CBS News is reportedly set to name Bari Weiss as its inaugural editor-in-chief after Paramount inked a deal to buy Weiss’ outlet, The Free Press, for $150 million.
Weiss will report directly to Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, circumventing both CBS News president Tom Cibrowski and CBS president George Cheeks, who typically oversees all CBS News executives, according to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/10/02/media/paramount-skydance-to-name-bari-weiss-editor-in-chief-of-cbs-news-sources/">New York Post</a>.
Weiss’ The Free Press will not be incorporated into CBS News, but will remain a standalone property under Paramount.
The $150 million buyout of The Free Press involves cash and stock options, according to the Post.
Weiss will move to helm the news division at CBS, vaulting her over reporters and anchors to have a significant hand in managing the editorial direction of the outlet, a remarkable comeback for a journalist who left The New York Times under controversial circumstances five years ago.
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Weiss has long been seen as an independent voice since her departure from the opinion page of The New York Times in 2020. In her resignation letter, Weiss <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/media/bari-weiss-resignation-new-york-times.html">cited</a> “bullying by colleagues” and an “illiberal environment” among her reasons for leaving the paper. With the deal with Paramount, Weiss has sprung into a highly influential position as media organizations grapple with the heavy progressive slant that the largest outfits have operated under for decades.
Paramount’s decision to move Weiss to the helm of CBS News reflects a new dynamic in corporate media to invite in voices that are more critical of the political Left wing of the country. Though Weiss is not a conservative, she is friendly with many on the Right, often inviting them to come on her podcast “Honestly,” and her ascension should be seen as a positive development for conservatives who want to see a more balanced approach to politics in corporate media.

Bari Weiss

Bari Weiss To Direct CBS News As Editor-In-Chief As Part Of Free Press Deal: Report

CBS News

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In the wake of the horrific and historic assassination of the brilliant young conservative Charlie Kirk, there has understandably been increased focus on the rhetoric that preceded and followed the event. The overwhelming majority of Americans <a href="https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/media.deseret.com/media/misc/pdf/kirk-sky-national.pdf">(86%)</a> express concern over political violence, with <a href="https://statesunited.org/resources/political-violence-survey/">78%</a> believing it has escalated in recent years, and 57% saying it is a major problem — the highest response to that question in the last two years. 
When it comes to assessing blame, Americans are unsurprisingly <a href="https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2025/09/15/political-violence-america-charlie-kirk-shooting-morning-consult-poll/">split along partisan lines</a> on culpability, with the plurality of respondents believing the Left and Right bear equal responsibility. However, they find agreement in blaming politicians on both sides as being the key instigators.
Republicans point to examples of Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables;” Biden telling us that it’s time to “put a bulls-eye on Trump;” Maxine Waters telling supporters to “create a crowd and … push back” and during the 2021 unrest in Minneapolis “to get more confrontational;” Schumer telling Supreme Court Justices “… you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you;” Dan Goldman telling an MSNBC interviewer that Trump “has to be eliminated;” Vice President Harris telling everyone that Trump and MAGA supporters were “a threat to democracy;” and of course, the countless references to Trump and MAGA supporters being Hitler, Nazis, fascists, and Gestapo.
Democrats counter with references to Steve Bannon referring to the political opposition as “criminals, vermin,” and “enemies of the republic;” Trump telling supporters to “fight like hell” and claiming he called white supremacists “very fine people;” Marjorie Taylor Greene suggesting a “peaceful national divorce” between red and blue states; Trump calling Democrats “scum, garbage” and “enemies of the people;” and Musk posting that “The Left is the party of murder.”
It is much more emotionally engaging to discuss the implications and injustices of rhetorical content, but regardless of which side has been more vitriolic, there is a far larger, more influential factor that supersedes all of it: Who controls the dominant media platforms — and specifically, the digital platforms. And that dominance overwhelmingly belongs to the Left. The result is that the Left’s messages and hyperbole are broadcast to dramatically more people, dramatically more frequently, and on dramatically more channels. Further, competing or contradictory messaging is far more likely to be absent or censored on the Left’s channels, so their audience is fed a much more homogenous diet of narratives.
Consider three important media domains: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Legacy Media, with centralized and professionally produced content, including television, radio, and newspapers (CNN, Reuters, Fox News, The New York Times, NPR, BBC, etc.)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Social media — with user-generated content, no editorial oversight, and algorithm-generated visibility (Facebook, X—formerly Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, etc.)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.)</li>
</ul>
The waning, but still significant, mainstream media are <a href="https://www.mrc.org/liberal-mediaevery-poll-shows-journalists-are-more-liberal-american-public-and-public-knows-it">dominantly Left-leaning and becoming more so</a>. Research has shown that members of the media are <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Do_97_percent_of_journalist_donations_go_to_Democrats">overwhelmingly liberal</a>, with the vast majority of them supporting Democratic candidates. In 2016, 96% of journalists’ donations went to the Hillary Clinton campaign. <a href="https://www.mrc.org/node/90399">Media Research Center found</a> that 92% of Trump coverage during the 2020 presidential campaign was negative – even more so than the relentless, hostile coverage he received in 2017. When examining bias in mainstream/traditional media, <a href="https://www.biasly.com/media-bias-chart/us-main/?">studies</a> have concluded that upwards of 60% of these outlets are left-leaning. But that doesn’t tell the whole story because that percentage is based on the number of outlets, regardless of the audience size for that outlet. When considering the total audience size and the percentage of it that receives information with a left-leaning bias, the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/pj_2025-06-10_news-media-sources_report.pdf">bias number climbs closer to 75%</a>. The percentage of Americans viewing a liberal bias in the mainstream media has doubled since 1985.
