A newly introduced California bill meant to &#8220;protect&#8221; immigration support services is instead raising concerns that it could hinder independent journalism. In an era of citizen-driven accountability and viral exposés, some worry the measure could shield companies accused of fraud from public scrutiny.
Nicknamed by critics as the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” Assembly <a href="https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2624/id/3371241">Bill</a> 2624, introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, would establish a confidentiality program for immigration service providers who face &#8220;threats of violence or harassment from the public.&#8221; 
The bill would also &#8220;prohibit a person from posting on the internet or social media &#8230; the personal information or image of a designated immigration support services provider, employee, volunteer, or patient, or other individuals residing at the same home address.&#8221; Violations could result in fines up to $10,000 or up to one year in jail.
Critics, including Republican Assembly member Carl DeMaio, believe the bill could be leveraged to block investigative reporting and “silence citizen journalists exposing fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.&#8221;
&#8220;Instead of fixing the fraud problems being uncovered, Sacramento politicians are trying to shut down the people exposing them,&#8221; DeMaio <a href="https://ad75.asmrc.org/2026/04/13/ca-democrats-advance-stop-nick-shirley-act-to-criminalize-investigative-journalism/">said</a>.
&#8220;AB 2624 would allow activists and taxpayer-funded organizations to demand the removal of video evidence — even if it captures misconduct in plain view — and threatens journalists with massive financial penalties,&#8221; he added. &#8220;That’s not about public safety — it’s about protecting powerful interests.&#8221;
Nick Shirley, an independent journalist known for viral videos exposing alleged Somali daycare fraud in Minnesota, recently continued his work in <a href="https://x.com/nickshirleyy/status/2033708929398845886">California</a>, igniting an online <a href="https://x.com/nickshirleyy/status/2042411675307971061">feud</a> with Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
In response to the bill, Shirley <a href="https://x.com/nickshirleyy/status/2043756610955423782">posted</a> to X, &#8220;Under AB 2624, government-funded entities like the Somali “Learing” Daycare centers would be protected from being exposed if they operated inside California.&#8221;
&#8220;The enemy truly is within. When our politicians would rather protect fraudsters and illegal migrants, it’s time for us to stand up or face mass oppression from the traitors who &#8216;rule&#8217; over us,&#8221; he added.
Bonta, however, rejected claims that the bill targets journalism. In a recent <a href="https://x.com/AsmMiaBonta/status/2044229820968796573">video</a>, she said, “People who work to help immigrant communities should not have to fear being doxxed for doing so.”
She said the bill is designed to shield workers from having their personal information publicly exposed and to provide legal tools to prevent and respond to targeted harassment.
“If MAGA can’t tell the difference between journalism and doxxing, that’s on them, because on my bill, there are no provisions related to journalism or fraud. This bill does not infringe on the First Amendment,” she said.

Activists Demonstrate Against ICE In New York City

California Bill Could Criminalize Fraud Reporting, Republicans Warn

California

Fraud

Journalism

Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore is attacking his state&#8217;s largest newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, for investigating his political record and probing potential falsehoods concerning his upbringing and military service.
The Baltimore Sun is collaborating with sister television station Sinclair to scrutinize Gov. Wes Moore as he gears up for reelection and weighs a 2028 run for the White House, <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/05/2026/marylands-biggest-newspaper-is-going-after-the-governors-2028-campaign?utm_medium=media&amp;utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered1&amp;utm_source=newslettercta">Semafor reported</a>.
The investigative series, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/tag/spotlight-on-maryland/">Spotlight Maryland</a>, includes FOX45 News, WJLA in Washington, D.C., and The Baltimore Sun. These outlets will examine whether Moore exaggerated his military service and investigate the athletic scholarships he received in college.
Reporters with Spotlight Maryland have exchanged tense emails with Wes Moore&#8217;s staff, citing frustration over what they describe as a lack of transparency.
“Our news team will continue pursuing this matter until they are satisfied that there is either no story &#8211; or until further investigation shows that events did not occur as they should have,” the team wrote in one letter to Moore’s office <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/05/2026/marylands-biggest-newspaper-is-going-after-the-governors-2028-campaign?utm_medium=media&amp;utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered1&amp;utm_source=newslettercta">obtained by Semafor</a>. “If our team finds the latter, they will report that. … We are also prepared to present our findings and concerns to the Secretary of the Army’s office; and if gets to that point, we fully expect it will have become a national level news story requiring the Army Secretary’s attention.”
Moore’s team has complained that the investigation is &#8220;needlessly hostile and politically motivated,&#8221; according to Semafor.
Then, the liberal governor ran to MS NOW.
&#8220;The Baltimore Sun used to be our paper of record,&#8221; Moore <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:jutl4tq6nqhumm5exzk52f5t/post/3mixau63lak2m">told former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki</a>. &#8220;It&#8217;s now become the paper of the right-wing.&#8221;
Moore complained that in 2024, media executive David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/01/15/baltimore-sun-media-sold-david-d-smith/">bought the paper</a>.
&#8220;I think we&#8217;ve seen how their readership continued to decline, but it&#8217;s happened because you&#8217;ve had a MAGA billionaire who is now currying favor for the President of the United States,&#8221; Moore said.
The liberal governor added that he was &#8220;deeply proud&#8221; of his military service and claimed nobody in the U.S. Army questions his integrity.
In 2024, The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/politics/wes-moore-bronze-star.html">New York Times</a> reported that Moore falsely claimed on a 2006 White House fellowship application that he had been awarded a Bronze Star for his military service while deployed in Afghanistan.
&#8220;The soldiers I served with don&#8217;t question my integrity,&#8221; Moore said. &#8220;But we are seeing how the right wing and these right-wing billionaires like David Smith is then using his wealth to be able to manipulate local media.&#8221;
Spotlight on Maryland executive producer and managing editor <a href="https://x.com/candynotcandace/status/2041903427786068360?s=20">Candy Woodall called out</a> Democrats for &#8220;putting in a lot of work to discredit a series before it&#8217;s even started running.&#8221;
&#8220;This is standard journalism to scrutinize the words and records of elected officials and candidates who hold positions of power and public trust,&#8221; Woodall said. &#8220;If you want to know more, keep reading The Baltimore Sun, a 200-year-old newspaper that has survived many governors.&#8221;

