Brian Karem, the longtime White House correspondent and author of “Free the Press: The Death of American Journalism and How to Revive It,” just <a href="https://www.salon.com/2026/04/24/why-im-boycotting-the-white-house-correspondents-dinner/">published</a> a fiery Salon piece declaring he’s boycotting this weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD). His reason? President Donald Trump is attending. “I will not be attending,” Karem writes. “I have no desire to participate in this hypocrisy.” He accuses Trump of “discredit[ing], insult[ing] and abus[ing] reporters,” closing off access, suing news organizations, and stacking the briefing room with “right-wing propagandists posing as independent reporters.” He laments a “spineless and worthless” corporate media that won’t fight back hard enough.
If the press is truly under siege, if American journalism is dying, as Karem’s book title insists, then why does one President showing up to a black-tie dinner feel like an existential threat? The truth is simpler, and far more American: The press has never been more free. It’s just no longer the exclusive property of the old gatekeepers.
For decades, the press wasn’t a marketplace of ideas — it was a cozy cartel. Three television networks, a handful of powerful newspapers, and the annual WHCD (affectionately, or not, known as “nerd prom”), where reporters mingled with the very officials they were supposed to hold accountable. Access was everything. Favors were traded over cocktails. Stories that challenged the narrative often died quietly in the editing room.
Karem himself is a product of that system. He successfully sued to regain his press pass during Trump’s first term. He’s covered administrations for years from inside the bubble. Yet now he’s shocked that the man millions of Americans elected twice refuses to play by the old rules. Trump didn’t invent presidential control over White House access — it’s not a public utility, and never has been. Every president has shaped the briefing room to suit his style. What’s different is that Trump says the quiet part out loud, and millions of Americans cheer him for it.
Meanwhile, legacy outlets spent years pushing stories that later crumbled: the Russian collusion narrative (later walked back by intelligence officials), the Hunter Biden laptop promoted as “Russian disinformation,” and COVID-era claims that shifted with the political winds. Trust didn’t evaporate because of Trump’s tweets. It collapsed because Americans could see the spin in real time. Gallup’s latest poll shows just <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx">28%</a> of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in mass media — the lowest on record.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/wired-in-live-white-house-correspondents-dinner-special-edition?elementPosition=0&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Watch the White House Correspondents&#8217; Dinner LIVE on The Daily Wire</a>
The internet shattered the cartel. X, Substack, podcasts, YouTube, and independent sites let anyone with a smartphone and the courage to speak publish instantly. Citizen journalists reach millions without begging corporate approval.
Substack alone has exploded past 35 million monthly active subscribers by 2026, with paid subscriptions growing rapidly as readers vote with their wallets for independent voices. Podcasts and newsletters from moms, veterans, and everyday Americans now influence the national conversation more than evening newscasts ever did. Legacy newsrooms are hemorrhaging staff and subscribers, not because of “right-wing propagandists,” but because competition works. When the old guard calls this the “death of journalism,” what they really mean is the death of their monopoly.
Viewpoint diversity has never been higher. Before 2016, newsrooms in Washington, D.C. and New York City leaned overwhelmingly one way — studies routinely showed that over 90% of political donations from journalists went to Democrats. Conservative perspectives were dismissed as fringe. Today, parallel ecosystems flourish. Trump didn’t kill journalism; he accelerated its breakup into a true marketplace of ideas. Americans can now choose sources that reflect their values instead of being force-fed a single narrative.
Real-time corrections happen daily. The Hunter Biden story suppression, the lab-leak theory dismissal, and “transitory” inflation spin were all exposed not by internal ombudsmen but by independent outlets and the American public.
Legally, the press has never been safer. The First Amendment remains untouched. Presidents have always limited access, issued criticism, and occasionally sued when reporting crossed into falsehood. Trump’s “enemy of the people” line is protected speech, just as the media’s daily insults toward him are. No journalists are jailed. No newspapers are shuttered. Contrast that with actual authoritarian regimes where reporters face prison or worse. Reporters Without Borders may wring its hands, but America still ranks among the freest nations on earth for press freedom.
The WHCA dinner itself proves the point. It’s a celebrity schmooze-fest that raises scholarship money while reporters pose for selfies with power brokers. Karem and more than 250 colleagues (including Dan Rather and Sam Donaldson) signed a <a href="https://x.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/2046181834506096954/photo/1">letter</a> decrying “unprecedented attacks.” Yet the event was never about “vigorous press” — it was about access and glamour. Boycotting Trump because he shows up exposes the hypocrisy: The dinner was fine when it roasted him in 2011 or when comedians mocked him in absentia. Now that he’s back in the room as the elected president, suddenly it’s unbearable.
Karem’s Salon piece is revealing. He praises past colleagues for “standing up” to Trump and laments today’s “compliant reporters” softened by buyouts and diluted by new voices. He wants the old rules back — where a small guild decided the narrative and everyone else followed. Americans rejected that model in 2016, 2024, and again now.
The press isn’t dying — it’s democratizing. It’s becoming more representative, more accountable, and more responsive to the people it serves.
The question isn’t whether the press will survive Trump. The real question is whether the old guard will adapt to a truly open marketplace or keep boycotting reality while the rest of us move forward.
The press has never been more free. And that’s the American way.
***
Bethany Miller is the Director of Communications at NRB, managing editor of The Conservateur, and a senior fellow at Concerned Women for America.

