Internet Media

Some of the “New Media”

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Article in The Guardian by Richard Luscombe, 5/5/25

Headline:  “Maga media mob: meet the new rightwing faces in the White House briefing room”

Subhead:  “A banjo player and a Black Maga influencer, among others, now attend Trump administration press briefings”

“A disgraced ultra-conservative banjo player ousted from his Grammy-winning band; a far-right conspiracy theorist with alleged ties to Russia; a TikTok creator known as ‘Maga Malfoy’ for his resemblance to the Harry Potter character; and an extremist social media ‘influencer’ once banned from Twitter for posting a video depicting sexual abuse of a child.”

“These are just some of the ‘new media’ personalities courted by the White House to take part in a series of alternative briefings championed by Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/05/white-house-briefing-rightwing-media

Social Media Posts – In What Language?

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Article in The Guardian by Adam Gabbatt, 5/3/25

Headline:  “Trump’s Truth Social posts make no sense – what do they say about his mentality?”

Subhead:  “The president’s little used social media platform offers him a forum for his nonstop haranguing and score-settling”

“No political leader has used social media quite like Donald Trump. But his recent posts on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2021, have become increasingly bizarre: the president using the lack of scrutiny afforded by the platform’s small user base to truly let loose.

“In the hundreds of ‘Truths’ since he took office, Trump has variously used Truth Social to reimagine himself as a king and to urge Americans to ‘BE COOL!’ as the stock market tanked in the wake of his trade war, the president’s seemingly random use of capital letters, punctuation and inaccurate spelling consistent across the messages. . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/03/trump-truth-social-media-posts

‘New Media’ – “Tell Us What to Write”

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Article in the Daily Dot by Mikael Thalen, 4/29/25

Headline:  ” Trump’s first ‘new media’ briefing hosts influencer who spent 7 days convinced the moon had disappeared”

Subhead: ” ‘Has anyone seen the moon lately? I’ve been looking for 7 days.’ “

“A conservative influencer who was convinced last year that the moon had disappeared attended a press briefing on Monday held at the White House.

“Kambree Nelson, an ambassador for the American First Policy Institute, was one of several individuals permitted to join a special briefing reserved solely for members of the ‘new media.’

“ ‘This is our first official influencer briefing,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at the press conference’s start. ‘Millions of Americans are now turning to social media and independent media outlets . . .”

“Nelson, who boasts more than 625,000 followers on X, was immediately ridiculed for her performance, asking Leavitt to tell her what questions she should ask the administration.

“Yet among all the members of the new media invited to the White House, a collection of independent journalists who all support President Donald Trump, Nelson is receiving extra attention given her outlandish beliefs and fears. . .”

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/kambree-nelson-moon-white-house-press-briefing/

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Article in Mediaite by Ahmad Austin Jr., 4/28/25

Headline:  ” ‘New Media’ Reporter Straight Up Asks Karoline Leavitt to Tell Her What to Cover: ‘What Direction Do You Advise Me to Go In?’ “

“During the new media briefing, American First Policy Institute ambassador Kambree Nelson first bashed traditional media outlets for their coverage of the president — before asking Leavitt to give her marching orders.

“ ‘I’ve noticed — this is kind of like a repeat of 2016 — the legacy media has gone back to not reporting anything on President Trump,’ Nelson said. ‘In the beginning, we had them reporting everything that he was doing. Now, they’re kind of going back, again, to not reporting everything that he is actually doing.

“ ‘I’m kind of the nerd when it comes to reporting. I’m not the headline news girl. I’m the nuts-and-bolts, I’m the policy-type nerd; so what direction do you advise me to go into? Like the White House files that y’all send out every single day? Because that’s what people are used to. When they wanna ask me questions, they wanna know the nuts and bolts of everything.’ . . .”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-media-reporter-straight-up-asks-karoline-leavitt-to-tell-her-what-to-cover-what-direction-do-you-advise-me-to-go-in/

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Article in Media Matters by Pete Psipis & Reed McMaster, 4/24/25

Headline:  “By the numbers: As Trump snubs legacy media, data shows his press briefings elevate right-wing outlets”

“A Media Matters review of White House press briefings held so far in President Donald Trump’s second administration found that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called on right-wing media outlets 41% of the time, and 4 of the 5 reporters called on most were from right-wing outlets.

“The press briefings now include a ‘new media’ seat which the White House has used to amplify more right-wing voices. While the White House attacks traditional press freedoms, the press briefings are now littered with biased questions from the administration’s most staunch supporters. . .”