Wes Moore

Dem Presidential Hopeful Flails At Local Newspaper For Daring To Investigate His Record

Corruption

Democratic Party

Elections

Media

Politics

The CEO of The Washington Post has stepped down days after the media company cut roughly 30% of its staff.
The Post announced publisher Will Lewis’ departure on Saturday. Lewis also wrote a short note to staff in which he explained that he was leaving “to ensure” a “sustainable future” for the media outlet.
“After two years of transformation at The Washington Post, now is the right time for me to step aside,” Lewis wrote, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/07/media/washington-post-will-lewis-publisher-resigns">CNN</a>. “I want to thank Jeff Bezos for his support and leadership throughout my tenure as CEO and Publisher. The institution could not have a better owner.”
“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” he concluded.
Lewis joined The Washington Post in 2024, brought on board by Bezos to help turn the outlet around after years of shrinking readership and financial losses. Jeff D’Onofrio, the Post’s chief financial officer, will succeed Lewis in the interim.
Post owner Jeff Bezos also wrote a note included in the release announcing the change. The Amazon founder said that The Washington Post has “an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/washington-post-owner-jeff-bezos-gives-first-statement-after-layoffs-2026-2">Business Insider</a>.
&#8220;Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus,” Bezos said.
The Post made major changes this week to reverse its trajectory, cutting roughly 300 jobs as it seeks to strip away parts of the company that it sees as financial liabilities and focus resources on profitable areas. Executives at the company said that the outlet has failed to adapt to a changing media landscape and must make tough decisions to stay relevant and competitive.
“If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition,” executive editor Matt Murray wrote in a note to staff on Wednesday amid the layoffs.
The major cuts came to the newsroom’s international reporting and sports department, which no longer exists. Some of the sports writers were folded into the features section of the paper. The paper shrunk its international coverage, but will keep reporters on the ground in about a dozen countries.
The Post is also restructuring its metro section and shutting down its Post Reports podcast. The outlet will focus on national news, investigations, and health and wellness.
“Today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what has become a more crowded, competitive, and complicated media landscape,” Murray said during a call with staff on Wednesday. “For too long, we&#8217;ve operated with a structure that’s too rooted in the days when we were a quasi-monopoly local newspaper.”

The Washington Post

Washington Post CEO Steps Down Days After Mass Layoffs

Jeff Bezos

U.S.