Fake news graffiti

President Trump’s Appearance At The WHCD Isn’t A Threat To Journalism — Journalists Are

DW Opinion

Free Press

Mainstream Media

Media Bias

White House Correspondents’ Dinner

There is a long-honored pattern among progressive media figures when it comes to any form of new media. Prolific X (formerly Twitter) user David Burge (@Iowahawkblog) made <a href="https://x.com/iowahawkblog/status/664089892599631872">this observation</a> in 2015, and it has not been stated better since:
<blockquote>
1. Identify a respected institution. 
2. kill it. 
3. gut it. 
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect. <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/lefties?src=hashtag_click">#lefties</a>
</blockquote>
This weekend, during White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD) and festivities, Substack will be hosting its own third annual invite-only party at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. Substack has sold this as a form of counter programming to traditional media, like network news and newspapers, and has always billed itself as a “New and Independent” media enterprise.
Except there is no longer anything new or independent about Substack, which over the last year has largely become a sanctuary catering to former corporate and legacy partisan journalists. For the first time, President Donald Trump will be in attendance, and several of the journalists he regularly spars with will be attending the Substack party instead.
Substack’s exclusive, invite-only party will feature a cadre of so-called independent media voices. Kara Swisher, Mehdi Hassan, Chuck Todd, Chris Cillizza, Jennifer Rubin, Jim Acosta, and more mainstream media cast-offs who now all lay a claim to Substack and who Substack is turning to for their audiences, and it goes without saying that they are the farthest thing from “independent” media.
There is also one more addition slated to appear — the looksmaxxing <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/politics/white-house-correspondents-dinner-weekend/65-ab37e62c-8089-4749-a4db-e8f9d8647df8">online influencer Clavicular</a>, who has made waves of late in Florida and seen cavorting around with far-Right nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes. As someone who makes a great deal of his living from Substack and has for the past three years, the glaring shift in ideology and mission has been hard to ignore, as have the algorithmic changes that now favor those very same journalists — the ones who will be partying this weekend. What independent voices on Substack see is The David Burge Effect happening in real time.
It wasn’t even five years ago that mainstream media figures and outlets were publishing hit pieces against Substack, calling it a platform <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/pressure-builds-newsletter-company-substack-stop-paying-nazi-writers-rcna132593">that hosts white supremacists</a>, dangerous vaccine disinformation, <a href="https://judedoyle.medium.com/substack-is-still-a-problem-dec84cb84188">transphobic, and lacking proper moderation</a>, that these same journalists and media figures were successful at hollowing out platforms like Facebook and Twitter of voices they found problematic, until Elon Musk purchased Twitter. Several prominent media figures, like Kara Swisher, abandoned Twitter because they stated they could not participate on a platform owned by Elon Musk.
In actuality, what happened is they lost the power, through Twitter, to silence voices they disagreed with. Gone were media allies Vijaya Gadde and Yoel Roth, the heads of (former) Twitter’s so-called “Safety Team,” which was disbanded under Musk, and with the release of the Twitter Files, revealed how they worked closely with journalists to censor voices on the platform, oftentimes conservative or Right-leaning in nature.
After Donald Trump&#8217;s second election in 2024, several media institutions began recalculating their business models. Resistance porn was no longer effective, and their audiences were dwindling. Several prominent journalists and media personalities found themselves out of a job. CNN’s grandstanding partisan personality, Jim Acosta, refused to be moved to late-night. Chuck Todd was out at NBC’s Meet the Press, and social media punchline and Wrongest Human Being on Earth Chris Cillizza had also departed CNN.