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/numbers-trump-snubs-legacy-media-data-shows-his-press-briefings-elevate-right-wing

Rt. Wing Media Women

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Article in The Guardian by Anna Silman, 4/25/25

Headline:  “Now comes the ‘womanosphere’: the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican”

Subhead:  “A crop of conservative personalities such as Brett Cooper and Candace Owens, and outlets like Evie, are convincing young women of a gender-essentialist worldview”

“Analyses of the 2024 election widely heralded the ‘manosphere’ – the coalition of bro podcasters and YouTubers popular with male audiences – as key to delivering Donald Trump’s victory. According to an AP poll, 56% of men under age 30 went for Trump compared with 41% four years prior. . .”

“Now, there are the beginnings of an organized effort to create a similar alternative rightwing media ecosystem targeting young female US audiences – one of the few demographics that has, until now, leaned substantially Democratic.

“This new ‘womanosphere’ includes (Brett) Cooper’s channel as well as lifestyle magazines like the Conservateur and Evie, Candace Owens’s Club Candace, Alex Clark’s Maha (‘Make America Healthy Again’) talkshow Culture Apothecary, conservative Christian influencer Allie Beth Stuckey’s Relatable, and swimmer turned anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines’s podcast Gaines For Girls. . . . the female answer to Tate. . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/24/womanosphere-conservative-women

Alternative to Hate-Media

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Article in The New Republic by Virginaia Hefferman, 4/23/25

Headline:  “Liberal Media in Crisis? Not The MeidasTouch. It’s Bigger than Rogan.”

Subhead:  “For real. The podcast by Ben Meiselas and his brothers regularly outdraws Joe Rogan’s. Their secret weapon? Reason. Imagine!”

“For years, progressives have fantasized finding a Joe Rogan of their own: someone butch and sonically seductive to beguile America’s acne class with sports jabber and pronoun jokes before turning the screws and making them vote his way.

“But Blue Joe Rogan will never materialize. And that’s for the best. Blood-sport propaganda by a UFC hype man doesn’t work in defense of liberal democracy. Liberalism, after all, rejects demagoguery as coercive, infantilizing, and anathema to critical thinking. While Rogan reliably slams the id with porny language, simian posturing, and primal sounds—and of course the Goebbels combo of repetition and cartoonish lies—progressive gab needs something closer to reason.

“When Ben Meiselas, a mild-mannered lawyer who sees himself as Mr. Rogers, entered the podcast-and-video octagon with the MeidasTouch Network (pronounced Midas, like the king), he seemed plenty reasonable. But no one saw a Rogan-slayer in him. Meiselas didn’t get drunk. He didn’t drone on about kettlebells or yuk it up with Alex Jones. Instead, he sat alone in his living room and, in short intervals, registered measured anger at Trump’s malignancy.. . .”

https://newrepublic.com/article/194187/meidastouch-ben-meiselas-liberal-media-bigger-rogan

Indigenous News Pioneer Honored

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                                                                                    ICT photo

Article in Indian Country Today by Staff. 4/11/25

Headline:  “A call to do more: former ICT editor honored by Harvard”

Subhead:  “Mark Trahant will be receiving the 2025 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence”

“Mark Trahant, former editor-at-large at ICT, has been selected for the 2025 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence for his 50-year long career in journalism and commitment to Indigenous storytelling. . .”

“Trahant directed the revival of Indian Country Today after the news organization went dark in 2017. He brought it back as a digital newspaper with a mobile-first approach in 2018 when it was previously owned by the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C. Back then the newsroom had a staff of three and it grew to more than 30 employees in 2024. . .”

https://ictnews.org/news/a-call-to-do-more-former-ict-editor-honored-by-harvard

Windfall for Some Media Giants?

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 4/10/25

Headline:  “Kill the Bill: Press Group Fights Oregon Measure on Payment by Tech Firms”

“Free Press Action noted that the bill would divert millions into the pocket of corporate media giants and incentivize tech platforms to block local news content entirely.”

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/404954/kill-the-bill-press-group-fights-oregon-measure-o.html

Media Ecosystems

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Article in The Contrarian by Jeff Nesbit, 4/9/25

Headline:  “Here’s why Trump ignores traditional media: He has his own media ecosystem now.”

Subhead:  “And Democrats not only don’t have the same network, but they don’t seem interested in building one.”

“A recent report from Media Matters, a non-profit advocacy group that studies and reports on the state of media in America today, makes a stark reality crystal clear: The principal reason Donald Trump no longer pays any attention to traditional media outlets is that his presidential administration has the right-wing media ecosystem marketing content and messages daily to a mass audience reaching 100 million Americans every single day. . .”

