Excellent: “The danger isn’t that journalists become propagandists overnight—it’s that they internalize propaganda’s logic while believing they’re protecting neutrality.”
Bari Weiss's career is based upon her insistence that she alone is the only "neutral journalist" alive, and deserving of applaud for that. If she's called out with evidence that she is biased on a matter, she attacks, and claims victimhood for herself. Her current views toward Israel are extremely partisan and show in her reporting; and toward corporate media, she aligns with faux "news" that those media are left-wing cesspools. She believes she is a libertarian, fighting for the truth. She does not; she fights for getting a place at the power table; and now she thinks she has it.
I think every city that hosts this kind of media should turn on them, as they assist in declaring war on us, and tear gas our neighborhoods and vulnerable communities.
▶︎ I would like to believe that I am well-read in a wide spectrum of non-fiction and fiction literature.
▶︎ I would like to believe that my vocabulary is in the upper 5%.
But I know that when I read many of the commentaries beautifully written by Mike and many of the comments made by readers, I am often wondering, "what ever happened to speaking to the masses, and not to the eclectic few?"
Here's what I mean. I have watched the slow changes in almost all the TV mainstream media go from (a) reporting, to (b) normalizing, to (c) rationalizing, to sometimes (d) identifying and rarely to (e) opining..... about what has and is occurring in the Age of Trumpism.
When current events take a major detour into the realm of threatening the ethics of society, the truths that most of us we live by, and the fabric of values that a humanistic and caring people would hopefully be living by (the good, the beautiful and the true),
would you not believe it is far time for news "reporters" to go from (a) and stop meandering in b, and c, and move quickly to d & ultimately e?
And we watched, bore witness, to how Trump and the Republican Congress dealt with the 2020 election and the hoped for peaceful transfer of political office. We saw how this absurd claim of a rigged election has been maintained by Trump and so many Republicans. We saw how Trump and many Republicans facilitated the vicious attack on Capitol police and the destructive nature of their "protest." And we see how Trump and Republicans and their TV mouthpiece Fox News called the latest No Kings a "hate America" protest.
Every reporter of any moral fiber should be rendering far more than simply reporting. They should be chicken littles, but with legitimate alarms that the sky is indeed falling,
Democracy is falling,
Fascism is calling.
I do not need what we called in the olden days "vocabulary giants" to tell me what I am seeing and hearing.
Fox News is like being in Moscow. They should rename themselves Tass Media, or Putin's Corner.
What happened to calling a spade a spade, to the "This is Paul Harvey and now for the rest of the story". What happened to Newscasters with testicular fortitude (i.e., BALLS) like Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Peter Jennings?
Wake up America! You are living in a Fascist country. One more year of Trump and you can kiss any legitimate Midterm election adios. Soon, many of us will be the immigrants having one hell of a hard time immigrating to a country where individual human values are cherished.
If bias means to lean toward one direction but for legitimate reasons, then I am all for bias.
When I sit there, with my thumb up my ass and do nothing and say nothing, then my life and that of my children will turn to nothing.
I appreciate Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O'Donnell for speaking out as they do. I think Katy Tur is almost at that place too. But the rest of the so-called "radical left news media" has to stop wasting air time in normalizing and rationalizing what Trump, Johnson, Graham, and others say and do. If it looks like shit, smells like shit, feels like shit and even tastes like shit, then guess what?
What are you going to say when all is said and done under Trump? I suppose you might say, "Well, I am glad I didn't step in it."
I have no opinion on your bullet-points per se, but I certainly support your overall message. I don’t think Bari gets it. I also think she’s getting paid not to get it.
Mike, Have you ever asked yourself why the media bias chart is bent towards some version of selective reporting or even outright lying selective whether of left or right?
Think about it for a moment.. .
There is no actual media source showing both fair and factual reporting on either side.
That is why centrists are sick of both left and rignt.
Consider, unfortunately, thst this is enough for many in the middle to vote for Trump. (Yes, I know....)
There is this sense of "we are only being nice" and by the way you have no option but to agree......because one has a cudgel in ones hand...
If one believes BS on the right or BS on the left l, its probably because one hasn't done the job of being critical enough of ones own side.