That’s where Substack stepped up, not only offering its platform to voices and institutions that had disparaged it in the past, but also pursuing promotional partnerships. Earlier this year, Head of News and Politics Catherine Valentine <a href="https://x.com/redsteeze/status/2019375521105383662">partnered with Cillizza to offer a Substack “Masterclass”</a> for journalists laid off at the Washington Post. Valentine also reached out on her public timeline for an anonymous CBS anchor unhappy with CBS News’s direction under new Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss.
Cillizza, who once famously stated that “for the billionth time, journalists don’t root for a side,” had only recently joined Substack but was clearly being promoted by the platform as a new and important voice for content over less prominent long-time users of the platform.
Last year, Substack made a push into video and live video, and there are rumors of Substack wanting to become essentially a new online television network, with the development of <a href="https://likeandsubscribenews.substack.com/p/scoop-substack-is-launching-a-tv">a live TV app</a>. Substack sent out a promotional email to users and subscribers (like my Substack, Versus Media). Who were they promoting with this new direction? Jim Acosta and Katie Couric — two well-established detractors in the media of the political and cultural Right.
Valentine’s X bio states that she is helping “to lead a new media revolution.” She’s a former CNN, Politico, and Washington Post journalist herself, which explains the urge to turn Substack into a newer version of those biased outlets; the same outlets that targeted Right-leaning and independent voices on social media over some of the biggest news stories of the last five years, including the origins of Covid and the resulting vaccines, Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, and the Hunter Biden laptop story, which journalists actively assisted Twitter at the time in stopping the sharing of the story on social media platforms.
To her credit, Valentine and other heads of Substack have been open to concerns about catering to legacy media partisans, but that doesn’t appear to be slowing this trend. It’s being lavishly celebrated and catered to, even with more of these promotional partnerships. Of <a href="https://substack.com/leaderboard/us-politics/paid">the Top Ten Bestsellers on Substack</a>, eight of the top 10 are progressive personalities or former corporate media journalists, and they will all likely be in attendance at Substack’s counter party to the WHCD.
Substack can no longer lay claim to being “New Media” when they have turned their platform over to the most prominent partisan voices of old media personalities from the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC. If Substack wants to become the platform of the media it helped destroy in the first place, that’s certainly their choice.
After journalist/activist Don Lemon was arrested in Minneapolis earlier this year for his role in a church protest, during which congregants said Lemon blocked a doorway and would not let them exit, Substack released a <a href="https://substack.com/@substack/note/c-207583763">statement</a> defending Lemon, another former CNN personality, as an act of free speech and journalism.
It wasn’t.
While there was spirited debate among members of Substack&#8217;s leadership about religious freedom and the right to worship in peace, there was no mention of the First Amendment rights of the congregation that were being violated by Lemon and the protestors, with whom he was working.
What made Substack special in the beginning, and what made it thrive, was that it was a model that stood up to those very same institutions, which have largely been discredited by dwindling audiences and a lack of credibility. It didn’t cave to pressure and accusations of being a transphobic platform that also gladly hosted Neo Nazis. Now, Substack is throwing lavish invite-only parties for those very same people.
Substack is becoming South By Southwest and Coachella. What was once a fledgling, daring independent music festival featuring some of the boldest independent and undiscovered bands and musicians became a sell-out corporate media playground that hosted progressive politicians for TED Talks.
Coachella, once a bold four-day music festival featuring independent acts, is now simply a fashion orgy for the rich and the celebrity elite. The question we are all asking ourselves now is where we go from here, after Substack’s party for the media elites.
***
Stephen L. Miller is the host and producer of Versus Media Podcast on Substack. He has written for The Spectator magazine, National Review, the New York Post, and Fox News. He can be found on Twitter @redsteeze