However, traditional media are quickly being pushed aside by social media, where the leftist bias is even more pronounced. The top social media companies are all Left-leaning (See <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-did-ai-get-so-biased-favor-left">here</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rigged-Media-Democrats-Seized-Elections/dp/168451259X/">here</a>, <a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/social-media-trump-conservative-bias/">here</a>, and <a href="https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/the-censorship-industrial-complex">here</a>). Meta, the undisputed king of social media, owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, reaching approximately <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/">4 billion users</a> and controlling 75-80% of the social media market worldwide. Alphabet Inc., a smaller behemoth that owns Google and YouTube, has just surpassed $3 trillion in market cap and reaches some <a href="https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-sub-section-top-social-platforms?">2.2 billion users</a>. A collection of companies, including those owning TikTok, Douyin, WeChat, QQ, and Snapchat, reaches an additional <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/?">3.5 billion users</a> combined. Musk’s little X is much further down the list with a mere 500 million users.
I previously described social media as the <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/the_federal_government_colluded_with_social_media_to_control_content_so_what.html">800-pound gorilla in a rapidly shrinking cage</a>, noting that usage has skyrocketed from 5% in 2005 to over 70% today. Some estimates indicate that as much as 38% of all internet time today is spent on social media. Considering Facebook alone, the vast majority (nearly 70%) of <a href="https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/?">Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users</a> visit the site daily, and more than half of them visit it several times per day. 
The younger generations are particularly fond of social media, with a strong plurality — some <a href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/news-consumption-social-video/?">44% of Americans aged 18 to 24 and 34% of those aged 25 to 34 </a>— reporting that they now obtain their news and information from social media and video formats, rather than traditional media. This trend is accelerating worldwide, raising concerns about misinformation, algorithmic bias, and the blurring of entertainment and news.
What about when audiences go searching for information on their own? Most commonly today, this means using a computer, and in this world, Google controls a whopping <a href="https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share?">90% of the search market</a>, processing some <a href="https://sqmagazine.co.uk/google-search-statistics/?">8.9 billion search requests</a> per day, amounting to over 5 trillion annually. Over 70% of all clicks go to the top 5 search results (hence the industry joke that the best place to bury a dead body is on the second page of results for a Google search — because nobody ever looks there). They control a significantly larger share (<a href="https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/google-statistics/?">95%</a>) of the global mobile search market.
Just prior to the 2022 midterm elections, <a href="https://www.allsides.com/blog/google-news-shows-strong-political-bias-allsides-analysis">researchers found that the plurality of articles returned</a> for a Google search under the term “election” were from the New York Times and CNN (44%), with 0% from center or Right-leaning outlets. In 2023, <a href="https://www.allsides.com/blog/google-news-shows-strong-political-bias-allsides-analysis?copilot_analytics_metadata=eyJldmVudEluZm9fbWVzc2FnZUlkIjoiMXB5eDR2NGs1WnJkVDYxR3RWcXA4IiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NvbnZlcnNhdGlvbklkIjoiOURMZ3dnaG5tdFlhWHpzc0xiZGVzIiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NsaWNrU291cmNlIjoiY2l0YXRpb25MaW5rIiwiZXZlbnRJbmZvX2NsaWNrRGVzdGluYXRpb24iOiJodHRwczpcL1wvd3d3LmFsbHNpZGVzLmNvbVwvYmxvZ1wvZ29vZ2xlLW5ld3Mtc2hvd3Mtc3Ryb25nLXBvbGl0aWNhbC1iaWFzLWFsbHNpZGVzLWFuYWx5c2lzIn0=">the same research firm found</a> that 61% of the articles posted on the Google News homepage came from Left-rated sources, with only 3% coming from Right-rated sources. Repeated samplings produced very similar results.
<a href="https://www.gotchseo.com/google-biased/?">Another research firm</a> used 50 politically charged search terms with Google and found that the results were demonstrably left-leaning. Consider their results for the following:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Black Lives Matter” — 9 out of 10 results from Left-leaning outlets.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Border wall” – 7 of 10 results Left-leaning.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Dreamers” – 6 of 10 results Left-leaning.</li>
</ul>
Conversely, searches for “immigration policy” or “gun control facts” would surface snippets from CNN, NYT, or Vox, while conservative sources were buried or absent. Notably, the researchers attribute some of the results to the dominance of left-leaning outlets in Search Engine Optimization, rather than to algorithmic intent. Regardless, the result in the output is the same.
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In his 2019 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, Dr. Robert Epstein, a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat, argued that Google posed a threat not only to democracy but also to human autonomy. He has focused particularly on ephemeral search results — the auto-complete function that Google and others provide, which offers suggestions for alternative or additional phrasing. As but one example, he found that typing “Hillary Clinton is…” yielded suggestions like “winning,” “awesome,” and “qualified,” while “Donald Trump is…” produced “dangerous,” “racist,” and “a liar.” He <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%2520Testimony.pdf">concludes</a>: 
<blockquote>We are all aware that Google deletes or blocks access to videos on YouTube, which it owns, but few people are aware that Google blocks access to millions of websites. By the way, it is not just conservative content that gets censored . . . The problem with Google is not that it censors conservatives; the problem is that it has the power to determine what content billions of people worldwide will or will not see. No single entity – especially a private company that is not accountable to the public – should have such power.</blockquote>
It is clear that all three domains — the legacy media, social media, and search — are all heavily Left-leaning. Consider what this dominance means for the sheer volume of leftist information and rhetoric being broadcast and received. Put aside for the moment the questions of whether Democrats are using more pernicious or violent language than republicans. That issue pales in comparison to the question of how frequently their message is being broadcast — how many videos, shorts, stories, op-eds, posts — the sheer volume of minutes that will be devoted to the Left&#8217;s position versus the Right&#8217;s and whether any counter to it will be available.
The Left has a massive, pervasive, powerful, and sophisticated digital network, which I previously analogized to a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/as-democrat-warplane-takes-flak-audacity-remains-intact?author=Greg+Salsbury&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=As+Democrat+Warplane+Takes+Flak,+Audacity+Remains+Intact">stealth fighter</a>. Comparatively, conservatives have a Sopwith Camel. It is why on any number of issues, from Russiagate to Charlottesville misquotes, to Trump’s comments about COVID and bleach, to Charlie Kirk’s killer being right-wing, a shockingly high percentage of Americans still believe the lies that were broadcast ad nauseam despite their thorough debunking. Until conservatives can deal with the massive differential in scale, reach, and volume, “turning down the rhetoric” will remain a far lower priority issue.
* * *
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisors member for <a href="https://starrs.us">STARRS.US</a>. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Top Social Media Platforms

