Media Turmoil

The Door is Closing on Salon

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Article in The Wrap by Benjamin Lindsay, 11/5/26

Headline: “Salon, Pioneering Digital News Website, Shutters After 31 Years”

Subhead:  “It’s difficult to find the right words for the end of something that has meant so much to so many people,” site leadership writes in an open letter”

“. . .Founded by a small group of journalists on an aspirational idea of “what journalism could be,” the site touted a “strong voice, a curiosity about the world and a belief that the internet could bring journalism and readers together in new ways.” Its founding editors helped pioneer the internet news medium that came “to define an entirely new era of publishing,” the letter reads. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/journalism/salon-shuts-down/

MAGA Media Pointing. . .

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Article in Media Matters by Noah VanDowe & Zachary Pleat, 11/5/26

Headline: “‘A clown show’: The right-wing media blame game over the midterms is full steam ahead”

Subhead: “Reeling from Republican losses, conservative hosts blamed each other, the party, and Donald Trump himself”

“Following the 2026 midterm elections, which resulted in massive Democratic victories to flip control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as an end to decades of Republican dominance in Texas and other Southern and Midwestern states, right-wing media commentators wasted little time before searching for scapegoats. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/clown-show-right-wing-media-blame-game-over-midterms-full-steam-ahead

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Article in Status by Natalie Korach, 11/4/26

Headline:  “MAGA’s Midterm Meltdown”

Subhead: “After Democrats’ historic victory Tuesday night, MAGA Media figures are turning on one another over the GOP debacle – and telling Status the party must move on from Trump”

“. . .By the end of the night, of course, the picture looked dramatically different. Democrats had delivered a stunning rebuke of Republicans, flipping longtime GOP strongholds in the Senate, including Texas and South Carolina, and leaving right-wing media figures scrambling to explain how they had so badly misread the electorate. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://archive.ph/74jty#selection-639.0-679.104

MAGA Media at Odds

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Article in The Washington Post by Scott Nover, 11/4/26

Headline:  “A MAGA media civil war erupts over who’s to blame for the GOP’s thrashing”

Subhead:  “Trump’s allies cite the Iran war, the economy and one another after Republicans’ election rout exposed deep divisions in the MAGA media world.”

“. . .These pronouncements from the Republican Party’s two standard-bearers did little to quell the finger-pointing from right-wing influencers and media personalities after the massive blue wave on election night.

“By Wednesday morning, the party’s media firebrands sought not only answers but also scapegoats. Commentators and influential right-wing personalities offered sharply different accounts of what went wrong. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/11/04/maga-media-civil-war-erupts-over-whos-blame-gops-thrashing/

MAGA-Media Apocalypse?

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Article in The Bulkwark by Will Sommer, 11/2/26

Headline:  “MAGA Preps for the World to End—Literally”

Subhead: “With Republicans fearing electoral doom, right-wing pundits send their audience to the bunker.”

“ROUGHLY TWENTY-FOUR HOURS FROM NOW, the Republican party could be looking at a set of catastrophic results in the midterm elections. If polls are to be believed, the party’s defeat could be severe enough to represent a repudiation of the party’s entire direction over the past decade.

“Yet pro-Trump media figures are urging their audiences to focus their attention on an even more dire possibility: a total global apocalypse. Whether it’s the prospect of a world-ending war, a debilitating cyberattack, or some other kind of catastrophe, luminaries on the right increasingly feel the end may be nigh. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/maga-preps-doomer-prepper-for-the-world-to-end-literally

Media Michigan Shockwave

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 11/2/26

Headline: “Haley Stevens’ stunning endorsement set off a media firestorm. Will Michigan voters care?”

Subhead:  “The Michigan Democrat withdrew her support for Abdul El-Sayed and endorsed Republican Mike Rogers just days before Election Day”

“. . .The New York Times’ Bayliss Wagner, Reid J. Epstein and Tim Balk wrote, “The extraordinary development reflected both the bitter disagreements over Israel and the personal animosity between the two prominent Michigan Democrats. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2026/haley-stevens-endorses-mike-rogers-michigan-senate-race/

Hear, Hear Mr. President?

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Article in AlterNet by Sarah K. Burris, 10/30/26

Headline: “Morning Joe has a new theory behind Trump’s ‘crazed rage’ at the media”

“. . .Jonathan Lemier noted that aides inside the White House have been saying for a while that the president simply can’t hear anymore and he frequently must lean in and ask people to repeat themselves. As his niece Mary Trump has noted several times, Trump doesn’t like to show weakness. So needing a hearing aid would likely make him feel weak. . . ”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/trump-mental-health-2678170734/

Fox in a Whirlpool

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Article in AlterNet by Matthew Rosza, 10/29/26

Headline:  “Celebration as Dan Rather exposes Fox News crash and burn”

“. . .’It was satisfying to learn that Fox “News, long the biggest blight on American journalism, is losing viewers just before a momentous election,’ reported Dan Rather and Team Steady on Thursday. ‘And it’s not a small drop. Fox has lost more than a quarter of its viewers compared to a year ago. It was the largest decline of any cable news channel in the month before an election in a decade, according to The Hollywood Reporter. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/trump-rather/

Challenge: Keeping-up With the Lies

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Article in Poynter by Angie Drobnic Holan, 10/28/26

Headline:  “Fact-checking changed journalism. Then the falsehoods changed, too.”

Subhead:  “Twenty years after PolitiFact launched, fact-checkers face an information environment more chaotic than the one they set out to fix”

“PolitiFact started out of discontent with our own field of political journalism. We thought journalists parroted far too many talking points and messages they knew were not true, primarily out of deference to authority. . .”

“Today, whenever a candidate repeats a well-worn lie, it’s standard practice for a story to point out that the claim is false or unsupported by evidence. I think that is the most important accomplishment of the past 20 years. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2026/history-fact-checking-challenges-future-ai/

“60 Minutes” Sinking Lower

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 10/28/26

Headline: “Embattled CBS leader Bari Weiss downplays concerns about weak 60 Minutes ratings”

Subhead: “CBS News editor-in-chief sidesteps viewership concerns and says flagship show doing ‘tremendously well’”

“. . .Weiss completely overhauled 60 Minutes in late May, ousting the show’s executive producer and parting ways with three top correspondents, including Scott Pelley. But the show has struggled to even match last season’s viewership, which averaged 9.1 million viewers per episode.

“The show’s most recent episode drew just 5.64 million viewers, ‘one of the smallest audiences for the program in years’, Variety reported. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/oct/28/bari-weiss-cbs-news-60-minutes

New WH Press-Pool-Room Use?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 10/20/26

Headline:  “Opinion | Buried in Trump’s 1,300-word Bill Maher rant was some news about the press”

Subhead:  “In his record-long post, the president said he isn’t bringing back the White House pool. Moving the press, however, is apparently on the table.”

“. . .There were rumors recently that Trump was thinking of turning the White House briefing room into an indoor swimming pool.

“Trump wrote in his Truth Social post, “I am not building a swimming pool in the White House Briefing Room, and never had any intention of doing so.”

“But then Trump added, “I am thinking about moving the Press, and putting them in a different location, but I will use that location for very badly needed space. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/trump-bill-maher-truth-social-post/