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/heres-why-trump-ignores-traditional

Tariffs in the Media

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Article in The New Republic by Greg Sargent. 4/4/25

Headline:  ” ‘Horrifying’: Trump’s Weird, Confused Rant to Media as Markets Tanked”

Subhead:  “As Trump’s shockingly destructive global tariffs cause the markets to crater and he rambles bizarrely about it to reporters, congressional scholar Norm Ornstein walks through how this madness can be stopped.”

“After President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from all over the globe, prompting the markets to implode, he took a question about it on Thursday. He ranted and rambled delusionally about how everything is just great. He bizarrely likened the country to a patient that had just undergone advanced surgery without grasping why this metaphor is the opposite of reassuring. . .”

https://newrepublic.com/article/193604/horrifying-trump-weird-confused-rant-media-markets-tanked

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 4/4/25

Headline:  “Jim Cramer: Trump tariff numbers ‘do not make any sense’  “

Subhead:  “CNBC host Jim Cramer tore into President Trump over the sweeping new tariffs his administration announced this week on nearly all foreign trading partners.”

“ ‘The numbers do not make any sense,’ Cramer said Thursday on CNN.  He claimed the president’s economic advisers and aides on trade ‘really screwed up’ and constructed the tariffs ‘in an ill-advised way.’

“ ‘And I was very let down as someone who really, truly believes that free trade is awful for the American working person,’ Cramer continued in the comments, first highlighted by Mediaite. ‘This is what they came up with? Jeez, come on. Have some gumption. Have some math.’ . . .”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5232027-jim-cramer-cnbc-donald-trump-tariff-numbers/

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Article in The Washington Post by Jeremy Barr, 4/4/25

Headline:  “Some corners of conservative media aren’t thrilled with Trump’s tariffs”

Subhead:  “The Wall Street Journal editorial board, the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro and some voices on Fox News have expressed concern about higher prices for Americans. . .”

“President Donald Trump’s global tariff plan, which has unsettled financial markets around the world since it was announced Wednesday, has so far received the backing of many of his most reliable supporters in conservative media. ‘The world’s free ride is now over,’ Fox News host Sean Hannity said in his monologue that night, and borrowed the president’s branding by calling the tariffs a ‘liberation day shake-up’ on Thursday. . .”

“Still, several prominent conservatives in media notably came out against the tariffs, citing the potential for higher prices for the American people and hits to businesses.

“Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the Daily Wire, called Trump’s tariffs ‘probably unconstitutional” and also illogical. ‘The president’s vision of international trade is, I’m sorry to say, mistaken,’ he said on his Thursday streaming show. ‘This is a massive tax increase on American consumers. That’s what it is.’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2025/04/04/fox-news-tariffs-ben-shapiro-conservative-media-trump/

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Article in Media Matters by Gideon Taaffe & Noah Dowe, 4/4/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media tell Americans to embrace the tariff pain, wait for a ‘golden age’ “

“Right-wing media are predicting a ‘golden age’ as President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ hits some of the United States’ closest trading partners with sweeping tariffs.

“Economists are warning about recession, inflation, and job loss as a result of Trump’s tariffs, but right-wing media are largely ignoring these predictions as they endorse the White House’s economic agenda, downplaying the negative stock market and telling their audiences to anticipate a return of American manufacturing.

“While some right-wing personalities have voiced concern over the tariffs’ potential harms, much of the commentary has held that the U.S. must embrace ‘short-term’ pain in order to get long-term benefits, that tariffs will bolster the U.S. economy and raise revenue, or that the tariffs are just a ‘negotiation weapon.’ ”

https://www.mediamatters.org/tariffs-trade/right-wing-media-tell-americans-embrace-tariff-pain-wait-golden-age

Media Overload

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Article in The Guardian by Michael Savage. 4/1/25

Headline:  “‘I can’t cope with it any more’: newsrooms scramble to retain audiences amid the big switch-off”

Subhead:  “In an international survey last year, 39% of respondents said they selectively avoid news to some degree”

“When Deborah Turness, the head of BBC News, informed her staff recently that she was shaking up how they worked as part of a drive to combat “the growing trend of news avoidance”, she had in mind the likes of Dave Ayres, a handyman from Leeds.

“ ‘I used to have the news on the TV every morning for an hour or so as I got the children ready for school and completed my household tasks,’ he said. ‘Now it has literally been switched off and unplugged. I can’t cope with it any more. It’s just too much and there’s nothing I can do about it.’

“Though he dips into his favourite news apps occasionally in the evening, he now strictly limits his news consumption. He’s not alone. The Guardian has been contacted by a series of one-time news junkies who are now seeking to restrict their news intake after suffering from disturbed sleep or a downturn in their mood.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/01/i-cant-cope-with-it-any-more-newsrooms-scramble-to-retain-audiences-amid-the-big-switch-off