It’s Not Just The Rhetoric, It’s Who Controls The Mic

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On Friday’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher slammed the media for their constant criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza while ignoring the horrific and systematic slaughter of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria.
In his back-and-forth with guest Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Maher bitterly denounced not only the media for ignoring the crisis in Nigeria, but American youths who routinely slam Israel, but never mention the obvious genocidal effort by Boko Haram and other Muslim groups to eliminate Nigerian Christians.
Open Doors, a Christian charity that reports on persecution of Christians around the world, told Fox News Digital, “The crisis facing large areas of sub-Saharan Africa is hard to overstate. It is potentially existential for the future peace and stability of several nations in the region, not least Nigeria. Around 150,000 people have been killed in Jihadist violence over the last 10 years. Over 16 million Christians have been driven from their homes and their land across the region.”
“Recent Open Doors research shows that more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than the rest of the world combined,” Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/bill-maher-claims-slaughter-christians-nigeria-being-ignored-because-jews-arent-involved">added</a>.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Maher began. “If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble. And again, I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They&#8217;ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They&#8217;ve burned 18,000 churches. This is so much more. These are the Islamists, Boko Haram. This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?”
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“No one will talk about it, so thank you,” Mace responded. “It’s Africa, so no one’s talking about it, and they should be. You can’t read about it on mainstream media. It’s sad, so thank you for bringing it up.&#8221;
“Well, because the Jews aren’t involved. That’s why,&#8221; Maher responded. “It’s the Christians and the Muslims — who cares?”
As far back as April 2021, Maher <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/bill-maher-israel-gaza-bella-hadid?utm_source=chatgpt.com">took aim</a> at the legacy media’s coverage of Israel, saying after coming back from a bout with COVID, “One of the frustrations I had while I was off is that I was watching this war go on in Israel … and it was frustrating to me because there was no one on liberal media to defend Israel, really. &#8230; We&#8217;ve become this country now that we&#8217;re kind of one-sided on this issue. And I&#8217;d also like to say off the bat I don&#8217;t think kids understand &#8212; and when I say kids, I mean the younger generations &#8212; you can&#8217;t learn history from Instagram. There&#8217;s just not enough space.”
“Hamas&#8217; charter says they just want to wipe out Israel,” he said bluntly. “Their negotiation position is, ‘You all die.’”

