'. The Beat | MSNBC, Apr 24, 2023. Contains a very telling video clip of Tucker Carlson imagining a liar telling lies all the time.

Ben Meiselas, Fox Loses Another Lawsuit in Humiliating Fashion.  Meidas Touch, Apr 25, 2023. In Australia, “Lachlan Murdoch the Chairman of Fox sued a small independent media company in Australia called Crikey for defamation and just dismissed his lawsuit.“  The Dominion lawsuit defeat means that Crikey’s accusation -- that Murdoch is an unindicted co-conspirator with Trump for January 6 -- stands.

Rachel Maddow, Carlson Crisis Threatens Right-Wing Media Ability to Carry Feckless Republican Party. The Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC, Apr 25, 2023. Maddow makes two observations. First, the GOP is incoherent and disorganized because right-wing media is so powerful and influential. Second, Tucker Carlson will be replaced soon, but the media ecosystem is more fractured than before. See also Rachel Maddow, Tucker Carlson’s Fall Marks Another Step in Declining Power of Right-Wing Figureheads. The Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC, Apr 25, 2023.

Chris Hayes, The Surprise Turn in Fox’s Favorite New Fearmonging Story. All In | MSNBC, Apr 28, 2023. The San Francisco story of Don Carmagnani getting beaten by a homeless man, Garrett Doti. Fox used it as an example of the chaos and crime in Democrat-led cities. More footage showed that Don Carmagnani had been randomly and aggressively spraying homeless people with pepper spray. Doti had been one of them.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Tucker Carlson and the Right. The New Yorker, Apr 30, 2023. “The big question for the G.O.P. during the Biden era is whether the legacy of Carlson’s culture wars adds up to a viable platform for a major political party.”

Nicholas Confessore, How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable.  New York Times, Apr 30, 2022.  

Mehdi Hasan, Bursting the Ron DeSantis Right-Wing Media Bubble. The Mehdi Hasan Show | MSNBC, May 4, 2023. Ron DeSantis attacks the liberal media, which is a fascist strategy.

Amy Goodman, “World’s Deadliest Wars Go Unreported”: Journalist Anjan Sundaram.  Democracy Now, Jun 8, 2023.

James Li, Exposing Corporate Media's Inflation Propaganda.  Breaking Points, Jun 18, 2023.  Greedflation, including verbal quotes from executives on earnings calls.

Ari Melber,  Hannity Exposed: 'Just Comply' Lie Shredded in DOJ’s Trump Charges.  The Beat | MSNBC, Jun 23, 2023.  “Donald Trump’s arrest shows the GOP’s double standard on FBI “compliance.” While many suspects are given minutes to comply with police, Trump was given months. In this special report, MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber exposes the GOP’s double standard on “police rules.””

Brian Tyler Cohen, Tucker Carlson Gets Nightmare News About His Show. Brian Tyler Cohen, Jul 10, 2023. Carlson’s Twitter stats falls from 137 million “views” on his announcement prior to first show to 5 million on his eighth show episode.

Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur, Fox News Dismisses Mom Who Went Viral For Cost Of Living Rant.  The Young Turks, Aug 10, 2023. 

Thom Hartmann, Why the Rich Want You Fighting Over These Social Issues. Thom Hartmann Program, Aug 16, 2023. Focusing on trans issues are a distraction from economic issues.

Brian Karem, Right Wing Judge Makes Dangerous Move Against Media. Meidas Touch, Aug 17, 2023. Perspective on the raid of the records and news room of Marion County Records Office in Marion, Kansas. The consolidation of ownership of media is itself a big problem.

Alicia Menendez, Trump’s Ongoing Tug-of-War with Right-Wing Media.  MSNBC, Aug 21, 2023.  “Donald Trump has made clear he won’t be attending the first Republican primary debate, hosted by Fox News. In an added snub, Trump is also reportedly plotting counterprogramming with a Tucker Carlson interview.”  In the words of Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, Trump attacks Fox News by pulling the viewer base along with him, and succeeds. 

Katie Robertson, Fox Sued by New York City Pension Funds Over Election Falsehoods.  New York Times, Sep 12, 2023.  “The funds accuse the Fox Corporation board of neglecting its responsibility to shareholders by leaving the company open to defamation lawsuits.”

Justin King, Let's Talk About McCarthy, Boebert, and How I'm Not That Smart.... Beau of the Fifth Column, Sep 30, 2023.  On the Republican rhetoric by which GOP leaders fool their base about what they’re really doing.