This is not to suport Bari, in particular, but to elevate discourse in any way we can.
You're describing the problem I'm trying to solve, not refuting my argument. Yes, the media landscape is fractured. Yes, "centrists" feel like both sides are lying. But your diagnosis—that this proves both sides are equally unreliable—is precisely the false equivalence that enables authoritarian capture of journalism.
When federal agents conduct warrantless mass detentions, when the President's adviser calls judicial review "insurrection," when ICE gets deployed to cultural events as ethnic intimidation—covering these facts isn't "left bias." It's journalism. And when one side systematically attacks any accountability coverage as partisan, the problem isn't that journalism needs to "balance" by softening that coverage. The problem is that coordinated attacks on legitimate reporting have successfully created the perception you're describing: that covering what's actually happening is just another form of bias.
The "middle" you're describing isn't balance—it's the paralysis authoritarians need you to feel. When you can't distinguish reporting from propaganda, when everything looks equally unreliable, when frustrated confusion feels like sophistication—you've lost the capacity for democratic judgment. And that's not an accident. It's the outcome.
“When federal agents conduct warrantless mass detentions, when the President's adviser calls judicial review "insurrection," when ICE gets deployed to cultural events as ethnic intimidation—covering these facts isn't "left bias." It's journalism.”
It annoys me to see commenters describing US media as having left or right bias. Considering that the Democrats are far right, Democrat-biased media, while being closer to the so-called "center" than MAGA-biased media, is still far right-biased. Any media that is "leftist" or "left-biased" operates outside of the USA and is not the topic of discussion here. That so-called public broadcasting can be captured by right-biased journalism is a reflection of how skewed to the right the Overton window is in the USA. That's why people consider their own biases to be unbiased when it's all absolutely corrupted by this political tilt to the far right, such that anything that is remotely right or centrist (let alone left or far left) is considered radical bias.
I think the Democrat message may be steering away from “woke” concepts, trying to distance themselves from the far-left. Would you say that’s moving to the right?
Given that Democrat messaging was already far right, distancing themselves from "woke" concepts is already a move to the farthest right. The problem here is both parties are far right and Democrats simply hide their cruelty, while MAGA Republicans do not hide their amoral cruelty and fealty to money. "Woke" was always lip service in Democratic mouths. An entire shift in the status quo to neuter the rentier class and claim back power by the people for the people is needed, not the current power for the owner class, as has been perpetrated for the last half century. The media successfully hides the need for this class war by formenting culture wars.
Thank you, Mike, for opening the door to more awakening! As I understand this, corporate media are befuddled about their role in life. They are stuck in reporting semblances rather than unpacking substance. The actual news we need to know is what's happening to people across the heartland, and how our fellow citizens are responding to it. That will encompass what's relevant about MAGA madness, and it's the proper focus.
We can't expect "the news" to do any investigative reporting, but whoever does should be laser-focused on the apparatus dismantling our country, the permission structures for malignant corporations and oligarchs, the institutional corruption and orchestrated public mental health decline, the discredited nature of a privatized economy.
Hi Mike, Thank you. See my comment to "The coming clash of civilisations".
We may be violently on the same page now I realise where you are coming from and agree where the dangers lie. I fear there is a still a lack of realisation among many who think the "nice" people on their side can take over and all will be well.
Bari Weiss is Editor in Chief of CBS news because antidemocratic corporate CEO'S are paying her $150 mil to kill any and all bad news about you-know-who.
Essentially, the bigwigs at Paramount took Weiss's "media company" (The Free Press), off her hands with a fat paycheck and (no doubt) orders to turn the CBS News Department into FOX 2.0. No bias? Weiss has an independent brand? Gimme a break. Weiss is the worst kind of sell-out; One who actually believes that people believe her act. She's just another greedy liar willing to lie for the highest bidder, even if it means shitting on our 1st Amendment.
Like so many, she’s allowed her aversion to “woke” to throw herself into the arms of the far-right. Andreesen hasn’t poured money into her brand for truth or unbiased writing.
News organisations have been falling into this trap for a long time. Smoking? Climate change? Doesn't matter how clear the facts are, you have to present both sides and give them equal time or you're "biased".