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‘Because The Jews Aren’t Involved’: Maher Slams Media For Ignoring Christian Genocide In Africa

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US-POLITICS-TRUMP-KIRK-SHOOTING

Christian Faith Was On Full Display At Charlie Kirk’s Memorial And Leftists Are Confused

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Turning Point USA

Commentators at CNN and MSNBC — both left-leaning networks — appeared to break form for just a few seconds in praising the new CEO of Turning Point USA, Erika Kirk, as she eulogized her late husband Charlie Kirk.
For those who don&#8217;t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week&#8217;s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.
The life of Charlie Kirk, conservative commentator and TPUSA founder, was celebrated on Sunday just 11 days after his public assassination at a Utah Valley University campus event, and his newly-widowed wife <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/erika-kirk-forgives-her-husbands-suspected-assassin-says-charlie-would-have-done-so-too">Erika</a> gave a eulogy that brought much of America to tears, offering forgiveness to the suspected assassin who&#8217;d robbed her of a husband and her two young children of their father.
After noting that Charlie&#8217;s heart was truly in the fight to &#8220;save young men just like the one who took his life,&#8221; she added, &#8220;“That young man, that young man. On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That man, that young man, I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know, from the Gospel, is love and always love.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Erika Kirk forgives the man who murdered her husband:
&#8220;My husband Charlie&#8230;he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life&#8230;that young man&#8230;
I forgive him.
I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/Pd1yGRMRVw">pic.twitter.com/Pd1yGRMRVw</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1969893178393206823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The response to Ms. Kirk&#8217;s speech was overwhelming, crossing party lines and blowing away liberal and progressive commentators even on networks like CNN and MSNBC.
NBC White House correspondent Vaughn Hillyard responded to the speech on MSNBC, saying, &#8220;I think what honestly I’ll take away from tonight is watching the weight of a woman, a mother, lose her husband. Most people cannot say they’ve experienced losing a spouse at this young of an age, and I don’t know who we are to suggest how somebody should respond in real time. One week after her husband’s passing, she went in front of a crowd of 40 to 50,000 people, people watching all over the world. And she delivered remarks in which she forgave the assassin that shot her husband and killed him.&#8221;
&#8220;A remarkable moment because in so many ways, where America stands in 2025 is, how do we respond going forward? And the woman that just lost her husband stood there in front of the world and said, ‘I forgive,'&#8221; Hillyard added.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
TFW you&#8217;re blown away by Erika Kirk&#8217;s remarks but HAVE to feed TDS brainworms to your MSNBC audience <a href="https://t.co/GxytM7hOzh">pic.twitter.com/GxytM7hOzh</a>
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) <a href="https://twitter.com/BonillaJL/status/1969907932738339150?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But the conversation did not stop there, as Ayman Mohideen jumped in to also praise Ms. Kirk — but he used her speech to attack President Trump for taking a different route.
&#8220;So, when you weave all of that into a eulogy and in a moment where the country is in sorrow and in pain because of what just happened, there is that split screen. There is that disconnect between the grief that a mother who is just going to bury her husband, the father of her children, and a president who’s talking about the the politics of this moment,&#8221; Mohideen said.
“And I think that’s what my takeaway was from that speech, you know, the opportunity for the president to try to heal and bring the country, as many had hoped he would, and not doing it in the way that many people would expect a president to do,&#8221; he complained.
On CNN, Xochitl Hinojosa — who served as communications director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — said that Erika Kirk&#8217;s words could unite Americans across party lines. But she had to preface that assessment with a comparison to Trump, who she argued had not done that.
&#8220;I think in times like this, especially when there is political violence, you need the president, regardless of who it is, to bring the country together. And that has not happened,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;This was an opportunity for Trump to do that. He did not take that opportunity. The person who really did that was Erika Kirk. She came to the moment — she understood that people need to be brought together. She’s probably one of the only people besides Donald Trump who could do that. So much that she says … that she forgave the shooter. She also said, &#8216;The answer to hate is not hate,'&#8221; Hinojosa said.
&#8220;She talked about love for our enemies. She talked about the First Amendment and the importance of the First Amendment. These are all things that should have come, you know, largely about bringing our country together, from our president,&#8221; she said again. &#8220;But instead it came from the widow of Charlie Kirk, which I think is, I mean, I don’t know how she did it. First of all, giving that speech, but also rising to the moment when our country needs leadership, when our country needs to hear those messages of coming together. It was the widow who did it.&#8221;

Memorial Service Held For Slain Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk At State Farm Stadium

Spin Cycle: They Really Can’t Help It, Can They? CNN, MSNBC Praise Erika Kirk Eulogy To Attack Trump

Spin Cycle: They Really Can't Help It, Can They?