Brian Tyler Cohen, Fox Hosts Snap On Air, Lose Their Minds Over Taylor Swift in Epic Meltdown.  Brian Tyler Cohen, Sep 30, 2023.  On anti-democratic posturing against young voters, due to Taylor Swift encouraging her fans to vote.  Of interest is Taylor Swift’s 2020 video recording of herself in conversation, saying that she is a Christian, and opposing the GOP candidate Marsha Blackburn.

Charlie Sykes, Fox Calls for Civil War.  The Bulwark, Oct 6, 2023.  On The Bulwark Podcast, Charlie Sykes interviews Tim Miller.  “FOX News' "funny" Greg Gutfeld on Fox News has an anti-Democracy/pro-civil war meltdown on the air, and Trump's continued efforts to normalize insanity.”

Notes From Poland, “We Made Propaganda Worse Than Under Communism,” Admits Polish State TV Star After Election Failure.  Notes From Poland, Oct 18, 2023.  Instructive for the US context. “A prominent figure from Polish state broadcaster TVP has admitted that, under the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, the station has been creating “worse propaganda than [under communism] in the 1970s”. He believes this contributed to PiS losing its parliamentary majority at Sunday’s elections… The programme has, like other news coverage on TVP, been used to promote PiS’s agenda and attack the opposition.”

The Listening Post, Everything You Missed in Israel’s War on Gaza.  Aljazeera English, Dec 30, 2023.  The allegation of 40 babies beheaded.  Attacks on journalists.  IDF attacks on areas designated “safe.”  Israeli media, including Haaretz on the political left, justifying physical and verbal attacks on Palestinians generally.

Chris Hayes, See Fox News Hosts Humiliated as FBI Biden ‘Informant’ Gets Arrested for Lying. All In | MSNBC, Feb 16, 2024. For background, see Ryan J. Reilly, Gary Grumbach, and Sarah Fitzpatrick, Special Counsel Charges FBI iInformant with Lying to the Bureau About Hunter and Joe Biden. NBC News, Feb 15, 2024. Alexander Smirnov was the key witness in the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, allegedly on corruption charges. Trump-appointed special counsel David Weiss indicted his own key witness for lying. Smirnov allegedly told the FBI — falsely — that officials with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter Biden worked for, had told him they hired Hunter Biden because he would "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems." Smirnov allegedly told the FBI — again, falsely — that Burisma officials had told him they paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million and that it would take investigators 10 years to find the illicit payments to Joe Biden. Smirnov's account was critical to Republicans' impeachment inquiry into the president.

Radley Balko, The Retconning of George Floyd. The Watch | Substack, Jan 31, 2024.

Chris Hayes, Debunking the Right-wing Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Surge’. All In | MSNBC, Feb 29, 2024. Simply not true.

Emma Vigeland, New York Times Busted Making Up Oct 7th “Mass R*pes” Reporting. The Majority Report, Mar 1, 2024.

Amy Goodman, “Resist the Normalization of Evil”: Israeli Reporter Amira Hass on Palestine and Journalism. Democracy Now, May 17, 2024. Amira Hass is unique because she is the only Jewish reporter who has lived in Gaza for almost 30 years.

Xiajiang Zhu and Cornelia (Connie) Pechman, Political Polarization Triggers Conservatives’ Misinformation Spread to Attain Ingroup Dominance. Journal of Marketing, Volume 89, Issue 1, Jun 16, 2024. The authors attribute political disinformation to the desire for group cohesion and dominance.

“Conservatives are often blamed for spreading misinformation, but it is unclear whether certain situations trigger them and, if so, why. The authors examine situations that are politically polarized, meaning the topic and/or its framing conveys conflict, discord, or disagreement between the two main political parties (conservatives and liberals). The authors study whether conservatives react to polarized situations by spreading ingroup-skewed political misinformation that is objectively inaccurate but not necessarily understood to be false and whether liberals are less reactive. Using a multimethod approach, the authors conduct six studies, including analyses of statements by public figures and speeches by U.S. presidents, as well as controlled experiments. The results indicate that in polarized situations, conservatives’ need for ingroup dominance is elevated, so they convey more misinformation than liberals. In less polarized situations, conservatives’ need for ingroup dominance is tempered, reducing their misinformation conveyance. These findings suggest that misinformation should not be blamed solely on the individual trait of conservativism, as polarized situations exaggerate conservative motives and behaviors. While news media, social media, political figures, and others may be incentivized to emphasize political polarization to gain audiences and bolster engagement, the resulting misinformation harms truth, trust, and democracy. Possible remedies include improved fact-checking and media literacy education.”