Washington Post

The Washington Post cut nearly one-third of its workforce on Wednesday, terminating some 300 employees and axing several editorial sections entirely.
According to several reports detailing the situation, executive editor Matt Murray and human resources director Wayne Connell informed employees that they were to work from home on Wednesday and be on hand to attend a Zoom webinar where they&#8217;d be informed of &#8220;some significant actions across the company.&#8221;
The &#8220;significant actions&#8221; mentioned appear to be the abrupt termination of the current sports section, the books section, and the Post Reports podcast — along with hundreds of employees across several different sections.
Several employees shared the news directly on X.
Correspondent Yeganeh Torbati posted, &#8220;I&#8217;m heartbroken to announce that I&#8217;ve been laid off from my position at The Washington Post. Working at this newspaper, and especially being a foreign correspondent covering Iran and Turkey over the last few short months, was a dream come true for me.&#8221;
Sports columnist Barry Svrluga announced the demise of his own section: &#8220;&#8216;First, we will be closing the Sports department in its current form.&#8217; — Matt Murray, editor of the Post.&#8221;
&#8220;Some personal news: I’m among today’s @washingtonpost layoffs. It was a dream 11-year run as an investigative reporter focused on sports—making billionaires tremble (or at least mildly annoying them and their lawyers),&#8221; said sports investigative reporter Will Hobson.
Caroline O&#8217;Donovan, Amazon beat reporter: &#8220;I’m out, along with just a ton of the best in the biz. Horrible.&#8221;
&#8220;I’m among the hundreds of people laid off by The Post,&#8221; race and ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton claimed that the move was &#8220;ideological&#8221; because his job had previously been labeled a boon for the outlet. &#8220;This comes six months after hearing in a national meeting that race coverage drives subscriptions. This wasn’t a financial decision, it was an ideological one.&#8221;
Tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler added, &#8220;After 8 years writing the tech column @washingtonpost, I am among folks who were laid off today. I’m grateful for the stories I got to tell and the impact we made on privacy, sustainability &amp; AI.&#8221;
Critics of the move complained that the cuts were a bridge too far.
Retired Washington Post editor Robert McCartney added, &#8220;Apparently The Post has laid off every reporter and editor covering the Middle East. Jerusalem bureau closed. Also Ukraine bureau closed.&#8221;
&#8220;The @WashPost has now laid off its Asia editor, its New Delhi bureau chief, its Sydney bureau chief, its Cairo bureau chief, the entire Middle East reporting team, China correspondents, Iran correspondents, Turkey correspondents, and many more. The world is becoming less America-centric by the minute while the United States is becoming more America-centric than ever. It is just a depressing yet somehow perfect summation of our current moment that one of the most important newspapers in the history of the country — one that has actually shaped the history of the United States &#8211; doesn&#8217;t think reporting on the world is of any use anymore. What an utterly perfect encapsulation of where we have arrived,&#8221; Evan Feigenbaum posted.
But some argued that the cuts were the obvious next step, and people should have seen them coming.
&#8220;Over the last decade at the Washington Post: — A number of major corrections and journalistic scandals. —Major intra-newsroom drama with reporters threatening to sue the paper. — Declining circulation and losing lots of money. Stop acting like the layoffs are shocking,&#8221; Mark Hemingway posted.
Clay Travis added, &#8220;The Washington Post made its business contingent on far left wing subscribers who hated Trump &amp; when Bezos became embarrassed by the far left wing product that created, he tried to fix it by moving closer to the center. But the Post’s subscribers revolted, crushing the business.&#8221;
&#8220;The business lesson here is newspaper subscribers at the WaPo and New York Times don’t want centrist, fair journalism, they want to be told their political opponents are evil Nazis and they are the heroic good guys. That narrative must dominate all coverage,&#8221; he added.

Legacy News Outlet Tells Hundreds To Work From Home On Wednesday, Cuts 300 Jobs In Zoom Meeting

Legacy Media Takes Another Blow As Storied Outlet Cuts 300 Jobs

Jobs

Longtime Daily Wire readers are no doubt familiar with Xi Van Fleet — an activist, scholar, and survivor of Mao&#8217;s Cultural Revolution. Xi has done more than most to shed light on the horrors of Chinese communism and to sound the alarm about the rising threat of socialism in the United States. We were proud to publish her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/i-lived-in-the-communist-world-zohran-mamdani-dreams-of-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine">scathing portrait</a> of Zohran Mamdani and her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/erasing-history-the-real-cultural-marxism?author=Xi+Van+Fleet+and+Sasha+Gong&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Erasing+History%3A+The+Real+Cultural+Marxism">five-part series</a> “American Maoists: Warnings From The Cultural Revolution.”
Today, we&#8217;re honored to bring you an exclusive excerpt from her forthcoming book “Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat.” Co-authored with Chinese dissident Yu Jie, the book explores how American academics, writers, and politicians helped Communist China become a global superpower.
In the excerpt below, Xi and Yu examine three little-known American journalists who helped sell Mao&#8217;s lies to the world — and warn that Xi Jinping is working to do the same with American journalists today. — Tim Rice
***
Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley, and Anna Louise Strong — three Americans from the Midwest — were collectively known in China as the “Three S’s,” the leading Western journalists who made an immeasurable contribution to the Chinese communist cause, with Snow regarded as the most influential of the trio.
In 1984, the Smedley-Strong-Snow Society of China was established under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to honor their contributions. The society organizes commemorative events, preserves archives, and promotes research on their roles in advancing the Chinese Communist movement. And all three of the S’s were individually featured on postage stamps issued in China.
Because Smedley and Strong were openly Communist and connected to the Communist International, their work was often dismissed in the West due to its overt ideological slant. Snow, by contrast, was seen as an independent voice. This perceived neutrality gave his work greater credibility in the West, making it arguably more deceptive and dangerous.
Today, the CCP is actively seeking new “Snows” for Xi Jinping’s “new era,” those who can fulfill a similar role as Edgar Snow in promoting China’s narrative on the global stage. In 2021, the CCP media outlet China Daily launched the Edgar Snow Newsroom, aimed at recruiting foreign reporters to engage in propaganda work for the CCP. Evidently, there is no shortage of candidates for the CCP to choose from.
The widespread popularity of the work of the Three S’s can be attributed to the historical context of the 1930s. During this time, the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression, which had deeply shaken confidence in capitalism. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal introduced socialist policies, reflecting a broader leftward shift in American society.
Interestingly, Edgar Snow noted in Red Star Over China that Mao Zedong held a favorable view of President Roosevelt, even expressing interest in learning about FDR’s New Deal. Mao was likely inspired by FDR’s large-scale government initiatives aimed at rapid economic transformation.
In this historic environment, writings that glorified and promoted Chinese Communism unsurprisingly found a receptive audience among American readers, who were increasingly exploring alternative economic and political ideologies.
Later, Edgar Snow’s 1936 visit to China and extensive interviews conducted with Mao Zedong  marked the beginning of the CCP’s campaign to cultivate allies among American influencers, particularly journalists and writers. From there, the party steadily expanded its network of “old friends” to encompass government officials, military leaders, politicians, policymakers, and, eventually, the upper ranks of major corporations and business elites.
One might argue that these influencers were merely deceived by the Chinese Communists. But the truth is far less forgiving: they were deceived because they wanted to be. They saw not what was real but what they longed to see. They heard not the truth but what confirmed their ideals and fed their convictions.
Though they came from diverse backgrounds, they shared one defining trait: a left-leaning political orientation, ranging from liberal sympathizers like Edgar Snow to committed communists like Agnes Smedley and Anna Louise Strong. History has shown, time and again, that the ideological leap from liberalism to communism is often alarmingly short.
These bleeding-heart liberals helped legitimize and elevate a regime that would go on to unleash unimaginable human suffering. Safely removed from the consequences, they never lived under the tyranny they helped glorify. Many never paused to reflect on the reality that every word they wrote in praise of the Communist Party came at the cost of real human lives — millions of them.
Words can kill, and the pen can be as deadly as any bullet. This tragic chapter of history must not be forgotten.
***
Xi Van Fleet and Yu Jie are authors of the forthcoming <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/xi-van-fleet/made-in-america/9781546009368/?lens=center-street__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1EyvEl-uC7TIK0rLvarrOO6odKbstFnL9S29IBgVjHSqp0YOI8tvg6cjDHu8PbAkTnVdBtVmyN0Y7CGdUt-84os$" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/xi-van-fleet/made-in-america/9781546009368/?lens%3Dcenter-street__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1EyvEl-uC7TIK0rLvarrOO6odKbstFnL9S29IBgVjHSqp0YOI8tvg6cjDHu8PbAkTnVdBtVmyN0Y7CGdUt-84os$&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1769179679063000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3JTdRuew3QefD102CqMml8">book</a> “Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Untitled design (100)