WHCD afterparties in Washington DC

Substack Is Captured By The Media Elites

Legacy Media

Substack

FBI Director Kash Patel is preparing for a full-scale legal battle against The Atlantic after the outlet published a bombshell report he says is riddled with falsehoods, and he’s making clear he intends to take it to the mat.
“Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook,” Patel <a href="https://x.com/S_Fitzpatrick/status/2045273851764859074">told the magazine</a> ahead of publication, a warning that has now escalated into an imminent lawsuit.
The Friday article by Sarah Fitzpatrick, titled “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/kash-patel-fbi-director-drinking-absences/686839/">The FBI Director is MIA,</a>” levels a barrage of allegations against Patel, painting a picture of a senior law enforcement official allegedly plagued by instability, heavy drinking, and internal dysfunction. The report claims Patel engaged in “erratic” behavior, suffered bouts of paranoia about his job security, and was frequently absent or unreachable during key moments.
Among the most explosive claims: that Patel is “known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication” in front of colleagues, that members of his security detail have struggled to wake him due to alleged inebriation, and that officials once considered using breaching equipment to access a locked space when he could not be reached. The piece also alleges that meetings had to be delayed due to his condition and suggests his behavior could pose a “national security vulnerability.”
Patel’s legal team has forcefully rejected every one of those claims.
In a <a href="https://x.com/jbinnall/status/2045287437325254768">pre-publication letter</a>, his attorney Jesse Binnall called the allegations “categorically false and defamatory,” emphasizing that most rely on anonymous sources using vague phrasing like “people familiar with the matter.” Binnall argued that such sourcing “could not possibly possess firsthand knowledge” and accused the magazine of reckless disregard for the truth, a key component in proving defamation involving a public figure.
He also pointed to what he described as glaring factual holes, including the alleged “breaching equipment” incident, which he said has “no corroborating public record whatsoever” and appears to be either fabricated or based on a single unreliable source.
Reaction on X was immediate and sharply divided, with Patel allies and critics clashing over the credibility of The Atlantic’s reporting.
FBI media adviser Erica Knight <a href="https://x.com/_EricaKnight/status/2045279436354867267">blasted</a> the article as a recycled collection of rumors that “every real DC reporter chased, couldn&#8217;t verify, and passed on,” while laying out a lengthy defense of Patel’s record. She pointed to internal metrics under his leadership — including tens of thousands of arrests, major increases in violent crime enforcement, and large-scale fentanyl seizures — while dismissing the report’s central claims outright. “The so-called ‘intoxication incidents’ The Atlantic breathlessly reports have happened exactly ZERO times,” Knight wrote, adding bluntly: “Lawsuit is being filed.”
Others with direct ties to Patel echoed that pushback. Clint Brown, who described himself as a “sherpa” during Patel’s transition into the role, <a href="https://x.com/DissidentClint/status/2045310456340840611">said</a> he spent months working closely with him, and never witnessed any of the behavior described in the report. “Your anon sourced story is BS,” Brown wrote, adding that Patel was consistently responsive, detail-oriented, and deeply engaged in his work, often reviewing briefings at all hours.