But these studies do not even account for Republican and conservative leaders increasing political polarization — “own the libs” today and “Democrats are baby killers” in previous decades — in order to polarize the population politically. See summary by Xiajing Zhu and Cornelia (Connie) Pechmann, Study: Republicans Respond to Political Polarization by Spreading Misinformation, Democrats Don't. American Marketing Association, Dec 9, 2024. See summary by Ian Randall, The Right Is More Willing to Spread Fake News, Study Says. Newsweek, Dec 10, 2024. See summary by Eric W. Dolan, Conservatives Share More False Claims in Polarized Settings, Research Reveals. Psychology Post, Jan 27, 2025.

Cenk Uygur, Jon Stewart: Apple Tried To Stop Me From Reporting The Truth. The Young Turks, Jun 16, 2024. A very insightful segment about why money skews media companies, even well-meaning ones.

Renée DiResta, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Public Affairs | Amazon page, Jun 2024. See interview with Hari Sreenivasan, Controlling the Weather and Eating Pets: Expert Breaks Down Disinformation. Amanpour and Company, Oct 18, 2024. “With the risk levels in online communication and public messaging higher than ever, the spread of disinformation online has become a real-world concern. Some 16 Republicans serving as electors for Donald Trump this year deny the 2020 result. To discuss how false information spreads, and how to combat it, Renée DiResta joins the show.”

Brandy Zadrozny, How Lauren Chen Went from ‘Alt-Lite’ YouTuber to Alleged Russian Asset. NBC News, Sep 11, 2024. “Long before she allegedly aided a Russian propaganda operation, Chen built an audience posting right-wing videos under the name “Roaming Millennial.””

“When the Russians were on the hunt for American influencers to produce propaganda, they hired a conservative YouTuber to scout for stars, according to the Department of Justice. And Chen, unnamed by the DOJ but identified by NBC News from business records, delivered. She connected employees of the Russian state media operation RT with unwitting right-wing content creators and their millions of followers, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.

Chen, co-owner with her husband, producer Liam Donovan, of Tenet Media, an online collective of pro-Trump creators, negotiated a series of lucrative deals with the high-profile influencers to pump out online videos — in what turned out to be a nearly $10 million covert Russian propaganda campaign, the DOJ alleged. The DOJ did not name Tenet Media but NBC News identified the company based on its description in the indictment.

Unlike the influencers alleged to have been victims of RT and Tenet Media, who denied knowing they were working for Russia, Chen has said nothing since the indictment made news. Chen, who is referred to as “Founder-1” in the indictment, did not respond to requests for comment. She has not been charged with a crime.

Years before she would allegedly recruit famous conservative influencers for Russia’s propaganda operation, including Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Lauren Southern, Chen served as another type of conduit. At a time when the alt-right was just forming its online network — a community on YouTube, where the loudest and most reactionary voices got rich and famous and leaned on one another’s growing audiences to become more so — Chen gained a following by bridging some of the internet’s most noxious far-right voices to more mainstream conservative creators.”

The Heritage Foundation, Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. The Heritage Foundation, Oct 7, 2024. A good example of the right-wing effort to defend Netanyahu at all costs, especially by parroting the idea that critiquing him, or Zionism, is inherently antisemitic. Their summary: “America’s virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American “pro-Palestinian movement” is part of a global Hamas Support Network (HSN) that is trying to compel the U.S. government to abandon its long-standing support for Israel. Supported by activists and funders dedicated to the destruction of capitalism and democracy, the HSN benefits from the support and training of America’s overseas enemies and seeks to achieve its goals by taking advantage of our open society, corrupting our education system, leveraging the American media, coopting the federal government, and relying on the American Jewish community’s complacency. The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism intends to enlist all willing and able partners in a coordinated effort to combat the scourge of antisemitism in the United States.”

Al Jazeera, Uncovering Meta’s Gaza Censorship. The Take | Al Jazeera, Oct 24, 2024.

Leeja Miller, How Right Wing Media Took Over America. Leeja Miller, Nov 18, 2024. Covers history and current ownership and links to conservative thinktanks.

Kyle Kulinski, Bombshell: Elon Rigged Twitter For Trump & Republicans. The Kyle Kulinski Show | Secular Talk, Nov 19, 2024.

Sarah Longwell, Joe Rogan Listeners Explain Why They Voted for Trump (with Tim Miller). The Focus Group Podcast, Dec 21, 2024. People listen to podcasts like Joe Rogan, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, etc. and believe the interview format bring out genuineness. Longwell and Miller talk about how the COVID pandemic made people distrust institutions, although the direction of their distrust was very lopsided. Why criticize Fauci when you can criticize Trump?