The Three American Journalists Who Fueled The CCP’s Rise 

China

Chinese Communist Party

Leftism

Xi Jinping

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Justice Department from searching Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson&#8217;s devices, which were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-searches-washington-post-reporters-home-in-classified-docs-probe-leaker-behind-bars">confiscated</a> under an FBI search warrant last week as part of a federal investigation into leaked classified materials.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter said on Wednesday that federal prosecutors cannot search Natanson&#8217;s devices as he weighs whether the government must turn the devices back over to the reporter, Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-judge-temporarily-blocks-review-material-seized-washington-post-reporter-2026-01-21/">reported</a>. Natanson and the Post argue that the FBI&#8217;s seizure of Natanson&#8217;s devices violate the First Amendment.
Porter said that Natanson and the Post “demonstrated good cause in their filings to maintain the status quo” until he can fully review the case. The judge also ordered the government to respond to the Post&#8217;s legal filing by January 28, with a hearing scheduled for early next month, the Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/21/washington-post-hannah-natanson-search-court-filing/">reported</a>.
Journalists who publish classified information are protected under U.S. law, provided they obtained the classified material without coercion and did not ask anyone to break the law.
The FBI seized two laptops, a phone, and a Garmin watch from Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of leaking classified government materials. Natanson is not the target of the investigation, which is focused on Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a contractor with top-secret security clearance who allegedly took classified intelligence reports to his home.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week that Natanson was reporting on classified information that was “illegally leaked” by a “Pentagon contractor.” Bondi added that the accused leaker, whom she did not publicly identify, is in jail.
Natanson focuses on “covering the Trump administration’s reshaping of the government&#8221; and was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Post. She has described herself as “the federal government whisperer” and wrote in an article published last month that she connected with more than 1,000 sources within the Trump administration after posting her phone number to an online forum for federal government employees. She said federal workers who reached out to her often expressed frustration with the administration.
The Washington Post condemned the federal government&#8217;s search of Natanson&#8217;s home and seizure of her devices.
“The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials,&#8221; the Post said.
Last year, Bondi ended a policy implemented under former President Joe Biden that prohibited federal agencies from searching reporters’ devices to identify a leaker. Bondi said that under her leadership, federal authorities would search reporters’ devices and records only when necessary and after all other investigative avenues had been exhausted.