Patel himself <a href="https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2045549772044439803">leaned into the fight</a>, framing the controversy as proof he’s doing his job. “Memo to the fake news — the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop,” he posted, adding that criticism would not deter the FBI from “making America safe again.”
On Capitol Hill, the reaction broke along predictable lines. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seized on the report, <a href="https://x.com/SenSchumer/status/2045524585567723876">saying</a> it confirmed Patel is “completely unfit to serve” and calling for his resignation. But Tom Cotton (R-AR), who works directly with Patel as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, <a href="https://x.com/TomCottonAR/status/2045517520849773053">dismissed</a> the story as a “dishonest smear” and pointed instead to what he described as tangible results from the bureau. Cotton followed up, <a href="https://x.com/TomCottonAR/status/2045517524926705838">adding</a>, &#8220;Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s really happening: Liberal reporters and disgruntled deep state leakers — who have zero knowledge of what the story alleges — are bitter that the FBI is no longer targeting Catholic parents and pro-lifers.&#8221;
The clash underscores what is quickly becoming more than just a media dispute: a political and legal showdown that is now playing out in real time across both the press and the courts.
Inside the administration, Patel has drawn swift and public backing. “Patel has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years. Anonymously sourced hit pieces do not constitute journalism,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said when reached out to by The Atlantic for comment.
FBI Assistant Director of Public Affairs Ben Williamson, who pushed back on the allegations when first contacted by the outlet, didn’t mince words in his response. He dismissed the report as a reheated collection of long-circulating rumors that had never held up under scrutiny, <a href="https://x.com/_WilliamsonBen/status/2045274603455476140">saying</a>: “This article is a compilation of pretty much every obviously fake rumor I’ve heard the last 14 months except the Atlantic is the only one dumb enough to actually print it.”
Patel himself has gone further, <a href="https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2045327321192599867">publicly accusing</a> the magazine of acting with “actual malice,” the high legal bar required in defamation cases involving public officials. He went further, saying, “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court.”
His team is also demanding that The Atlantic preserve all internal communications, drafts, and source materials related to the story, a clear signal that litigation is not just a threat, but imminent.
For her part, Fitzpatrick is standing by her reporting, citing interviews with more than two dozen sources and insisting the story is accurate. 
Neither side is backing down and so the high-stakes collision between a top federal law enforcement official and a major national publication seems imminent. If Patel follows through, the case could become a major test of modern media practices, particularly the reliance on anonymous sourcing in stories involving national security figures, and whether courts are willing to scrutinize those standards more aggressively.
The next round seems likely to play out in court, where both sides will be forced to back up their claims under oath, and where the consequences could be far more serious than a war of words.

Kash Patel

Patel Unleashes On The Atlantic Over ‘Categorically False’ Report Including ‘Locked Room’ Claim