Second Thought, How (And Why) The New York Times Lies. Second Thought, Dec 20, 2024. The New York Times has a long history of manufacturing consent for war, destabilization, and regime change. From Chile to Iran, the US paper of note has been used as a powerful and insidious tool of empire for over half a century. Let's take a look at a more modern example: Venezuela.

Heather Cox Richardson, December 23, 2024. Letters from an American | Substack, Dec 24, 2024.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon’s team worried that the Republican Party would hemorrhage voters in the upcoming midterm elections. That spring, Nixon announced that rather than ending the Vietnam War, he had sent ground troops into Vietnam’s neighbor Cambodia. In the protests that followed, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd at Kent State University, killing four protesters. Nixon’s clumsy suggestion that the protesters were responsible for the shooting began to turn middle-class white Americans, his key demographic, against him.

So Nixon’s advisors turned to a strategy they called “positive polarization.” They believed that dividing the country was a positive development because it stoked the anger they needed to get their voters to turn out. They deliberately turned against what they called “the media, the left, [and] the liberal academic community,” drawing voters to Nixon by accusing their opponents of being lazy, dangerous, and anti-American.

This polarization became a key technique of the Republican Party in the Reagan years, when talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh began to fill the airwaves with attacks on “feminazis,” liberals, and Black Americans who they claimed were trying to impose socialism on America. By 1990, a Republican group associated with then-representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) compiled a list of words for Republican candidates to use when talking about Democrats. They included “decay,” “sick,” “greed,” “corruption, “radical,” and “traitor.” In contrast, candidates were encouraged to refer to Republicans using words like “opportunity,” “courage,” “principle(d),” “caring,” and “peace.”

Kyle Kulinski, Oops: Local News Tells the Truth About Luigi Mangione. The Kyle Kulinski Show | Secular Talk, Dec 31, 2024.

Leigh McGowan, Heather Cox Richardson on Trump Voters Already Turning Against Him.  PoliticsGirl, Jan 7, 2025.  Voters who were politically informed voted 2 to 1 for Harris.  Those who watched Fox News or Trump Republican media voted 3 to 19 points for Trump.  People in a news desert went as much as 54 points for Trump.  Now, Mark Zuckerberg is withdrawing all fact checking from Meta/Facebook, Elon Musk has turned X-Twitter into a cesspool of misinformation, and Kash Patel might lead the FBI. 

Camille Von Kaemel, Trump’s Critiques of the Los Angeles Fires, Explained. Politico, Jan 9, 2025. The ‘water restoration declaration’ was something else involving water balancing between Northern CA and Southern CA and the Delta smelt fish. There is no way Governor Newsom could “turn a switch” to channel water from North to South.

Rachel Leingang, US Right Wing Fans Misinformation Fires as Firefighters Battle Los Angeles Blazes. The Guardian, Jan 10, 2025. “A similar campaign of rumors and lies was seen after the North Carolina hurricane, with DEI a primary target.”

Leeja Miller, LA Fires and Disinformation. Leeja Miller, Jan 13, 2025.

Petter Törnberg and Juliana Chueri, When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries. The International Journal of Press/Politics, Jan 13, 2025.

“The spread of misinformation has emerged as a global concern. Academic attention has recently shifted to emphasize the role of political elites as drivers of misinformation. Yet, little is known of the relationship between party politics and the spread of misinformation—in part due to a dearth of cross-national empirical data needed for comparative study. This article examines which parties are more likely to spread misinformation, by drawing on a comprehensive database of 32M tweets from parliamentarians in 26 countries, spanning 6 years and several election periods. The dataset is combined with external databases such as Parlgov and V-Dem, linking the spread of misinformation to detailed information about political parties and cabinets, thus enabling a comparative politics approach to misinformation. Using multilevel analysis with random country intercepts, we find that radical-right populism is the strongest determinant for the propensity to spread misinformation. Populism, left-wing populism, and right-wing politics are not linked to the spread of misinformation. These results suggest that political misinformation should be understood as part and parcel of the current wave of radical right populism, and its opposition to liberal democratic institution.”

Mira Rojanasakul and Brad Plumer, More Americans Than Ever Are Living in Wildfire Areas. L.A. Is No Exception. New York Times, Jan 15, 2025. “The growth of homes in areas primed to burn played a major role in the disaster.” Has good stats on effective anti-fire zoning laws. Also, higher density housing tends to be more resistant to burning down. The authors do not trace this back to single family zoning and the racial covenanting began in LA in 1904 by real estate developers.