Maybe this is an East Coast thing. I don't find the context for this piece. I think there's legitimate criticism here, but I can't tell who the ultimate target is. I think your readers have an understanding of the collapse of real journalism at the Bigs, in favor of currying acquiescence to the corporate overlords who are in bed with authoritarian impulses. Alan's comment below is what I get out of this.
The target is the analytical framework that treats coordinated attacks on journalism as legitimate criticism requiring accommodation—regardless of whether Weiss intends this outcome, her methodology (asking "why does the country think you're biased?" without first asking if that perception corresponds to reality) trains journalists to soften coverage of authoritarian violations to avoid appearing partisan. This serves the power structure that profits from democratic confusion: when journalism internalizes the logic that reporting what's actually happening is "biased" if it makes one side look bad, authoritarians don't need censorship—they just need journalists accommodating their frame. The stakes are whether accountability journalism can survive when sophisticated editors treat asymmetric bad-faith attacks as evidence that coverage needs "balancing" rather than as manipulation that needs exposing.
“when journalism internalizes the logic that reporting what's actually happening is "biased" if it makes one side look bad, authoritarians don't need censorship—they just need journalists accommodating their frame.”
I keep quoting you but you express my thoughts better than I can myself. If telling the truth makes one side look worse than the other, then so be it. If only journalists would both understand and fight for this.
What a joke. Of course much of the main-lame-stream media is biased, though often inadvertently but no less problematically. Couple of examples from CNN, the NYTimes, and Slate:
CNN: Thomas has been the subject of global scrutiny after winning a host of NCAA women’s races, triggering an outcry from those who thought she – as a transgender woman – held an unfair advantage over her competitors.
Except that "Lia" -- AKA William -- is just a male transvestite who was swinging his dick around in the women's change room. Or maybe "she" just has an overly large clitoris? 🙄
And from my open letter:
"The crux of the problem is the too common use of phrases like “transgender girls” and “transgender female athletes” in the two Times articles, and the view, in the Slate article, that humans can “transition from one sex to another”."
Those "transgender girls" and "transgender female athletes" are nothing of the sort. They're simply juvenile males -- i.e., testicle-havers -- and are most certainly not actual females, i.e., ovary-havers.
And absolutely NO human will EVER change sex -- a medical and biological impossibility. A medical scandal and crime of the century that too many "doctors", under the umbrella of "gender-affirming care", are claiming otherwise. A crime that CNN, Slate, and the NYTimes are parties to.
There is actually a medical condition where babies are born with both male and female genitalia. I suggest you look at the research. It is well documented and has nothing to do with ‘wokeness’.
🙄 NYPost: "Thomas, 22, who spent the previous three years swimming with the men’s team before she began transitioning to a woman, has created an uneasy environment in the locker room, as she still retains her biologically male genitalia — which are sometimes exposed — and is attracted to women, one teammate told the Daily Mail in an interview."
No doubt there are such "anomalous conditions". But some solid if not "pointed" evidence -- sticking out like the proverbial sore thumbs ... -- that Thomas is a "fully-intact male" -- complete with testicles and penis hanging out in the breeze in the women's locker-room. He clearly has not at all "transitioned to a woman"; he clearly hasn't "acquired" the ovaries that define the category "female", nor the genitalia that is characteristic of members of that category.
But, speaking of those anomalous conditions, y'all might have some interest in my recent post on the topic:
"These CAIS 'Girls' are Males; So saith Colin Wright, so let it be done ..."
Not quite sure what Wright and his ilk think which toilets those "girls" should be obliged to use, which sports leagues they might be prevented from competing in ...
Excellent: “The danger isn’t that journalists become propagandists overnight—it’s that they internalize propaganda’s logic while believing they’re protecting neutrality.”
Performative balance *is* bias.
Bari Weiss's career is based upon her insistence that she alone is the only "neutral journalist" alive, and deserving of applaud for that. If she's called out with evidence that she is biased on a matter, she attacks, and claims victimhood for herself. Her current views toward Israel are extremely partisan and show in her reporting; and toward corporate media, she aligns with faux "news" that those media are left-wing cesspools. She believes she is a libertarian, fighting for the truth. She does not; she fights for getting a place at the power table; and now she thinks she has it.