Washington Post logo

Federal Judge Blocks DOJ From Searching Washington Post Reporter’s Devices In Classified Docs Probe

Department of Justice

federal judge

Trump Administration

CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil delivered a New Year&#8217;s Day message promising changes in coverage at the legacy media network, at least as far as he is concerned. Dokoupil, who will helm the outlet&#8217;s iconic &#8220;CBS Evening News,&#8221; said he was ready to pull out all the stops to make viewers trust the news again.
Dokoupil, who appeared regularly on &#8220;CBS Mornings&#8221; alongside hosts Gayle King and former pro-footballer Nate Burleson, is making the move to primetime amid other changes being made by new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. He delivered a statement promising to do better via a video posted Thursday to X.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we&#8217;ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.&#8221;
That changes now. The new CBS Evening News… <a href="https://t.co/NKdvRJjYCS">pic.twitter.com/NKdvRJjYCS</a>
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/2006696909235171821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,&#8221; Dokoupil observed. &#8220;But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it&#8217;s not just us. It&#8217;s all of legacy media. And I get it. I get it because I&#8217;ve been hearing about it from just about everybody for more than 20 years as I&#8217;ve traveled America on this assignment or that.&#8221;
Dokoupil went on to list a number of stories with which people on one side of the aisle or the other had taken issue: from COVID lockdowns and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&#8217;s emails to Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop, the Iraq War, and former President Joe Biden&#8217;s fitness for office — and he said that he understood why people were so upset.
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&#8220;On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we&#8217;ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you,&#8221; he conceded. &#8220;And I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt this way, too. I have felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn&#8217;t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life — and that the most urgent questions simply weren&#8217;t being asked.&#8221;
&#8220;So here&#8217;s my promise to you,&#8221; Dokoupil declared. &#8220;You come first. Not advertisers, not politicians, not corporate interests. And yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS. I report for you — which means I tell you what I know, when I know it, and how I know it. And when I get it wrong, I&#8217;ll tell you that, too.&#8221;
He said that also meant he would hold everyone &#8220;to the very same standard&#8221; and dig in to &#8220;what works in this country and what doesn&#8217;t — and not only what should change, but the good ideas that should never change. I think telling the truth is one of them.&#8221;

CBS Mornings

CBS News Anchor Announces New Direction For 2026: Actual Journalism

Bari Weiss

CBS News

Legacy Media

A lengthy exposé highlighting the negative effects DEI has had on white males, in particular millennials, has gone mega viral on social media.
The Compact <a href="https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/">piece</a> “The Lost Generation” by Jacob Savage goes into detail about how white men have been discriminated against over the past decade, especially in the fields of entertainment and academia. The statistical truths laid out plainly have struck a chord with the general public, leading to the article being viewed on X more than 11 million times.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Beginning in 2014, prestige industries decided they urgently needed to diversify. They didn’t purge established Boomers. Instead, they did everything possible to avoid hiring white millennial men.
This is the story of a generation derailed by DEI. <a href="https://t.co/kUfmpHfaMH">https://t.co/kUfmpHfaMH</a>
— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewschmitz/status/2000556991375409159?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Savage, who tried to make it as a Hollywood writer, reported that in 2011, “white men were 48 percent of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9 percent.” He further noted that The Atlantic’s editorial staff “went from 53 percent male and 89 percent white in 2013 to 36 percent male and 66 percent white in 2024.” Also, “white men fell from 39 percent of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18 percent in 2023.”
The author points to the death of George Floyd as a major turning point for industries that were already trying to “diversify.”
“In 2021, new hires at Condé Nast were just 25 percent male and 49 percent white; at the California Times, parent company of The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, they were just 39 percent male and 31 percent white. That year ProPublica hired 66 percent women and 58 percent people of color; at NPR, 78 percent of new hires were people of color,” he wrote.
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A hiring manager told Savage, “For a typical job we’d get a couple hundred applications, probably at least 80 from white guys. It was a given that we weren’t gonna hire the best person. … It was jarring how we would talk about excluding white guys.”
White male writers have been kept out of other major outlets, too, including The New York Times and Buzzfeed. The article noted that Vox Media was 82 percent male and 88 percent white in 2013. By 2022, the company was just 37 percent male and 59 percent white, and by 2025 leadership was 73 percent female.
Savage said while the problem looks less stark in academia, he believes that Boomers are occupying all the tenure positions at elite institutions while millennial white men are being ignored for jobs they’re qualified for.
One notable statistic Savage found was that since 2022, Brown University “has hired forty-five tenure track professors in the humanities and social sciences. Just three were white American men (6.7 percent).”
The article points out similar situations in other industries, such as tech, publishing, and management. Savage notes how white men were pushed to crypto, podcasting, and Substack because “institutional barriers to entry didn’t exist” there.
His exposé was met with support and commiseration on social media.
“The phenomenon of white male dispossession strikes at the core of what’s been going on over the last decade,” one commenter <a href="https://x.com/l0m3z/status/2000976625585021212?s=43">wrote</a>. “Any politician, anyone with any ambition to influence, must take on this fight. The time is now.”
“Truly extraordinary,” <a href="https://x.com/l0m3z/status/2000976625585021212?s=43">said</a> another. “Impossible to fathom all that&#8217;s been lost.”
Some argued that Savage’s piece didn’t go far enough and that it placed too much blame on the established Boomers who were also subject to discrimination.
“People complaining about the rise of radicalism need to realize the number one thing they could do to contain it is to speak up,” political commentator Jeremy Carl <a href="https://x.com/realJeremyCarl/status/2000933766118957247">wrote</a>.