M. Nolan Gray, How Well-Intentioned Policies Fueled L.A.’s Fires. The Atlantic, Jan 11, 2025.

Andy Cerda, Republicans Think Economy Will Improve Over Next Year, Democrats Expect It to Get Worse. Pew Research Trust, Feb 11, 2025. Pew surveyed 5,086 U.S. adults from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, 2025.

Kyle Kulinsky, The MAGA Media Conspiracy Goes Deeper Than You Thought. The Kyle Kulinski Show | Secular Talk, Feb 13, 2025. Trump sued CBS for their interview with VP Kamala Harris on the question of Israel-Hamas. Paramount Global, which owns CBS News, is trying to merge with Skydance Media, under Trump’s antitrust department. This is why CBS is caving to Trump; it is a bribe. In principle, Trump is against free speech. He is suing Anne Selzer and the Des Moines Register for reporting the Iowa poll showing Kamala up 4 points. He sued Simon & Schuster for Bob Woodward’s book quoted him, and he didn’t like the quote. He threatened to delicense news outlets that criticize him. He wants to punish flag burning with one year in jail. He wants to sue CNN for $475 million because they called his election denialism “the big lie” — he lost that suit. He sued Bill Maher over a joke. He said he wants to open up libel laws so he can sue journalists he doesn’t like. He wanted to sue journalists who reported on the Dobbs 2022 abortion ruling to be jailed. He wants to jail pro-Palestine protesters. He wants to gag order to stop the EPA from telling the truth about climate change. He arrested six journalists and charged them with “felony rioting” in his first term. He didn’t pardon free speech heroes Edward Snowden or Julian Assange or Daniel Hale, the drone whistleblower. He wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act against protestors of police brutality around George Floyd’s murder.

Emma Vigeland, Ben Shapiro Lies About Medicaid: "Worse Than Having No Insurance". The Majority Report with Sam Seder, Feb 27, 2025. An example of right-wing media trying to gaslight their own base and strip out benefits. Discussion about the U.S. for-profit health insurers being exploitative, the indebtedness of the population, and the argument for government single-payer insurance.

Martha McHardy, Republicans Say Americans Are Willing to Suffer Higher Prices for Trump. Newsweek, Mar 4, 2025.

Benjamin Weinthal, Tulsi Gabbard's Warning to Senate on Syria Proves Prophetic as Al Qaeda-Linked Regime Slaughters Minorities. Fox News, Mar 8, 2025. “Hundreds of Alawites reportedly killed as jihadists said to target members of country's dwindling Christian community.” This is an example of factual reporting, but Fox neglects to point out that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the greatest slaughterer of Christians, since both Ukraine and Russia have high numbers of professed Christians. See Marc Bennetts and Tom Ball, What Is the Ukraine War Death Toll? The London Times, Mar 12, 2025. Russian President Vladimir Putin is the greatest slaughterer of Christians --- in Ukraine. 82% of Ukraine is Christian, maybe 65% of Russia is Christian. President Trump has said that a million Russian soldiers and 700,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed. If Trump is accurate, and assuming the same proportion, then Putin has presided over the deaths of 574,000 and 650,000 Christians, respectively -- by making them kill each other.

Post Editorial Board, Team Trump’s Crackdown on Campus Hate is a Defense of Decency and a Push Against Perverted Privilege. The New York Post, Mar 9, 2025. An example of right-wing media spotlighting the wrong issues. “With the reported arrest and likely deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a noncitizen ringleader of antisemitic protests at Columbia and Barnard, ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray! This follows Friday’s nixing of some $400 million in federal grants to and contracts with Columbia for its failure to comply with anti-discrimination laws, even as Trump’s Education Department is eyeing four other universities (to start) for similar treatment. Khalil, despite finishing his graduate studies at the school in December, stuck around — plainly with an eye to continuing the disruptions that included this month’s Barnard building takeovers.” Compare to Surina Venkat, Department of Homeland Security confirms arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, SIPA ’24. Columbia Spectator, Mar 10, 2025. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement to Spectator that “ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security.”

David Corn, Why the Right Is to Blame for Distrust in the Media. Mother Jones, Mar 11, 2025. For decades, conservatives have crusaded to discredit the press.