assassination

Donald Trump

The entire media and the Left are filled with rage and anguish today — but not over Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
The outpouring of support for Jimmy Kimmel in the media is overwhelming.
Let&#8217;s start with the things we know about Jimmy Kimmel going off the air. Number one, Jimmy Kimmel&#8217;s ratings were horrifyingly low. Remember, he was a network television late-night host. And in 2025, only 1.6 million people were viewing his show, being broadcast for free on network TV across the country.
In the advertiser-coveted demographic model, ages 25 to 54, the decline was even more significant. Are you ready for this? In 2015, he had a million viewers in that age range. By 2025, he had, I kid you not, 261,000 people in that age range watching his show.
My <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show">show</a> is multiple times larger than Jimmy Kimmel&#8217;s show. Over on Fox in 2025, Greg Gutfeld averaged 3.2 million total viewers, even though it&#8217;s on a cable channel. It’s not even network TV. When it comes to that 25-to-54 demographic, Gutfeld was averaging 381,000 people compared to 261,000 for Kimmel, meaning that Gutfeld was ahead of him by 46%.
So it’s quite possible that a bunch of local affiliates were simply done with Jimmy Kimmel. And when Kimmel decided that he was going to go on air and suggest that the shooter of Charlie Kirk was a MAGA conservative, they&#8217;d had it. Many of these station owners, these local stations, are not owned directly by ABC. They&#8217;re owned by local television networks or by a consortium like Sinclair.
Sinclair Broadcasting happens to be politically conservative in its orientation. There have been longtime rumors of Sinclair trying to launch its own form of Fox News, essentially with its own lineup. So it is perfectly plausible that Sinclair looked at what Jimmy Kimmel said and felt, “You know what? We&#8217;re done. We&#8217;re not interested anymore.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2284-bss-member-exclusive"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a> 
What also happened is that the local affiliates went to ABC. They said, “We don&#8217;t want him on the air.” And ABC responded by basically saying, “If half of our affiliates don&#8217;t want you on the air, we&#8217;re just going to suspend your show because what else are we going to do? You have to provide them with some programming.” 
Sinclair announced it would yank “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its stations until the host apologized directly to Charlie Kirk&#8217;s family and also donated to TPUSA, which, of course, was never going to happen. The company vowed not to return Kimmel&#8217;s show “until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network&#8217;s commitment to professionalism and accountability.” 
Apparently, Jimmy Kimmel had been planning to double down on his remarks.The reason he was abruptly pulled is because he was planning on doing another monologue the next night where he ripped into MAGA. 
According to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/09/18/media/ujimmy-kimmel-refused-to-apologize-after-charlie-kirk-outrage/">New York Post</a>:
<blockquote>Late night host Jimmy Kimmel said he was unwilling to apologize for his remarks that blamed MAGA supporters for killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk — and said he was going to double down on attacking President Trump’s backers before he was yanked from the air, according to new reports. Kimmel learned in a phone call from top Disney exec Dana Walden on Wednesday afternoon that his show was being removed indefinitely, Deadline reported, citing sources. During the call, Kimmel reportedly refused to comply with calls from critics and the owners of dozens of ABC affiliate stations for him to apologize. 
Kimmel felt his remarks required no apologies, another source told The Hollywood Reporter. The “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host also claimed that he was planning to call out his critics for the latest attack on him, all while trying to clarify his comments about Kirk’s death. &#8230; Disney, however, felt that if Kimmel had doubled down on his MAGA comments, the company would have been forced to make a more drastic decision than simply suspending the show, sources told Deadline. </blockquote>
From that fact pattern, it appears that the reason Kimmel was taken off the air is because of organic outrage by viewers, which filtered up to affiliates, and those affiliates went to Disney and ABC. And they said, “We are not interested in having Jimmy Kimmel on.” And Kimmel responded by saying, “I&#8217;m going to double down and attack your viewers.”
No tears for Jimmy Kimmel. 
But the Left has decided that this is the greatest assault on free speech in American history, which is totally crazy considering a man was shot to death for doing free speech one week ago, and they seem to care much more about Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air than Charlie Kirk being murdered live on TV. 
Jon Stewart did a special <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/arts/television/late-night-jimmy-kimmel-suspension.html">weekday break-in</a> on The Daily Show. Of course, he did no such thing last week after Charlie was killed. No special episode about the importance of free speech after a person he disagreed with was shot to death in front of 3,000 people and countless others on the internet. No break-in for that.
But when his friend Jimmy Kimmel gets suspended from the airwaves, he does a break-in. He did a 23-minute monologue suggesting that the State was going to come after everybody on the Left.
Now, one thing I noticed about Jon Stewart is that he is not under that threat. If he thought he was actually under that threat, he wouldn&#8217;t have done this particular lecture.
So he showed up, and his shtick was that the background had been made up to look like a sort of Trumpian Mar-a-Lago. He was wearing a jacket and a red tie to mimic Trump, and a flag pin, so he could claim that he was operating under fear.
Jon Stewart is not operating under fear. Let&#8217;s be real. These were crocodile tears. He was not operating under the assumption that his free speech life is over in the United States. 
Stephen Colbert then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/arts/television/jimmy-kimmel-david-letterman-stephen-colbert.html">came out and said</a>, “We are all Jimmy Kimmel.” What he really meant was, “I am Jimmy Kimmel.” Even if it turns out Kimmel was taken off the air because of FCC pressure — which I think is very, very doubtful — Stephen Colbert was not taken off the air because of Trump administration pressure. Paramount chief Shari Redstone pointed out that Stephen Colbert&#8217;s cancellation had literally nothing to do with anything government-related. He was taken off because he sucked at his job and cost too much money. 
Comedian Marc Maron <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/marc-maron-patton-oswalt-jimmy-kimmel/">hyperventilated</a>, “This is government censorship. This is the Trump administration coming after people who speak out against him. This is the end of it. If you have any concern or belief in real freedom or the Constitution and free speech, this is it. This is the deciding moment. This is what authoritarianism looks like right now in this country. It’s happening.” 
Oh my God, you can hear the jackboots at the door. 
David Letterman <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/david-letterman-laces-into-trump-white-house-over-to-kimmel-suspension-an-authoritarian-criminal-administration/">emerged</a> from his house in the woods — where I assume he&#8217;s writing Unabomber journals — to go to the vaunted Atlantic Festival to talk about how this is a criminal and authoritarian administration. 
Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut, who for some weird reason believes that he is going to run for president, said <a href="https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1969024042926547421">Kimmel’s suspension</a> was about Trump silencing his political opponents. He actually said the people should take to the streets, that there should basically be giant protests in favor of Jimmy Kimmel. 
After spending 60 years using the FCC to crack down on its own political opposition, it is hilarious to see the Left protesting about Kimmel’s suspension. 
For a solid couple of decades, Democrats were quite authoritarian in their approach to free speech. We all remember the Woke revolutions, where if you didn&#8217;t post a black square, you were in danger of losing your job. We all remember Barack Obama using the law to spy on James Rosen, the Associated Press journalist. We remember Joe Biden using the power of the government to crack down on major social media companies in order to get them to mirror his political priorities. We all remember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for more censorship. 
The Left is crying about Kimmel and free speech. 
It’s been hardly more than a week since America lost Charlie.

ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel From Late Show After Comments About Charlie Kirk Shooting