Courts

kash patel

Lawsuit

Media

Politics

The Atlantic

Trump Administration

On Tuesday’s episode of The View, it was Joy Behar’s turn to play biblical scholar. The longtime co-host confidently asserted: “Jesus himself did not run around saying, ‘I’m the Messiah, I’m the Messiah.’”
Co-host Sara Haines, to her credit, immediately responded with the obvious: “That’s exactly what Jesus said, ‘I am the Messiah.’”
Let that sink in. One of television&#8217;s most prominent voices just rewrote the Gospels on live television because it was politically convenient. This is what passes for insight on daytime television. And don’t forget that ABC considers The View a news show.
Let’s do what Behar clearly hasn’t: open a Bible.
In John 4, Jesus sits down with the Samaritan woman at the well. She says the Messiah is coming. Jesus replies plainly: “I who speak to you am He.” In John 8:58, He declares, “Before Abraham was, I am” — a direct claim to the divine name of God from Exodus 3:14. The religious leaders tried to stone Him on the spot for blasphemy. During His trial before the high priest Caiaphas in Matthew 26, when asked if He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, Jesus answered, “I am.” That confession is what led directly to His crucifixion. The entire trial and execution hinge on Jesus affirming His identity as the promised Messiah.
Is Joy Behar having a Joe Biden moment?
Jesus didn’t “run around” shouting it like a campaign slogan, but He most certainly claimed it — repeatedly and clearly and with divine authority. He spoke as one with authority over the Law itself. The very reason He was crucified was because He claimed to be the Messiah.
This isn’t just garden-variety ignorance. It’s the sneering arrogance of the secular Left, which loves a neutered, hippie version of Jesus who never makes any uncomfortable truth claims. In reality, the real Jesus is far too politically incorrect for The View set. He’s the one who called religious hypocrites a “brood of vipers” and insisted He was the exclusive path to salvation. Joy Behar and company like to memory-hole the parts of the story that don’t fit their narrative.
The View has long been a safe space for this kind of casual anti-Christian contempt. From Whoopi Goldberg’s historical illiteracy to the panel&#8217;s routine sneers at Christian nationalists, these multimillionaire celebrities treat faith as either a joke or a weapon, depending on the target. Behar isn’t just wrong here, she’s confidently, arrogantly wrong. The kind of wrong that only comes from someone who hasn’t cracked open a Bible since she <a href="https://ffrf.org/publications/day/joy-behar/#:~:text=Raised%20Catholic%2C%20she%20now%20identifies,felt%20that%20I%20was%20brainwashed.%E2%80%9D">“lost her faith”</a> to “find herself.”
The irony is thicker than her makeup. These are the same hosts who invoke Jesus when they want to shame conservatives about immigration or taxes, but the second a Republican does anything remotely culturally Christian, suddenly He’s just some vague figure who never made any bold claims about Himself. Meanwhile, actual Christianity — the kind grounded in Scripture — remains the most persecuted faith on earth, absorbing violence while progressives like Behar lecture us from their cushy ABC perch about who the real threat is.
While Behar was busy screaming to America about narcissism during Holy Week, millions of Christians were celebrating the holiest days of the year — the week the Messiah did exactly what the Gospels record: He claimed His title, carried His cross, and rose from the dead three days later to prove every word true.
Next time Joy wants to play Bible scholar, maybe she should try reading one first.