Aka “have you stopped beating your wife?”
With what Bari has allowed TFP to become, I can only imagine what CBS will become now.
You’d think she and the TFP might’ve gazed at the commentary cesspool they created and reflected a bit.
I think every city that hosts this kind of media should turn on them, as they assist in declaring war on us, and tear gas our neighborhoods and vulnerable communities.
▶︎ I would like to believe that I am well-read in a wide spectrum of non-fiction and fiction literature.
▶︎ I would like to believe that my vocabulary is in the upper 5%.
But I know that when I read many of the commentaries beautifully written by Mike and many of the comments made by readers, I am often wondering, "what ever happened to speaking to the masses, and not to the eclectic few?"
Here's what I mean. I have watched the slow changes in almost all the TV mainstream media go from (a) reporting, to (b) normalizing, to (c) rationalizing, to sometimes (d) identifying and rarely to (e) opining..... about what has and is occurring in the Age of Trumpism.
When current events take a major detour into the realm of threatening the ethics of society, the truths that most of us we live by, and the fabric of values that a humanistic and caring people would hopefully be living by (the good, the beautiful and the true),
would you not believe it is far time for news "reporters" to go from (a) and stop meandering in b, and c, and move quickly to d & ultimately e?
And we watched, bore witness, to how Trump and the Republican Congress dealt with the 2020 election and the hoped for peaceful transfer of political office. We saw how this absurd claim of a rigged election has been maintained by Trump and so many Republicans. We saw how Trump and many Republicans facilitated the vicious attack on Capitol police and the destructive nature of their "protest." And we see how Trump and Republicans and their TV mouthpiece Fox News called the latest No Kings a "hate America" protest.
Every reporter of any moral fiber should be rendering far more than simply reporting. They should be chicken littles, but with legitimate alarms that the sky is indeed falling,
Democracy is falling,
Fascism is calling.
I do not need what we called in the olden days "vocabulary giants" to tell me what I am seeing and hearing.
Fox News is like being in Moscow. They should rename themselves Tass Media, or Putin's Corner.
What happened to calling a spade a spade, to the "This is Paul Harvey and now for the rest of the story". What happened to Newscasters with testicular fortitude (i.e., BALLS) like Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Peter Jennings?
Wake up America! You are living in a Fascist country. One more year of Trump and you can kiss any legitimate Midterm election adios. Soon, many of us will be the immigrants having one hell of a hard time immigrating to a country where individual human values are cherished.
If bias means to lean toward one direction but for legitimate reasons, then I am all for bias.
When I sit there, with my thumb up my ass and do nothing and say nothing, then my life and that of my children will turn to nothing.
I appreciate Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O'Donnell for speaking out as they do. I think Katy Tur is almost at that place too. But the rest of the so-called "radical left news media" has to stop wasting air time in normalizing and rationalizing what Trump, Johnson, Graham, and others say and do. If it looks like shit, smells like shit, feels like shit and even tastes like shit, then guess what?
What are you going to say when all is said and done under Trump? I suppose you might say, "Well, I am glad I didn't step in it."
I have no opinion on your bullet-points per se, but I certainly support your overall message. I don’t think Bari gets it. I also think she’s getting paid not to get it.
Mike, Have you ever asked yourself why the media bias chart is bent towards some version of selective reporting or even outright lying selective whether of left or right?
Think about it for a moment.. .
There is no actual media source showing both fair and factual reporting on either side.
That is why centrists are sick of both left and rignt.
Consider, unfortunately, thst this is enough for many in the middle to vote for Trump. (Yes, I know....)
There is this sense of "we are only being nice" and by the way you have no option but to agree......because one has a cudgel in ones hand...
If one believes BS on the right or BS on the left l, its probably because one hasn't done the job of being critical enough of ones own side.
This is not to suport Bari, in particular, but to elevate discourse in any way we can.
You're describing the problem I'm trying to solve, not refuting my argument. Yes, the media landscape is fractured. Yes, "centrists" feel like both sides are lying. But your diagnosis—that this proves both sides are equally unreliable—is precisely the false equivalence that enables authoritarian capture of journalism.