Kimmel Suspended, Democrats Livid 

Ben Shapiro

Jimmy Kimmel

Jon Stewart

Stephen Colbert

The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk has further exposed media bias, with outlets like MSNBC, CNN, and ABC labeling him “divisive” or “controversial” while downplaying leftist rhetoric that may have fueled violence. <a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/cnsnews/craig-bannister/2025/09/12/charlie-kirks-murder-cheered-online-liberal-teachers">Posts by liberal school teachers cheering</a> Kirk’s death and comments from Democrat politicians like Jasmine Crockett and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker inciting unrest reveal a double standard. This tragedy may finally force the elite legacy media to confront the effect their far-left bias has had on America. Even before Kirk’s assassination, President Trump was pushing broadcasters to restore balance to heal the political divide, improve network viewership, and ensure the airwaves serve all Americans, aligning with the law and fostering fair discourse.
When Donald Trump descended the escalator in the summer of 2015, he put on center stage the fight that the Media Research Center (MRC) has been engaged in for nearly 40 years. While MRC may be the incumbent in this battle against media bias, the president deserves enormous credit for helping to identify and root out media malfeasance.
President Trump and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr are addressing the longstanding issue of media bias by enforcing the legal obligations of broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC, which use public airwaves rent-free. These networks must meet a “public interest test” to serve all Americans, not just select political groups. Recent actions, including Trump’s lawsuits against CBS and ABC for deceptive editing and defamation, highlight a commitment to rooting out bias.
Legacy media are undoubtedly biased and purpose-driven. Take ABC’s David Muir, who was still allowed to host a presidential debate after MRC research found his nightly newscast had <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2024/09/09/100-abc-debate-moderator-david-muir-hosts-most-pro-harris-left-wing">100% positive coverage of Kamala Harris</a> and <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2025/04/28/tv-news-assaults-2nd-trump-admin-92-negative-coverage">92% negative coverage of Donald Trump</a>. From routine <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2025/09/02/why-cant-cbs-stop-deceptively-editing-interviews-politicians">deceptive</a> editing in their interviews with Trump – and his cabinet officials – to initially refusing to mention the brutal Charlotte stabbing, only to eventually <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/09/08/nbc-trumpwashes-their-coverage-brutal-charlotte-stabbing">report</a> the tragedy through the lens of it being right-wing hysteria and fuel for Trump’s tough-on-crime approach. The media have earned the colossal decline of their collective reputation.
The public is now keenly aware of the media’s deficiencies, with <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/657239/five-key-insights-americans-views-news-media.aspx">69% </a>of people saying they have very little to no trust in the media, the worst result for the media since Gallup started assessing public confidence in it.
Some would argue, and most conservatives would agree, that these broadcasters and their cable news counterparts have a right to anchor themselves in whatever political persuasion favors their interests, so long as they are honest with their audience. While it would, at best, lack journalistic integrity for a major cable network like MSNow (formerly MSNBC) or CNN to show blatant favoritism in how they interview a Supreme Court justice, it would still easily pass legal muster. However, when traditional network broadcasters like CBS engage in <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/09/07/tale-two-interviews-cbss-norah-odonnell-fawned-over-justice#">the same behavior</a>, it’s a completely different story.
That is because the airwaves used by ABC, CBS, and NBC are owned by the American public. It will surprise many to learn that these broadcasters use our airwaves rent-free. This might sound like a terrible deal for taxpayers, but that is why broadcasters are required to meet a “public interest test,” ensuring that the whole public is served. Not just Democrats. Not just liberals. Not just left-wing agitators.
Carr is taking action to hold broadcasters accountable to the law which requires them to act in the interest of all Americans. Perhaps ironically, by requiring broadcasters to serve a much larger audience, Carr is probably saving these networks from their plummeting ratings and their declining revenues. Moreover, by reducing other regulatory burdens placed on them by the Biden administration, like the onerous DEI and ESG requirements, Carr is helping their bottom lines in more ways than one.
It’s no secret that traditional <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-05-11/network-evening-newscasts-still-matter-but-face-stiff-winds-of-change#:~:text=View%20All-,The%20network%20evening%20news%20is%20in%20flux:%20Why%20an%20American,With%20David%20Muir%E2%80%9D%20on%20ABC.&amp;text=Network%20evening%20newscasts%20are%20down,younger%2C%20digital%2Dsavvy%20viewers.">broadcast media is</a> in financial trouble. Without question, this is due to the fact that their current business model focuses on the fastest shrinking segment of America: liberals.
That might or might not work for a niche channel, like MSNow, but it is a guaranteed losing proposition for broadcast news.
By getting these networks to live up to their legal obligations, President Trump and Chairman Carr are helping all Americans become better informed while simultaneously helping the networks increase their <a href="https://allaboutcookies.org/cord-cutters-streaming-survey#:~:text=Rising%20cable%20costs%20and%20the,to%20move%20away%20from%20cable." target="_blank" rel="noopener">sagging viewership and revenue.</a> 
Their recent actions represent the first serious attempt in modern history to restore lawfulness, fairness, and order to the political discourse in America’s media. It is something we need more of.
* * *
Dan Schneider is the Vice President of 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.

CNN headquarters building.

Left-Wing Media Bias Under Scrutiny Following Coverage Of Kirk Assassination

ABC News

Federal Trade Commission

Media Research Center

MSNBC

NBC News

The manhunt for Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassin continues, as reports indicate the ammunition used was etched with pro-transgender and anti-fascist phrases. The legacy media faces intense backlash for its response to Charlie Kirk&#8217;s murder, with some commentators blaming the victim for his own assassination. On the 24th anniversary of 9/11, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth lays out a new, hard-hitting vision for the U.S. Military.
It’s Friday, September 12, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>Manhunt Continues for Charlie Kirk’s Killer</h2>
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Topline: The nationwide manhunt continues for the assassin who fatally shot Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, as new reports indicate the ammunition used in the attack was etched with pro-transgender and anti-fascist slogans.
Authorities have recovered the high-powered, bolt-action rifle allegedly used in the attack from a wooded area near the Utah Valley University campus. A law enforcement bulletin cited by The Wall Street Journal said the ammunition found with the rifle was etched with a number of pro-transgender and anti-fascist phrases. Kirk was an outspoken critic of transgender ideology and was discussing the topic at the moment he was shot.
The FBI has identified a new person of interest &#8212; a slender male in his 20s &#8212; and released two images to the public, offering a $100,000 reward for information on his whereabouts. As the killer remains at large, lawmakers across the country have canceled scheduled events over security fears. Later on Thursday, authorities released video showing the suspected assassin flee the scene, jumping off the building where he&#8217;s believed to have shot Kirk from with a hunting rifle.
<div id="attachment_971557" style="width: 307px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-971557" class="size-large wp-image-971557" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-297x576.jpg" alt="" width="297" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-297x576.jpg 297w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-155x300.jpg 155w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-768x1490.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-792x1536.jpg 792w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-1055x2048.jpg 1055w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/GettyImages-2234187310-scaled.jpg 1319w" sizes=" (max-width: 297px) 100vw, 297px" />(Photo by FBI Salt Lake City via Getty Images)</div>
President Trump announced that Kirk would be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, calling him a &#8220;giant of his generation.&#8221; On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, accompanied the Kirk family as Charlie’s casket was flown back to his home in Phoenix, Arizona, on Air Force 2.
<h2>Legacy Media Faces Backlash for Response to Kirk’s Murder</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-971573" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH2-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH2-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH2-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH2.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
Topline: The legacy media is facing widespread and intense criticism for its coverage of Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination, with some commentators implying the conservative activist was to blame for his own death.
Immediately after the fatal shooting, MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd suggested on-air that Kirk&#8217;s &#8220;hate speech&#8221; often leads to &#8220;hateful actions,&#8221; and even speculated that the shot could have come from &#8220;a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration.&#8221; Following intense backlash, MSNBC issued an apology and fired Dowd. On CBS, host Nate Burleson suggested the assassination was a moment for the Republican Party to reflect on political violence. The New York Times initially smeared Kirk as a &#8220;provocateur&#8221; in its report on his assassination.
Critics are pointing to a long pattern of hostile and false coverage of Kirk by legacy media outlets and activist groups. The far-Left Southern Poverty Law Center recently added Kirk&#8217;s organization, Turning Point USA, to its &#8220;Hate Map&#8221; alongside KKK chapters. On the floor of the U.S. House, about a dozen Democrats erupted in protest when Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) requested a prayer for Kirk after a moment of silence, with one shouting, &#8220;Pass some gun laws!&#8221;
<h2>Hegseth Issues 9/11 Call to Action for U.S. Military</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-971569" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH3-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH3-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH3-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH3-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH3-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MRN-9.12.25-SH3.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
Topline: On the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a powerful address laying out the Trump administration&#8217;s hard-hitting vision for the U.S. Military.
&#8220;War is an enduring aspect of the human condition,&#8221; Hegseth said Thursday. &#8220;War must not become a mere tool for global social work, eager to risk American blood and treasure for utopian fever dreams. We should hit hard, wreak vengeance, and return home.”
Retired Marine Corps Major Chris Lovell told Morning Wire that the new mission clarity is having a positive effect on the armed forces. &#8220;We are in such a good place with the military,&#8221; Lovell said, crediting the administration with &#8220;getting rid of the DEI distractions, the woke distractions.&#8221; He said recruitment is now &#8220;fuller than ever&#8221; because the mission is clear.
Lovell reflected on the surge of patriotism following the 9/11 attacks, when nearly 200,000 young Americans enlisted. He said the military&#8217;s new mission under Trump and Hegseth is inspiring a similar sense of purpose. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to be lethal,&#8221; Lovell said. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to defend the interests of the United States of America. And we&#8217;re going to have leaders that support us and have our backs.&#8221;

MRN 9.12.25 Thumbnail V2

Morning Brief: Manhunt For Charlie Kirk’s Killer, Backlash To Media Coverage, 9/11 ‘Call To Action’

9/11

Murder

U.S.