ABC’s “The View” – Season 21

ABC News Host Joy Behar Claims Jesus Christ Never Called Himself Messiah

Christianity

The View

&#8220;The lady doth protest too much, methinks.&#8221; Shakespeare wrote it for a queen. It fits a congressman just as well.
For years, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell — California Democrat, impeachment manager, aspiring governor, and self-appointed guardian of women&#8217;s dignity — lectured America about sexual misconduct. He demanded Brett Kavanaugh open his doors to every accuser. On social media he posted &#8220;Support survivors. Believe survivors. We are with you&#8221; in 2018. He championed the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files &#8220;for sexual assault victims.&#8221; He sat across from Senator Adam Schiff not long ago and declared, with his characteristic smugness, &#8220;We are better than this.&#8221;
It turns out he is not.
On April 10, the San Francisco Chronicle published a damning exclusive: a former staffer, hired at age 21 in his Castro Valley district office, alleged that Swalwell sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions while she was too intoxicated to consent, leaving her battered, bruised, and bleeding. Hours later, CNN published a follow-up with three additional women. Two allege Swalwell sent them unsolicited explicit messages and photographs. A fourth says she woke up in his New York City hotel room after a night of unwanted kissing and touching, with no memory of how she got there.
The dominoes fell fast. The Manhattan District Attorney&#8217;s office opened a criminal investigation into the 2024 NYC hotel allegation. More than 50 former staffers signed an open letter calling the accusations &#8220;serious, credible, and [demanding] accountability&#8221; — urging him to resign from Congress and exit the gubernatorial race. He suspended his campaign the following day. His statement managed, somehow, to apologize for things he simultaneously insisted he never did.
Ugly — but the revelation that this congressman is a grotesque weirdo isn&#8217;t the main takeaway. Most of us already knew that. The intrigue is in the mob response from the Left. The liberal media knew all along and turned a blind eye for years. Now the whole cabal is scrambling to pretend they were always on the case while simultaneously throwing Swalwell directly under the bus.
Reporter Steven Tavares admitted what was, apparently, an open secret: that Swalwell&#8217;s behavior &#8220;was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party&#8221; as far back as 2013 when he first arrived in Washington, D.C. That&#8217;s 13 years. It adds up to over a decade of endorsements, fundraisers, national television bookings, and impeachment hearings — while a press corps that lectures the country about speaking truth to power looked the other way.
This isn&#8217;t investigative journalism; it&#8217;s a deliberate demolition timed for effect.
Ask the obvious question: if Swalwell&#8217;s behavior was an open secret in Democratic circles, why did the party of supposed feminists and #MeToo metrosexuals allow him to ascend from local pol to gubernatorial frontrunner? The answer is that Californians know he&#8217;s not just a perv, but an idiot — and he would&#8217;ve burned California faster than Gavin Newsom did last January. Swalwell would&#8217;ve been an abysmal candidate against Steve Hilton. Now that it&#8217;s politically convenient to rid themselves of this smarmy beta, they&#8217;ve unleashed the dogs on him.
The press, which had been sitting on this story for years, suddenly found its courage. <a href="https://x.com/brianstelter/status/2043634957776548277">Brian Stelter and company</a> would very much like credit for a moment of journalistic reckoning. They don&#8217;t deserve it. They failed for over a decade. The timing of this story is political, not principled.
The lesson isn’t that a sanctimonious hypocrite has been exposed, though one has. The lesson is about who holds the controls. The liberal media does not report on Democratic misconduct. It ratifies decisions the party has already made. When Swalwell was useful, the rumors stayed rumors. When he became inconvenient, the Chronicle got its scoop.
On the bright side, though, the citizens of California can still elect the Democrat who assaulted her ex-husband by pouring scalding mashed potatoes on his head.

Rep. Eric Swalwell Begins Presidential Campaign With Town Hall On Gun Violence

The Media Knew About Eric Swalwell. They Just Didn’t Care — Until Now.

