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media



  • The Rise and Fall of "Girls Gone Wild"

    Joe Francis's media empire of exploitation was inescapable in the culture of the early 2000s. Here's how he ran afoul of the law and cultural disapproval of sexism—though that's not necessarily how he remembers it. 



  • With Tucker, Fox Painted Itself Into a Corner

    by Nicole Hemmer

    Carlson was the key figure that allowed Fox News to avoid being eclipsed by MAGA and the ability of Donald Trump to command media attention without the network's help. Now the network must reckon with the costs – in legal settlements and journalistic legitimacy—of letting Carlson run the show. 



  • Tucker Carlson Embodies the GOP's Cynicism

    by Tom Nichols

    "If you were trying to undermine a nation and dissolve its hopes for the future, you could hardly design a better vehicle than Tucker Carlson Tonight."



  • How Fox News Helped Break the American Right

    by Matthew Dallek

    The Republican Party has long struggled to keep extremists within its ranks at bay, if partly for political reasons. But the rise of Fox News has destroyed the guardrails older generations of mainstream conservatives set up against conspiracists, hatemongers, and bigots. 



  • How One News Desk Got Iraq Right When Others Failed

    by John Walcott

    The former head of Knight-Ridder's national security desk explains how his agency passed by the agency bigshots, interviewed experts and analysts closer to the intelligence, and followed up on red flags that others missed in the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, instead of protecting their access to the administration. 



  • Fox's Handling of the "Big Lie" was Cowardly, but Not Unusual

    by Kathryn J. McGarr

    News organizations' standards of objectivity have long allowed public figures and politicians to proclaim lies without pushback, leaving the public to be arbiters of truth and falsity. 



  • On "Cancel Culture"

    by Thomas Zimmer

    The alleged "cancellation" of Scott Adams shows that many pundits decrying "cancel culture" from the center are actually more interested in holding the power to declare ideas out of bounds than in letting the marketplace of ideas sort them out. 



  • America's Lost Faith in the News

    by Louis Menand

    Politicians' success in demonizing and discrediting unfriendly news media threatens to undermine "the facts" as a shared social reality. Is anyone prepared to live in that world? 



  • Posthumous Limbaugh Book Skirts His Toxic Legacy

    The collection of transcripts from Rush's radio program emphasizes the positive ways he built solidarity with his audience while occluding the negative ways he maintained it by stirring resentments against others and lying about his political opponents. 



  • Ms. Magazine Turns 50

    The current editors of Ms. consider the publication's legacy as a maker, not just a reporter, of news. 



  • Are Conservatives Really Pulling Ahead in the Comedy Race?

    Does a ratings boost for Greg Gutfeld's late-night show mean that today's conservatives are the funny ones and liberals are too "woke" to laugh? Answering the question means looking past party loyalty to ask what makes humor, says humor historian Teresa Prados-Terreira. 



  • How a Major Christian News Organization Lost its Way

    by Marvin Olasky

    The Christian news magazine "World" once combined a religious perspective with editorial independence and investigative reporting. Today's Christian nationalist climate has no room for that, says the former editor.