Yesterday, I covered at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-savage-crime-the-media-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about">great length</a> the horrific killing of Iryna Zarutska, the 23 year-old Ukrainian refugee who was savagely stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte by DeCarlos Brown, an evil, psychotic criminal barbarian with a lengthy rap sheet. To review: Iryna was on her way home from a shift at the pizza place where she worked. She boarded the light rail car and sat down in front of Brown without a single word exchanged between them. A few minutes into the ride, Brown pulled out a knife, stood up, and began butchering Iryna to death without warning. He then proceeded to walk around the train, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Nobody attempted to intervene at any point.
We now know Brown had been arrested 14 times before this awful crime was committed. The criminal justice system — which has no interest in dispensing justice to criminals — had 14 chances to get this creature off the street. They could have permanently removed him from society after the third arrest, or the fourth, or the seventh, or the tenth, but instead they gave him 14 chances. Even after he committed armed robbery, and assault, and more than a dozen other crimes. The system simply churned him back out, waited for him to get arrested again, and then churned him out again, like some kind of demonic merry-go-round.
This is a huge national story. A young woman lost her life in one of the most heinous ways imaginable. It is everything that George Floyd was purported to be, but never actually was. Floyd’s death didn’t matter that much. He was a violent career criminal who contributed nothing of value to society and then overdosed. Iryna, on the other hand, is an actual innocent victim of brutal interracial violence. Her death is a major scandal. It is the direct result of deep and widespread systemic failures and corruption. She should have the murals and the streets named after her. The judges and city officials who let her killer loose on the street should all get the Derek Chauvin treatment.
Instead, up until yesterday, Iryna’s case, far from being treated like a national scandal, was completely ignored by the national media. None of the major national outlets had said a word about it. CNN and MSNBC hadn’t spent even 30 seconds of airtime reporting on it. The New York Times and the Washington Post hadn&#8217;t dedicated 5 sentences of coverage to it. It was a total media blackout, made all the more infuriating by how utterly, disgustingly predictable it was.
But these days the media don’t lead the conversation, as much as they wish they could. The conversation happens without them, until they are forced to chime in for fear of being reduced to permanent irrelevance. So, over the 24 hours since our episode aired, finally some of the major corporate outlets decided to acknowledge this case, as we had left them no choice. And their spin is exactly what you would expect. To the media, the story isn&#8217;t the murder itself, but the fact that conservatives are talking about the murder. It isn’t that a black criminal butchered an innocent white woman, but that we have noticed it.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1654-the-matt-walsh-show?elementPosition=0&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
There are now headlines like this one from Politico: “Ukrainian refugee killed in North Carolina gets dragged into political messaging war. President Donald Trump and MAGA allies are using the killing of Iryna Zarutska to attack Democrats.” Yes, you see, Democrats are really the victims here. A young woman bled to death in public but the real concern is that Democrats are being attacked by conservative pundits on social media.
Axios had a similar spin. Headline: “Stabbing video fuels MAGA&#8217;s crime message.” They’re right, of course. The stabbing video does fuel our crime message. That’s because our crime message is that crime is bad. And people who commit crimes should go to prison, and not be permitted to stab women to death on the train. In the same way you could say that a video of a house fire fuels our firefighting message, which is that it’s bad for houses to burn down, and we should put out the fires rather than allowing them to engulf entire neighborhoods. Our messages tend to be pretty simple in that way.
But there is one part of this absurd <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/11/12/trump-media-maga-influencers-election">Axios piece</a> that warrants special mention:
<blockquote>“MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases. <a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2025/09/05/light-rail-stabbing-graphic-video-shows-moments-before-after-woman-killed-charlotte/">Shocking video</a> of the fatal Aug. 22 <a href="https://www.charlottenc.gov/cmpd/News-Information/Newsroom/Homicide-Investigation-in-the-Central-Division-08.22.25">knife attack</a> on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, dominated weekend conversation on Trump-friendly social media… The rising number of surveillance cameras in public spaces, including on Charlotte&#8217;s light rail, has become a big accelerant in these cases. The video is easily shared or leaked, and can instantly pollinate across social media — a visual counterpoint to statistics showing crime decreases.”</blockquote>
That’s correct. As I&#8217;ve covered extensively in the past, crime stats can be manipulated in many ways. You can show “decreases&#8221; in violent crime simply by now reporting the crime, or not charging the criminals. If a city decides to pretend that vast categories of crime are no longer crimes, then “crime,” statistically, will go down. It is not hard to make a city safer on the stat sheet.
Making it safer on the light rail car, however, is a different matter. A city can be safe on a sheet of paper, but not safe on the street, or the sidewalk, or at the gas station, or on public transportation, and so on.
The videos break through the false narratives and the juked crime stats by showing us what’s actually happening. It is one thing to hear that a city has X number of murders. It&#8217;s another thing to see what that means, to see how these murders are happening, and where they&#8217;re happening, and who they&#8217;re happening to, and who they’re being committed by. That’s why all of the security cameras and police body cameras are becoming a major problem for the Left. Don’t be surprised when there’s a major push to get rid of the cameras in the name of “privacy.” As we’ve talked about many times, we&#8217;ve already seen the beginnings of this process with police body cams. The left-wing race hustlers demanded the body cams, and then the body cams proceeded to annihilate all of their narratives about police brutality, and now they’re not so hot on body cams anymore. A similar thing will happen — and is already beginning to happen — with security cameras.
Here’s a story out of Canada:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hamilton is forcing a home owner to remove his security cameras which are on his house &amp; property. 
Only the Government is allowed to watch you citizen. <a href="https://t.co/3mErbvJXc8">pic.twitter.com/3mErbvJXc8</a>
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangerritsen/status/1964322252205224411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @ryangerritsen/X
So, he has ten cameras because of a rash of attempted break-ins. The cameras have been used not only to protect himself against burglary and other crimes, but to help solve and prevent other crimes in the neighborhood. Now his local city school marm bureaucratic tyrants are telling him to take the cameras down because of &#8220;privacy&#8221; concerns. But we all know the real concern. It’s that the cameras are not only documenting crime, but documenting who is actually committing most of the crime. And that is the thing we aren&#8217;t supposed to notice. The noticing is the problem.
That’s certainly what CNN is worried about:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
CNNs reaction segment tonight about the horrific murder of Iryna Zarutska tonight was to express sympathy for the suspect and harshly criticized social media pundits.
Van Jones decided to weigh in, criticizing <a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@charliekirk11</a> due to alleged racial hate mongering.
He claimed that… <a href="https://t.co/6i2LPK6sTF">pic.twitter.com/6i2LPK6sTF</a>
— Media Lies (@MediasLies) <a href="https://twitter.com/MediasLies/status/1965241746008207612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Credit: @MediasLies/X
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A black man murdered a Ukrainian refugee &amp; proclaimed he “got that white girl.”
CNN: “The open racism on sites like X today, it&#8217;s eye-popping.”<a href="https://t.co/l1y57QwlN4">pic.twitter.com/l1y57QwlN4</a>
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1965158814849835080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Credit: Breaking911/X
So the narrative we hear from the media is as predictable as it is revolting. They are infinitely more outraged at the alleged “racially charged language” of conservative pundits than they are at the actual butchery of an innocent woman by a 14 time career felon on public transportation. They are not angry that this woman was killed. They couldn’t care less. They wouldn&#8217;t even be talking about it, if they had their way. Instead they’re outraged by the “racism” of conservatives who have noticed that the murder happens.
Then we hear from Van Jones that we can’t say for sure whether that black criminal killed Iryna because she was white. So just to review: the media can say for sure that it’s racist to say mean things about a black guy who killed a white woman, but they can&#8217;t say for sure that it’s racist for a black guy to actually kill a white woman. The murder isn’t racist. The commentary is. That&#8217;s what these despicable snakes are actually claiming.
Keep in mind, this is coming from the same people who declared from the first moment that the George Floyd footage went viral that it was a racist hate crime. There was nothing in the video — not a single thing — that indicated any kind of racial motivation whatsoever. And yet when a black suspect ODs while being detained by a white cop, it&#8217;s a racist killing. When a black criminal slaughters a white woman on the train, it’s a mental health episode. This is what these soulless goblins expect us to believe.
Hey, Van, here&#8217;s what we know. Statistically, a white person is 30 times more likely to be killed by a black person than the other way around. In 2019, there were about 560 thousand violent interracial incidents between blacks and whites. 470 thousand of them were black on white. That&#8217;s 85%. 240 black people were killed by whites. 560 white people were killed by blacks. And this is all in spite of the fact that white people make up 60% of the population. Blacks are 13%. Just by raw numbers — not even per capita, but raw numbers — there are more black interracial killers than white. There are 171 million more white people in the country, and yet there are more black interracial killers. That kind of disparity should be impossible. And yet it&#8217;s real, and it&#8217;s happening.
Per capita, the situation is even more dire. Black people — young black males in particular — are an order of magnitude more violent and more likely to commit crimes than any other group in the country. Black men are 5 or 6% of the population but they commit the majority of murders in this country. That makes black males in America more dangerous than perhaps any other demographic in the entire world, let alone the country. And we know all of this despite the efforts by the FBI and every other institution to hide and bury racial crime statistics. Imagine how much worse it really is. Imagine how grisly it would look if they let us see the whole picture, instead of just pieces of it.
But we can see enough to know, without any doubt whatsoever, that the violent crime epidemic is driven by one demographic to an overwhelmingly disproportionate degree. And all of this has happened while you, Van, and your propagandist cohorts, have spent years claiming that the reality is exactly the opposite of this. You paint a picture of a country where black people walk around in fear of white violence. Where black people are constantly tired and exhausted by the brutality inflicted upon them by the villainous whites.
But those of us who you condemn as “racists” — we are the ones who are tired. We are tired of not being able to walk down the street in our own cities. We are tired of losing good, productive citizens at the hands of violent degenerates who contribute nothing to society. We are tired of the total lack of accountability and responsibility. We are tired of a system that prioritizes the “restoration” and “rehabilitation&#8221; of violent psychopaths over the protection of innocent, law abiding people. And we are tired of pretending that all of this isn’t happening. We aren&#8217;t going to pretend anymore.