Forrest Wilder, DOGE Has Reinvigorated the Right-Wing Crusade Against Texas Media. Texas Monthly, Mar 12, 2025. “The national DOGE campaign has created space for the far right in Texas to renew its state-level project to discredit and defund independent media outlets. On February 6, Michael Quinn Sullivan, an operative who runs Texas Scorecard, the propaganda wing of billionaire Midland oilman Tim Dunn’s political operation, wrote a piece for the outlet. The article, headlined “Texas Tax Dollars Funded Politico, Other ‘News’ Websites,” named nine publications as “getting subsidized by state taxpayers,” including Politico, the Tribune, Texas Monthly, and insider news site the Quorum Report, as well as newspapers The Dallas Morning News, the Austin American-Statesman, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.”

Eli Hager, “The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump. ProPublica, Mar 12, 2025. “In a recording obtained by ProPublica, acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek portrayed his agency as facing peril, while also encouraging patience with “the DOGE kids.””

Ryan D. Enos and Steven Levitsky, First They Came for Columbia. The Crimson, Mar 14, 2025.

“So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education. That must change. Harvard must stand up, speak out, and lead a public defense of our freedom to speak and study freely.

Autocrats — both left-wing and right-wing — always attack universities. The public rationale varies. Some, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, reportedly accuse universities or students of supporting terrorism; others, like pro-government outlets in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, accuse them of working for foreign interests; still others, like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, accused universities of supporting “neoliberalism” and corruption.

But these are pretexts. Universities are independent centers of ideas and often prominent centers of dissent. Autocrats are allergic to sources of dissent, so they almost invariably seek to silence, weaken, or control them.

The Trump administration is no different. Its claim to be fighting campus antisemitism rings as hollow as Ortega’s reported claim to be fighting terrorism in Nicaragua’s leading Jesuit-run university. The administration has weaponized the fight against antisemitism as a means to another end: punishing and weakening universities.”

Sam Levine, Newsmax Settled Defamation Lawsuit Over False US Election Claims for $40M. The Guardian, Mar 14, 2025. News outlet was sued by Smartmatic over claims that voting equipment company hacked 2020 election.

Howard Mortman, Twitter, Mar 26, 2025. A British reporter asks Marjorie Taylor Greene a question about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth using the commercial app Signal to discuss attack plans, which both included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, by accident, and is illegal because it is a private app used to avoid FOIA requests. MTG responds by deflecting to “immigrants”. This is how scapegoating immigrants works.

Greg Sargent, Trump’s Rage at Fox News over Bad Poll Hints at Coming Fiasco for MAGA. The New Republic, May 5, 2025. “As Trump’s worsening polls force Fox News personalities to deny what the numbers are clearly showing, a shrewd observer of right-wing media explains the deeper problem all this exposes for the MAGA movement.”

Richard Hanania, Conservatives Still Don't Read, but Now Listen to Rogan. Richard Hanania’s Newsletter | Substack, Jun 16, 2025. New data shows that the right-wing bubble has gotten worse.” An update from his 2021 assessment; see Richard Hanania, Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV. Richard Hanania’s Newsletter | Substack, Nov 21, 2021. “Explaining why Trump emerged on the right, why only liberals debate filibuster reform, how anti-vax became a partisan issue, how David Shor is half right, "Dems are the real racists" and much else.”

Jon Stewart, Israel’s "Urgent" Iran Strike, Minnesota Murders & MAGA’s Blame Game. The Daily Show, Jun 16, 2025. See the compilation of video clips from Netanyahu in 2012, 2015, and 2018 claiming that Iran was weeks away from a nuclear warhead. See the compilation of GOP leaders calling for the “liberation of Los Angeles” and CA from “socialists” and immigrants.

Jennifer Schulze and Susan J. Demas, Major Media's Fail on Trump's 'Shylock' Comment. Lincoln Square Media, Jul 9, 2025. They give Trump’s antisemitism a pass.

Ben Norton, Media Finally Admits: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, As US Corporations Profit. Geopolitical Economy Report, Jul 16, 2025.

Justin Baragona, Newsmax Reacts to Its $67 Million Dominion Settlement by Urging Businesses to Leave Delaware. UK Independent, Aug 18, 2025. “The right-wing network also urged viewers to visit its ‘Invest in Newsmax’ website to ‘take a look’ at ‘additional information’ about the company.” An update on the court case Newsmax lost to Dominion for 2020 election lies.

Alan MacLeod, Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS. Just International, Aug 22, 2025.

“After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison—the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison—has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising “unbiased” news coverage and “varied ideological perspectives,” which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network’s new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her “pro-Israel stance.”