Man is standing

Exposé On Discrimination Against White Millennial Men Goes Viral, Inspires Outrage

Business

Discrimination

Social Issues

Twitter

White Men

For all the hysterical claims that President Donald Trump is some sort of First Amendment supervillain, the reality is precisely the opposite. Trump has done more to defend constitutionally protected speech and to dismantle the most coordinated censorship regime in modern American history than any president in living memory.
But don’t tell that to the New York Times, NPR, or the ladies at The View. According to them, Trump is basically moments away from burning the Bill of Rights on live TV.
Why the disconnect? The modern Left has confused breaking norms with breaking laws, and those are two very different things.
Norms are unwritten rules, handshake agreements shaped by cultural institutions. Over decades, those institutions shifted left and rewrote the norms to ensure that public policy always bends in their direction. One glaring example is the “norm” that government spending must increase every year at rates higher than inflation, substantially higher.
Laws, by contrast, are enforceable with financial penalties or jail time.
Trump breaks norms. The Left breaks laws and then screams “authoritarian!” when someone tries to enforce those laws. That, in a nutshell, is the dynamic between Trump and the Democrat Party today.
To understand the elitist media’s role in all this, start with the epic collapse of journalism. The press still loves calling itself the “Fourth Estate,” bravely speaking truth to power. That may have been true once, back when reporters described reality instead of trying to socially engineer it. But over time, journalism mutated, first through ideologically uniform J-schools, then through newsroom monocultures, into something far more partisan.
Post-Watergate hero fantasies turned reporters into crusaders. Conservative viewpoints disappeared. Elitists replaced objectivity with “moral clarity” — their euphemism for political activism.
This has led to the death of journalism. The vapors emanating from its stinking corpse have made it nearly impossible for so-called “reporters” to understand basic constitutional law. So let’s clarify.
The First Amendment protects a broad range of speech, but not all speech. Speech in service of a crime? Not protected. Offer a bribe and try claiming “free speech.” See how that goes. Defamation? Also not protected. And when you take a government handout, whether as a defense contractor or a publicly funded media broadcaster, you accept the regulatory conditions that come with it.
NPR and PBS assumed otherwise. They took billions from taxpayers while repeatedly violating the law that required them to “ensure strict adherence to objectivity and balance.” They assumed the norm, that they’d always get our money through Congressional earmarks, even while breaking the law.
Trump did what no other president has ever done: he broke that norm and enforced the law. His Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Brendan Carr, has done something similar with broadcasters. That’s not censorship. That’s accountability.
The same principle applies to universities. For years, the norm was that campuses would tolerate and even encourage criminal behavior under the guise of “social activism.” Blocking highways, occupying buildings, vandalizing property, and assaulting students was perfectly fine, as long as the rioters chanted the right slogans. But the First Amendment doesn’t magically convert crime into protected speech. Trump ended that law-breaking norm, too.
None of this alone makes Trump the “greatest defender of free speech.” His words and his deeds earn him that gold model.
Just before taking the oath of office for the second time, Trump laid down the truth long forgotten by the left: “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country. … If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple, just like dominoes.” 
Trump’s actions followed suit. He and his administration have eviscerated the sprawling censorship apparatus built by President Joe Biden.
MRC Free Speech America has shown how the Biden administration operated the <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/biden-censorship-initiatives-tracker">most expansive government-driven censorship system in U.S. history</a>. Not metaphorically. Literally.
A few &#8220;lowlights” from the Biden censorship regime include: federal agencies pressuring social media platforms to suppress lawful political speech; agencies partnering with private entities to provide “plausible deniability” while carrying out government censorship goals, and government “switchboards” funneling thousands of takedown demands, creating lists of posts to hide, throttle, or erase.
Biden’s objective wasn’t about fighting “misinformation,” as he has claimed. It was about controlling and shaping narratives before an election. This was speech policing.
This was government censorship.
This was illegal.
Trump tore it apart.
Through executive orders, personnel changes, and directives barring government censorship, Trump dismantled Biden’s censorship machine. Platforms can no longer hide behind federal pressure, and bureaucrats can no longer run secret speech-surveillance pipelines.
That is what defending the First Amendment looks like. Not symbolic gestures. Not pretty rhetoric. Real action. Real results. Restoring the foundational principle that in America, the government does not decide which opinions are allowed.
No other president has done more to defend the First Amendment. Trump truly has made free speech great again.
* * *
Dan Schneider is Vice President for Free Speech at the Media Research Center.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
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TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP

By Dismantling Biden’s Censorship Machine, Trump Made Free Speech Great Again

Biden Administration

Donald Trump

First Amendment

Free Speech

Media Research Center

Opinion

President Trump

Social Media Bias

Social Media Censorship

Many people blame the troubles of the world on the news media. Many say that journalists have become out-of-touch elites, so committed to the destructive lies of leftism that their minds have become gnarled and pocked with hatred of those everyday Americans whose better values threaten to expose journalists to themselves as Gollum-like creatures eaten away by their own corruption until they look into the mirrors of their imaginations and see horrific images of their bodies riddled with leprous decay as a physical representation of the spiritual degeneracy that clearly foreshadows an eternity of desolation in bleak and endless severance from the God who created them and who now, even in his omniscience, himself turns to alternative forms of media in the hopes of getting some honest news once in a while.
Of course, many people still trust the news media and softly murmur to themselves that Walter Cronkite seems awfully nice, before they retreat into a corner of the assisted care facility and stare at the blank wall with rheumy eyes, fondly watching a parade of misty memories from a distant past that now seems much better than it really was.
Recently, unseemly revelations have detracted even more from the news media’s reputation so that trust in the honesty of journalists has now sunk to just 28% of journalists, and they’re journalists, so they’re obviously lying and don’t trust journalists any more than the rest of us do.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974735 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
In formerly Great Britain, for instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation has recently become mired in scandal. The once-respected news organization, often affectionately referred to as “Auntie,” because it reminds viewers of the sort of grey-haired old lady whose silhouette can sometimes be seen at the second story window of a gothic mansion while her delusional, hectoring high-pitched rants drift down to the desolate motel below until, in the last reel, we find out the silhouette is really Norman Bates in a dress and a wig, and the real Auntie is the rotten corpse of a once respected news organization…
What was I talking about? Oh yeah…
Recently, the BBC was exposed for deceptively editing a speech by Donald Trump for a 2024 report that was clearly meant to influence American voters against Trump’s re-election. In Trump’s original speech, delivered to a group of protestors on January 6th after Trump’s 2021 election loss, Trump said, “God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above.” In the BBC version, Trump said, “Kill them all! Storm the Capitol and kill them all! Kill, Kill, Kill! Insurrection now! Destroy Democracy and kill them all!”
BBC President Cor Blimey issued a statement saying that the minor discrepancy was the result of an innocent mistake in which producers confused the Trump speech with the film “Starship Troopers” because they think of Americans as just so many gigantic alien bugs.
To be fair, not all news organizations have sunk out of sight into the BBC’s tarpit of disgrace, shame, corruption, decadence, degradation, and vice. With some outlets, you can still just see the tops of their heads for a few final moments before the tar closes over them. 
For example, the New York Times, a former newspaper, was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for linking Donald Trump’s name to Jeffrey Epstein’s name a record number of times, without once explaining that no one has ever plausibly accused Trump of doing anything wrong with Epstein. The Pulitzer Committee says it hopes the Times prize for irrelevantly linking Trump and Epstein will encourage other former news outlets to distract people from the fact that Trump has closed the border, brought peace to the Middle East, drawn in trillions of dollars of new investment to the U.S., lowered inflation and bettered our trading deals in ways that promise to cut the deficit, not to mention the fact that he barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for being a creep while sleazy journalists like George Stephanopoulos and Katie Couric were still attending dinners in Epstein’s honor.
In a statement carved into the clay of a goat-headed idol, the Pulitzer Committee said it would continue to give news outlets like the Times awards for what they do best, namely, lie.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is NOW AVAILABLE. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>
The views expressed in this satirical piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
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New York Times

NY Times Wins Pulitzer For Linking Words ‘Trump’ And ‘Epstein’ Record Number Of Times

NY Times Wins Pulitzer For Linking Words 'Trump' And 'Epstein' Record Number Of Times

Andrew Klavan

Humor

Satire

The New York Times

Four staffers who recorded themselves confronting the head of Human Resources at Condé Nast over recent layoffs at Teen Vogue have been fired.
The clips were filmed on Wednesday outside HR exec Stan Duncan’s office at One World Trade Center in New York City. In the awkward clip, a crowd of employees stand outside Duncan’s office and badger him about the layoffs, prompting him to repeatedly tell them to “go back to the workplace.”
Four of those employees were later fired for &#8220;extreme misconduct,” per <a href="https://deadline.com/2025/11/conde-nast-fires-staffers-teen-vogue-1236609695/">Deadline</a>.
Those individuals included Jasper Lo from the New Yorker, Jake Lahut from Wired, Alma Avalle from Bon Appétit, and Ben Dewey from Condé Nast Entertainment.
In the video, Duncan can be heard telling employees to refrain from “congregating” outside his office.
“What counts as congregating?” Lahut said. “What’s your definition of congregating?”
“We’d appreciate if you would go back to the workplace, to your workplace assignments,” Duncan responded.
“Is there a place that you’d be able to speak to us?” Avalle said to Duncan. “Do you think we’re not worth speaking to, Stan?”
“Those are your words, not mine,” Duncan said.
“But they might be your beliefs!” Avalle replied.
“They’re not my beliefs,” Duncan can be heard saying.
“Well, we have some quick questions. If you answered them, we’d be happy to go back to our desks,” Avalle tried again.
“Are you running away from us?” Avalle said incredulously as Duncan started leading the group away from his office.
“We’re concerned about our colleagues,” a person off-camera said.
 “We’d like you to answer questions,” Avalle said. “We’d love to move forward.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The most brutally awkward thing you&#8217;ll see today: Condé Nast staffers confront head of HR Stan Duncan over layoffs outside his 34th-floor office.
Four of the employees featured in this exclusive video from the confrontation were then fired for &#8220;extreme misconduct.&#8221;
The whole… <a href="https://t.co/Ze6Vmyz0iI">pic.twitter.com/Ze6Vmyz0iI</a>
— TheWrap (@TheWrap) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheWrap/status/1986555099469230496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In a statement, Condé Nast said that “extreme misconduct is unacceptable in any professional setting. This includes aggressive, disruptive and threatening behavior of any kind.”
“We remain committed to working constructively with the union and all of our employees.”
The media giant also said they have filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the News Guild of New York “for their repeated and egregious disregard of our collective bargaining agreement.”
Meanwhile, the guild took the side of the fired employees, <a href="https://www.nyguild.org/post/statement-from-the-newsguild-of-new-york-and-conde-united-on-illegal-firing-of-four-union-leaders-who-demanded-answers-about-thi">writing</a>, “These terminations are a flagrant breach of the Just Cause terms of our contract and an unprecedented violation of their federally protected rights as union members to participate in collective action.”
Avalle, a transgender-identifying employee who was one of those participating in the incident, wrote about it on X.
“I love my job, I love my coworkers, and I love my union. I’m devastated the company made this move. There are so few trans women in media at all — particularly ones who aren’t confined to ‘Queer Media’ — and I was incredibly proud of what my position at Bon Appétit meant at large,” the post <a href="https://x.com/GoodbyeAlma/status/1986505896068063351">said</a>.
“More important to me than my identity, I am also the Vice President of the NewsGuild of New York, and targeting me with a blatantly retaliatory termination like this feels like an egregious shot against our union and against media workers as a whole.”