MixCollage-09-Sep-2025-02-15-PM-155

The Media Is Outraged That You’re Outraged By The Murder Of An Innocent White Woman

The Media Is Outraged That You're Outraged By The Murder Of An Innocent White Woman

Blacks

Charlotte

Crime

Van Jones

Violent Crime

Whites

MixCollage-08-Sep-2025-02-34-PM-5517

The Savage Crime The Media Doesn’t Want You To Know About

Criminal Justice

Stabbing

It&#8217;s become perfectly predictable at this point.
Let&#8217;s say there&#8217;s a violent incident in which a black person and a white person get into conflict. Let&#8217;s say it&#8217;s the white person who ends up killing the black person. Even in a situation where the black person was actually performing an aggressive act and the white person was acting in defense of self or others in the situation, we get months of discussions about white on black violence.
If it&#8217;s Michael Brown, months and years of talk about white on black police and crime. Derek Chauvin, George Floyd. This is just the way it goes.
If, however, the crime is reversed, if it is a black perpetrator and a white victim, then, of course, it just disappears into the ether and we never hear about it again. The latest case of this happens to be this horrifying video out of North Carolina.
According to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/09/06/us-news/ukrainian-refugees-stabbing-death-on-north-carolina-train-caught-on-video/">New York Post</a>:
<blockquote>Haunting new video revealed the terrifying moment a homeless ex-con allegedly fatally <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/08/25/us-news/ukrainian-refugee-23-who-fled-war-for-safer-life-in-us-knifed-to-death-by-homeless-career-criminal-in-north-carolina/">stabbed a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee</a> in what police said was a random attack on a North Carolina light rail train. Iryna Zarutska, who fled war-torn Ukraine for a safer life in America, was on the Lynx Blue Line in Charlotte just before 10 p.m. Aug. 22 when she was ambushed, <a href="https://www.charlottenc.gov/cmpd/News-Information/Newsroom/Homicide-Investigation-in-the-Central-Division-08.22.25">according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.</a>
The <a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2025/09/05/light-rail-stabbing-graphic-video-shows-moments-before-after-woman-killed-charlotte/">surveillance footage</a>, released Friday by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), shows Zarutska boarding the train in her pizzeria uniform at 9:46 p.m. and sitting, looking at her phone, unaware of the danger behind her.
Just four minutes later, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly whips out a folding knife and lunges forward, stabbing her three times, at least once in the neck, police said.
The chilling video then appears to show Brown walking through the rail car, stripping off his sweatshirt and waiting by the doors — as passengers began to notice blood dripping from him.</blockquote>
Zarutska, collapsed in her seat and was pronounced dead on the light rail train. Brown apparently got off at the next stop. A folding knife was later recovered near the platform.
There are a couple of issues here.
This particular perpetrator had multiple arrests dating back to 2011. His record included larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and communicating threats.
The first issue has nothing to do with race. It has to do with our criminal justice system not keeping criminals in prison long enough. I know this cuts against the left-wing view that we are an “over-incarcerated” society.
Wrong. We&#8217;re a radically under-incarcerated society.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2275-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
My point is not that we need more random misdemeanor defendants in jail — my point is that if someone is arrested for armed robbery, that person should be in jail for the rest of his or her life. They should not be let back out on the streets. It’s wrong to stick someone like that in jail for only three or four years, especially if they&#8217;re a homeless, mentally ill person, which is what this person was.
What we end up with is crime on the street. This idiocy where we arrest career criminals, take them off the streets for five minutes, and put them back on the streets is insane. It&#8217;s totally ridiculous and insane at every possible level. It gets human beings murdered. 
There are judges who give light sentences that allow for this catch-and-release nonsense. This process needs to be ended immediately.
Evil people need to go to jail forever. Forever. They should not be out. There&#8217;s a very, very high recidivism rate with regard to violent crime.
The second issue is the racial angle, which is less about race and more about media coverage of race. There are some people who will attempt to turn this into some sort of salient point about the difference between races.
Let&#8217;s be very clear. Crime is a result of individual evil human action. It is not inborn into any race. What you have in a lot of areas are different cultural orientations toward crime. This is just a reality. If you don&#8217;t have fathers in the home with high crime areas, if you have people who see other criminals around them acting like criminals, they act like criminals.
The media coverage is always radically disparate. If a white person commits a crime against a black person, it is a national news story. If a black person murders a white Ukrainian girl on the train in Charlotte, it gets zero mainstream media coverage.
Zero.
As of Sunday, The New York Times had not covered the story at all.
Liz Wheeler <a href="https://x.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1964875008209301552">pointed out</a> that The New York Times dedicated some 6,000 articles to George Floyd, roughly 1,200 articles to Trayvon Martin, 56 to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, roughly 100 to Daniel Penny, and ZERO to Iryna Zarutska.
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George Floyd—5,897
Trayvon Martin—1,190
Kilmar Abrego Garcia—56
Daniel Penny—100
Iryna Zarutska—0
New York Times is propaganda. <a href="https://t.co/042SZW0g3G">pic.twitter.com/042SZW0g3G</a>
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1964875008209301552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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It is not out of line to point out the radical disparity in attention to these headlines. If you ask people who work in legacy media why they have their biases, they will say they don&#8217;t want to “reinforce stereotypes.”
The only stereotype that&#8217;s being reinforced when they don&#8217;t report the news is that the legacy media are trash, and they&#8217;re not giving you the full information.
Donald Trump Jr. <a href="https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1965016826141958650">noted</a>, “Strangely, all the clowns with Ukraine flags in their bio are also all silent on this one.”
What he means by that is that many of the people who have the Ukraine flags in their bio are people who are leftists, people who are oriented against the Trump administration. But when a Ukrainian woman gets killed on a subway by a black man, it turns out that the intersectional hierarchy has been upended.
And so they have to ignore the murder.
The bottom line here is, as always, legacy media are perfectly willing to overlook stories that do not match their narrative.
The death of this young woman will not become a national issue. It will not spur a national conversation about crime rates, about policing, or about people getting out too early on bail.
It won&#8217;t do any of those things because it doesn&#8217;t match up with the corrupt legacy media and what they wish the world were really all about.

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Mentally Ill, Repeat-Criminal Kills Young Ukrainian Female Refugee. Media Silent. Guess Why.

George Floyd

Ukraine

In a stunning display of media deflection, Axios criticized “MAGA influencers” for drawing attention to violent urban crime, specifically in response to the recent horrific, deadly stabbing of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina. Instead of focusing on the deeply troubling facts of this case — a young woman fleeing war only to be killed while using public transportation — Axios decided to turn its spotlight on conservatives and Trump supporters for &#8220;elevating&#8221; the issue.
“The gruesome video of the fatal knife attack on Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car in Charlotte is drawing attention from MAGA influencers seeking to elevate the issue of violent urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases,” Axios tweeted, referring to its article that elaborated on the subject.
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The gruesome video of the fatal knife attack on Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car in Charlotte is drawing attention from MAGA influencers seeking to elevate the issue of violent urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases. <a href="https://t.co/OIj3FYfDLE">https://t.co/OIj3FYfDLE</a>
— Axios (@axios) <a href="https://twitter.com/axios/status/1965010353353625669?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The attack occurred on August 22 aboard Charlotte’s light rail. DeCarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old man with a long criminal history, stabbed Zarutska multiple times, including once in the neck, as horrified passengers watched. Surveillance footage showed Zarutska collapsing while Brown casually stood near the doors, having removed his sweatshirt. Notably, he was reportedly riding the train without a ticket — another example of lax enforcement in urban areas. Zarutska had only recently arrived in the United States, having escaped war-torn Ukraine in the hope of a better life.
Despite the brutal nature of the crime, mainstream outlets barely offered any coverage, prompting widespread outrage among conservative commentators. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Trump advisor Stephen Miller, and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) amplified the story on social media.
Yet Axios — instead of investigating the clear failures of public safety, or questioning why a known repeat offender was allowed to roam free — chose to frame the story as a political tactic by conservatives. The article didn’t ask why the system failed Zarutska; instead, it asked why people on the Right were talking about it at all.
Axios seems more concerned about who is sharing the video than why the footage exists. The legacy media ran wall-to-wall coverage of racially-charged cases like that of Daniel Penny, but in Zarutska’s case, their zeal is absent.
North Carolina GOP Senate candidate Michael Whatley used the incident to criticize Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s soft-on-crime policies, pointing to a 2020 executive order focused on racial profiling and systemic racism.
While Zarutska is barely reported in the mainstream media, Axios wants readers to focus on the supposed political opportunism of conservatives, not the death of an innocent young woman.
Axios got hammered on social media:
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This really is a work of art. It&#8217;s like default mode for the media on any issue:
The ________ is drawing attention from MAGA influencers seeking to elevate the issue of _______ — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering ________ <a href="https://t.co/RKIA5jOW8m">https://t.co/RKIA5jOW8m</a>
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) <a href="https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1965026792458375679?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The murder of Iryna Zarutska by Decarlos Brown Jr. is a story worthy of national attention. A Ukrainian refugee flees Russia’s invasion only to be stabbed to death by a repeat violent offender? National story — except it is bad politics for Dems, so it is Republicans pounce time. <a href="https://t.co/oFZXt05UxF">https://t.co/oFZXt05UxF</a>
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1965024300655919185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Pay attention to how Axios chose to headline this claptrap. No mention of the perp&#8217;s multiple arrests , no mention of the racial element, no mention of the refugee status of the victim. They don&#8217;t want to fuel public outrage over the dereliction of public servants responsible. <a href="https://t.co/YlgwUsyTm9">https://t.co/YlgwUsyTm9</a>
— Disinformation Expert Lizzy (@StarChamberMaid) <a href="https://twitter.com/StarChamberMaid/status/1965010988551623140?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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You can always count on the “conservatives pounce” narrative.
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) <a href="https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/1965010696107905413?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Image 9-8-25 at 11.46 AM

Conservatives Pounce: Axios Targets ‘MAGA Influencers’ For Highlighting Murdered Ukrainian Refugee

Axios

Media Bias

North Carolina

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