MintPress News examines Ellison’s close ties to both Trump and Israel, Weiss’s extensive career as Israel’s most vocal supporter in the U.S., and what this means for the future of free and diverse speech in America.”

Taylor Lorenz, The Real 'Political Violence' in America. Taylor Lorenz, Sep 12, 2025. Includes police and state-sponsored violence.

Ty Roush, Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, More Will Hold Controlling Stake In TikTok Deal, Report Says. Forbes, Sep 16, 2025. Significant because many young people in the US got news about Gaza and the IDF’s atrocities directly via TikTok. Now, it is likely that these billionaires will screen the content away.

Asaf Elia-Shalev, Israel to Spend Up to $4.1M in Bid to Bolster Support Among Christians in Western US. Times of Israel, Oct 4, 2025. “Federal filings show Foreign Ministry hired US firm to run campaign targeting churchgoers with digital ads, mobile ‘Oct. 7th Experience’”

eCornell, The Man Who Built a Movement: How William F. Buckley Invented Modern Conservatism. Cornell University, Oct 9, 2025.

“In the space of a single generation (1950 to 1980), the journalist and author William F. Buckley led a small band of little-known conservatives to the peaks of political power and cultural influence. Ten years before his death, Bill Buckley chose journalist and historian Sam Tanenhaus to tell the full story of his life, granting him extensive uncensored interviews and exclusive access to his most private papers. The result, “Buckley: The Life and the Revolution,” published in June 2025, has received a great deal of attention and prompted wide and intense debate. In conversation with Peter Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences, Tanenhaus will discuss Buckley and the true meaning of his life and legacy in the Age of Donald Trump.”

Olver Darcy, Bari Weiss Just Proved Why Billionaires Buy the News. Amanpour and Company | PBS, Oct 14, 2025. An 18 minute video.

Noah Smith, Our Age of Kings. Noahpinion | Substack, Oct 26, 2025. “Strongman leaders are trying to bring order to a world disrupted by new media. But the "cure" is worse than the disease.” Smith connects media and print technologies to political disruption and backlash and power consolidation. Fascinating observation.

Julianne McShane, Megyn Kelly Suddenly Finds Pedophilia Very Hard to Define. Mother Jones, Nov 13, 2025. “When a 16-year-old accused Russell Brand of rape, Kelly begged conservatives to condemn him. Now she’s splitting hairs about men “into the barely legal type.” See also Kristoffer Ealy, Megyn Kelly Goes There on Epstein. Lincoln Square, Nov 17, 2025. “You’d think a woman who publicly went through years of harassment from Donald Trump would have learned something about misogyny.”

John Oliver, Public Media. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Nov 17, 2025. Trump’s cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting means local public media will not be covering local community news. The impact to local communities will be dramatic, leaving people vulnerable to Fox News and other right-wing media. See also Victor Pickard, We Must Save Public Media to Change It. The Nation, Apr 15, 2025. Pickard writes:

“By any measure, US government support for public media is paltry. The $535 million that Congress currently allocates to the CPB covers roughly 1 percent of NPR’s and 15 percent of PBS’s budget. To even call this a public system is a misnomer; most funding for public media comes from private sources in the form of individual donations, philanthropic grants, and corporate sponsorships.

The US public media system is a global outlier in how little federal funding it receives. Comparative research shows that the US is almost literally off the chart relative to most democratic nations. US federal expenditures of less than $1.60 per capita pale in comparison to countries such as Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, which devote nearly $100 or more per capita to fund strong public media systems such as the BBC.

Why does this matter? Research shows that access to public media correlates with increased political knowledge and civic engagement and lower levels of extremist views. Public media are also more likely to provide diverse and critical media coverage of important social issues. Moreover, unlike commercial media that must privilege returns on investments, public media are more likely to cover stories and engage audiences that aren’t profitable, thus reducing inequalities in news provision.

In these countries, public broadcasters are treated as vital democratic infrastructures, providing essential services that a commercial system will not. Indeed, research shows a positive correlation between the strength of public media systems and the health of democracies. Conversely, “flawed democracies” such as the US tend to have weaker public media systems that rely more on commercial support.

This universal service mission is a key feature of all public media systems, distinguishing them from their commercial counterparts. In the US, public media reach more than 98 percent of the US population. Moreover, public broadcasters offer their programming to all members of society without the barrier of paywalls.

Public media’s commitment to the public interest over commercial gain helps explain its relatively high levels of public trust. Survey data consistently demonstrate that public media are highly trusted across the political spectrum—a fact that’s especially remarkable at a time when most media institutions are facing historically low levels of trust.”