Conde Nast building

Condé Nast Fires Four Employees For Confronting HR Exec Outside His Office

Condé Nast Fired Four Employees For Confronting HR Exec Outside His Office

Entertainment

layoffs

magazine

Unions

A clip from Sydney Sweeney’s interview with GQ has gone viral on social media, with most viewers applauding her refusal to take the virtue signaling bait.
In the clip, interviewer Kat Stoeffel scrunched up her face and pressed Sweeney on her viral American Eagle ad campaign. Stoeffel tried a variety of different tactics to get the actress to apologize and denounce white supremacy. Commenters praised Sweeney for remaining cool and collected.
“This is the slimiest journalist I’ve ever seen. This entire &#8216;interview&#8217; is a bad faith gotcha where she’s trying to trap Sydney into admitting she’s conservative lol what a psychopath,” TP USA podcast host Alex Clark <a href="https://x.com/yoalexrapz/status/1986703753605751061?s=43">wrote</a> in response to the clip.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
This is the slimiest journalist I’ve ever seen. This entire “interview” is a bad faith gotcha where she’s trying to trap Sydney into admitting she’s conservative lol what a psychopath <a href="https://t.co/xX8HU7I0Ox">https://t.co/xX8HU7I0Ox</a>
— Alex Clark (@yoalexrapz) <a href="https://twitter.com/yoalexrapz/status/1986703753605751061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“GQ Reporter: why aren’t you ashamed that people will think you’re a conservative? You should be. Sydney Sweeney: Next question,” Jennifer Sey, founder of XX-XY Athletics <a href="https://x.com/jennifersey/status/1986556246627897714?s=43">wrote</a>. 
“To me, the most interesting aspect of this conversation is the smug progressive woman who lives in a bubble and says stupid stuff because it seems to her like the most natural thing in the world,” Dinesh D’Souza <a href="https://x.com/dineshdsouza/status/1986563463695515781?s=43">shared</a>. “I’m sure she’s still wondering why Sydney Sweeney didn’t go along.”
Another commenter pointed out that liberals don’t expect conservatives to be real people, but instead assume they are just caricatures as the media portrays them.
“The thing you have to remember about this woman and those like her is that she genuinely doesn’t know that anyone disagrees with her basic worldview. She doesn’t even see it as a worldview. It’s just the obvious truth,” Hunter Ash on X <a href="https://x.com/artemisconsort/status/1986551356673687697?s=43">observed</a>.
“Of course she knows abstractly that half the country voted for Trump. But those aren’t people. Those are cartoon characters. They’re either fat slobbering rednecks in klan hoods, or mustache-twirling robber barons manipulating the rednecks for profit,” Ash continued. “Anyone she might actually sit down and talk to is, of course, a person, and therefore agrees with The Obvious Truth. It is inconceivable to her that anyone capable of being a pleasant dinner party guest would not share her basic beliefs and values.”
The commenter argued that the question wasn’t meant to be a “gotcha” but rather came from the interviewer assuming that Sweeney “got mixed up in the whole jeans/genes fiasco by mistake.”
At another point in the interview, the actress was asked what it was like when President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the campaign. Sweeney gave a one-word answer: “Surreal.”
Controversy erupted over the summer over an ad spot featuring Sweeney in various seductive poses while saying she had “good jeans.” The double entendre with the word “genes” made leftists deem the ad racist, noting that Sweeney is white with blond hair and blue eyes.
In one of the ads, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
American Eagle responded to the backlash by issuing a simple statement: “&#8217;Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans&#8217; is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

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