When federal agents conduct warrantless mass detentions, when the President's adviser calls judicial review "insurrection," when ICE gets deployed to cultural events as ethnic intimidation—covering these facts isn't "left bias." It's journalism. And when one side systematically attacks any accountability coverage as partisan, the problem isn't that journalism needs to "balance" by softening that coverage. The problem is that coordinated attacks on legitimate reporting have successfully created the perception you're describing: that covering what's actually happening is just another form of bias.
The "middle" you're describing isn't balance—it's the paralysis authoritarians need you to feel. When you can't distinguish reporting from propaganda, when everything looks equally unreliable, when frustrated confusion feels like sophistication—you've lost the capacity for democratic judgment. And that's not an accident. It's the outcome.
“When federal agents conduct warrantless mass detentions, when the President's adviser calls judicial review "insurrection," when ICE gets deployed to cultural events as ethnic intimidation—covering these facts isn't "left bias." It's journalism.”
One million thank-you’s for saying that 🎯
It annoys me to see commenters describing US media as having left or right bias. Considering that the Democrats are far right, Democrat-biased media, while being closer to the so-called "center" than MAGA-biased media, is still far right-biased. Any media that is "leftist" or "left-biased" operates outside of the USA and is not the topic of discussion here. That so-called public broadcasting can be captured by right-biased journalism is a reflection of how skewed to the right the Overton window is in the USA. That's why people consider their own biases to be unbiased when it's all absolutely corrupted by this political tilt to the far right, such that anything that is remotely right or centrist (let alone left or far left) is considered radical bias.
I think the Democrat message may be steering away from “woke” concepts, trying to distance themselves from the far-left. Would you say that’s moving to the right?
Given that Democrat messaging was already far right, distancing themselves from "woke" concepts is already a move to the farthest right. The problem here is both parties are far right and Democrats simply hide their cruelty, while MAGA Republicans do not hide their amoral cruelty and fealty to money. "Woke" was always lip service in Democratic mouths. An entire shift in the status quo to neuter the rentier class and claim back power by the people for the people is needed, not the current power for the owner class, as has been perpetrated for the last half century. The media successfully hides the need for this class war by formenting culture wars.
I am not a fan of her, and I think she will present the world with a FOX clone that looks a little bit classier.
Thank you, Mike, for opening the door to more awakening! As I understand this, corporate media are befuddled about their role in life. They are stuck in reporting semblances rather than unpacking substance. The actual news we need to know is what's happening to people across the heartland, and how our fellow citizens are responding to it. That will encompass what's relevant about MAGA madness, and it's the proper focus.
We can't expect "the news" to do any investigative reporting, but whoever does should be laser-focused on the apparatus dismantling our country, the permission structures for malignant corporations and oligarchs, the institutional corruption and orchestrated public mental health decline, the discredited nature of a privatized economy.
Hi Mike, Thank you. See my comment to "The coming clash of civilisations".
We may be violently on the same page now I realise where you are coming from and agree where the dangers lie. I fear there is a still a lack of realisation among many who think the "nice" people on their side can take over and all will be well.
Bari Weiss is Editor in Chief of CBS news because antidemocratic corporate CEO'S are paying her $150 mil to kill any and all bad news about you-know-who.
Essentially, the bigwigs at Paramount took Weiss's "media company" (The Free Press), off her hands with a fat paycheck and (no doubt) orders to turn the CBS News Department into FOX 2.0. No bias? Weiss has an independent brand? Gimme a break. Weiss is the worst kind of sell-out; One who actually believes that people believe her act. She's just another greedy liar willing to lie for the highest bidder, even if it means shitting on our 1st Amendment.
Like so many, she’s allowed her aversion to “woke” to throw herself into the arms of the far-right. Andreesen hasn’t poured money into her brand for truth or unbiased writing.
News organisations have been falling into this trap for a long time. Smoking? Climate change? Doesn't matter how clear the facts are, you have to present both sides and give them equal time or you're "biased".
Maybe this is an East Coast thing. I don't find the context for this piece. I think there's legitimate criticism here, but I can't tell who the ultimate target is. I think your readers have an understanding of the collapse of real journalism at the Bigs, in favor of currying acquiescence to the corporate overlords who are in bed with authoritarian impulses. Alan's comment below is what I get out of this.