John McCormack and Michael Warren, The Closing of the Conservative Mind. The Dispatch, Dec 2, 2025.

“Founded nearly 75 years ago, ISI is a prominent conservative collegiate intellectual institution in the United States. ISI also runs the Collegiate Network, a collection of alternative conservative newspapers on college campuses across the country, and the eight student journalists had been selected by ISI to attend the retreat and dinner because their campus newspapers were top-performing publications. After a Journalism 101 session at the Art Ovation Hotel in Sarasota, the students filed into a shuttle for a 90-minute trip to Carlson’s home on Gasparilla Island, where Carlson dispensed career advice.

One person left out of Burtka’s photo was Carlson’s special guest at the dinner that night: Alex Jones, who appeared on Carlson’s podcast that aired the next day, April 9.  Jones is one of America’s most prominent conspiracy theorists. He was ordered to pay $1 billion in defamation damages for claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was “staged” with crisis actors, and he has repeatedly said the September 11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” committed by the U.S. government.

By the spring of 2025, it was no longer surprising that Carlson would host Jones for a softball interview. Carlson had already claimed (falsely) in 2024 that Jones had predicted 9/11 and said that Jones had been “vindicated on everything.” Yet for some intimately involved with ISI, it was still a shock that the institution would pay for student journalists to dine with a conspiracy theorist like Jones. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” former ISI President Chris Long told The Dispatch in a text message when asked if he was aware of such an event. Thomas Lynch, former ISI board chairman, offered a similarly incredulous “you’re kidding” in a phone interview with The Dispatch. The dinner wasn’t a secret—one student paper posted a photo with a caption that read, “The Intercollegiate Studies Institute sent one of our own contributors ... to sit down and have dinner with both @tuckerCarlson and Alex Jones!”—but you can forgive Lynch and Long for not closely following the Instagram feed of BYU’s Cougar Chronicle.”

Michael Hirschorn, The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV. New York Times, Dec 14, 2025.

“Just six years ago, 69 percent of respondents to a Cato Institute poll agreed that billionaires “earned their wealth by creating value for others.” An only slightly smaller majority agreed with the statement “We are all better off when people get rich.” Today, one poll after another shows that Americans want the rich to be taxed at higher, even much higher rates… According to the most recent edition of an annual Harris Poll, for the first time, a majority of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to democracy. A remarkable 71 percent believe there should be a wealth tax. A majority believe there should be a cap on how much wealth a person can accumulate.

Billionaires control the cable channels, social media platforms, newspapers, movie studios and essentially everything else that we consume, but for their own information sources they are in some cases more likely to trust their own kind. Semafor documented one ultraexclusive group chat that included Mr. Andreessen and Mr. Srinivasan, among others, in which the self-reinforcing discourse is reported to have pushed many Silicon Valley tycoons toward right-wing politics. “If you weren’t in the business at all,” the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams said of a similar group chat he was a member of, “you’d think everyone was arriving at conclusions independently.”

Van Jones, America Isn’t Divided by ICE — It’s Divided by Reality. Van Jones | Substack, Jan 17, 2026. Largely a media consumption problem, and differing definitions of “law enforcement.”

Ruth Marcus, How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post. The New Yorker, Feb 4, 2026. “The Amazon founder bought the paper to save it. Instead, with a mass layoff, he’s forced it into severe decline.”

Jennifer Schulze, How U.S. Media Uncovered the Truth about the Iran School Strike. Lincoln Square, Mar 13, 2026. “Dogged investigative news reporting has revealed the U.S. role in the deadly school bombing—but you won't hear much about that from Trump-friendly media.” True to form, only some children’s lives matter. This article narrates the process of investigative journalism and the sequence of articles that journalists published on the topic of the Iranian school that was bombed on the first day of the war.

Tim Balk, Tucker Carlson Says He Is ‘Tormented’ by His Past Support for Trump. New York Times, Apr 21, 2026. ““I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people,” said the conservative commentator, who has broken sharply with the president over the war with Iran.”

Adam Johnson, We Analyzed Thousands of News Articles: Here’s the Proof of Pro-Israel Bias in Mainstream Media. The Intercept, May 12, 2026. “U.S. media outlets were crucial in helping Israel sell the Gaza genocide to the American public.”

Sam Biddle, The Pentagon is Running an AI Propaganda Mill Targeting Latin America. The Intercept, Jun 2, 2026. “La Tilde publishes an unusual mix of personal finance guides and articles extolling American military efforts in Latin America.”