The target is the analytical framework that treats coordinated attacks on journalism as legitimate criticism requiring accommodation—regardless of whether Weiss intends this outcome, her methodology (asking "why does the country think you're biased?" without first asking if that perception corresponds to reality) trains journalists to soften coverage of authoritarian violations to avoid appearing partisan. This serves the power structure that profits from democratic confusion: when journalism internalizes the logic that reporting what's actually happening is "biased" if it makes one side look bad, authoritarians don't need censorship—they just need journalists accommodating their frame. The stakes are whether accountability journalism can survive when sophisticated editors treat asymmetric bad-faith attacks as evidence that coverage needs "balancing" rather than as manipulation that needs exposing.
“when journalism internalizes the logic that reporting what's actually happening is "biased" if it makes one side look bad, authoritarians don't need censorship—they just need journalists accommodating their frame.”
I keep quoting you but you express my thoughts better than I can myself. If telling the truth makes one side look worse than the other, then so be it. If only journalists would both understand and fight for this.
What a joke. Of course much of the main-lame-stream media is biased, though often inadvertently but no less problematically. Couple of examples from CNN, the NYTimes, and Slate:
CNN: Thomas has been the subject of global scrutiny after winning a host of NCAA women’s races, triggering an outcry from those who thought she – as a transgender woman – held an unfair advantage over her competitors.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/17/sport/swimming-lia-thomas-interview-intl
Except that "Lia" -- AKA William -- is just a male transvestite who was swinging his dick around in the women's change room. Or maybe "she" just has an overly large clitoris? 🙄
And from my open letter:
"The crux of the problem is the too common use of phrases like “transgender girls” and “transgender female athletes” in the two Times articles, and the view, in the Slate article, that humans can “transition from one sex to another”."
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/open-letters-ideological-capture
Those "transgender girls" and "transgender female athletes" are nothing of the sort. They're simply juvenile males -- i.e., testicle-havers -- and are most certainly not actual females, i.e., ovary-havers.
And absolutely NO human will EVER change sex -- a medical and biological impossibility. A medical scandal and crime of the century that too many "doctors", under the umbrella of "gender-affirming care", are claiming otherwise. A crime that CNN, Slate, and the NYTimes are parties to.
There is actually a medical condition where babies are born with both male and female genitalia. I suggest you look at the research. It is well documented and has nothing to do with ‘wokeness’.
Lia Thomas is transgender, not “intersex”. A male who should not be in women's swimming.
He's not even intersex. He's a male transvestite, he's a fully-intact male.
See my post in the same thread with articles from the NYPost and the Daily Mail:
https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/teammates-are-uneasy-changing-in-locker-room-with-trans-upenn-swimmer-lia-thomas/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10445679/Lia-Thomas-UPenn-teammate-says-trans-swimmer-doesnt-cover-genitals-locker-room.html
🙄 NYPost: "Thomas, 22, who spent the previous three years swimming with the men’s team before she began transitioning to a woman, has created an uneasy environment in the locker room, as she still retains her biologically male genitalia — which are sometimes exposed — and is attracted to women, one teammate told the Daily Mail in an interview."
https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/teammates-are-uneasy-changing-in-locker-room-with-trans-upenn-swimmer-lia-thomas/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10445679/Lia-Thomas-UPenn-teammate-says-trans-swimmer-doesnt-cover-genitals-locker-room.html
No doubt there are such "anomalous conditions". But some solid if not "pointed" evidence -- sticking out like the proverbial sore thumbs ... -- that Thomas is a "fully-intact male" -- complete with testicles and penis hanging out in the breeze in the women's locker-room. He clearly has not at all "transitioned to a woman"; he clearly hasn't "acquired" the ovaries that define the category "female", nor the genitalia that is characteristic of members of that category.
But, speaking of those anomalous conditions, y'all might have some interest in my recent post on the topic:
"These CAIS 'Girls' are Males; So saith Colin Wright, so let it be done ..."
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/these-cais-girls-are-males
Not quite sure what Wright and his ilk think which toilets those "girls" should be obliged to use, which sports leagues they might be prevented from competing in ...
Because the truth is biased against Trump?