California

Congress

Eric Swalwell

There&#8217;s a thought experiment I want you to sit with for a moment.
God forbid Barack Obama passed away — shot in front of thousands of people, the moment captured on every phone in the crowd and splashed across every screen in the country within minutes — and Michelle Obama was left to pick up the pieces, preserve his legacy, and carry the torch in the only way she knew how. Do you think you would see ultra-famous white comedians painting themselves in blackface and mocking the way she grieves? Without consequence? Without wall-to-wall outrage? No. Of course not. Because that would be racist, and it would be cruel, and everyone would say so loudly and immediately.
When the shoe is on the other foot, no one seems to care.
Druski — born Drew Desbordes — has become one of the most commercially ubiquitous comedic presences in America. The COVID-era social media comedian turned pop culture fixture hosts a satirical dating show, joined the 2026 season of The Voice, and has assembled a brand portfolio that reads like a Fortune 500 roll call: T-Mobile, Amazon, the NFL, Nike, Happy Dad Hard Seltzer, PrizePicks, Meta, NBC/Peacock, Dunkin&#8217;, and Google Pixel. He has over 20 million followers. He is everywhere.
And this week, he decided to use that platform to mock a grieving widow.
In a now-viral video, Druski appears in full whiteface — skin painted white, blonde wig, blue contacts, all-white pantsuit — complete with fireworks and dramatic stage lighting. He mocks Erika Kirk, the recently widowed CEO of Turning Point USA, for continuing to make public appearances in the wake of her husband&#8217;s assassination. He ridicules the Trump administration&#8217;s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for offering prayers and honoring American symbols during press conferences. He depicts a blonde conservative in pink, riding with a white lap dog, singing Katy Perry&#8217;s &#8220;California Girls&#8221; on the way to a drive-through. And he lampoons Erika&#8217;s composure during a recent interview with Bari Weiss, turning grief into punchline fodder.
I&#8217;ll be honest: I barely knew who Druski was before this week. Unfortunately, I know who he is now.
Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ll give him: conservative women are not humorless. We can laugh at ourselves and take a punch. The Leavitt bit? Cheap, but fine. The drive-through? Inaccurate — the last time I heard Katy Perry sing, she was in space. But there is a line between political satire and using a widowed mother as a punchline for 80 million viewers, and Druski crossed it without flinching.
Charlie Kirk was assassinated last year in front of thousands of people, while doing the thing he loved most — talking to young people and making the case for his country. We watched it on our phones. We were horrified. Then heartbroken. Then — naively, perhaps — hopeful that the brutality of it might draw some line we could all agree not to cross. Political violence is bad. Killing people for their beliefs is wrong. Surely that much was universal.
We thought wrong. Too many on the left laughed, celebrated, and mocked the tragedy. They worked to tarnish his name before he was even buried. Jimmy Kimmel told blatant lies masquerading as jokes and was suspended for it. And now, six months later, a comedian with a nine-figure brand portfolio is degrading Charlie&#8217;s widow for daring to honor his memory — for refusing to disappear.
That&#8217;s not a comedy bit. That&#8217;s cruelty in makeup.
Druski is not some fringe provocateur. He is corporate America&#8217;s darling — the face you see when you open an app, watch a game, or scroll through your feed. So, at what point does the ubiquitous ad avatar become a liability?
This isn&#8217;t his first controversy. In September 2025, he enraged fans with a whiteface skit at a NASCAR race, portraying a caricatured &#8220;proud American&#8221; redneck. Then came the NFL Honors, where he mispronounced wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba&#8217;s name in a way that left Buckeye fans — myself included — vexed. Each time, the brands shrugged.
The Daily Wire reached out to Druski’s active brand partnerships, T-Mobile, Happy Dad, and NBC/Peacock, asking whether they intend to retain Desbordes as a brand partner in light of this content. All but T-Mobile failed to respond, offering this: &#8220;The content in question is not in any way affiliated with T-Mobile, nor is it a reflection of our brand and values.&#8221; A statement of distance — but not of severance. Druski remains their Chief Swagger Officer. NBC said nothing. He remains on The Voice.
So the answer to the question in the headline appears to be: yes, you can.
At least for now.
Grief is not a costume. A widow is not a prop. And a woman who lost her husband to a political assassination — who chooses to stay in the fight and keep his work alive — deserves more than a whiteface parody from a man who hawks hard seltzer and phone plans for a living.
Conservatives don&#8217;t expect special treatment. We just expect consistency. If mockery of grief is off-limits for certain races and certain parties, it must be off-limits for all. Until corporations decide that values actually mean something more than virality and quarterly earnings, they will keep propping up figures like Druski — who demeans the bereaved and cashes seven-figure checks for the privilege.
The brands have spoken. Or rather, they haven&#8217;t. And that silence says it all.

The Voice – Season 29

T-Mobile Distances Itself From ‘Chief Switching Officer’ Druski After Sketch Mocking Erika Kirk

Celebrities

Corporate America

Entertainment

Erika Kirk

Racism

Social Media

Values

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Perhaps the most common feature of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/politics/maha-birth-control-politics-of-the-pill">flurry</a> <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/population-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-birth-control">of</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/27/nx-s1-5535839/population-shift-birth-rate-misinformation">articles</a> <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-information-trust/misleading-narratives-and-social-media-shape-contraception-perceptions/">about</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623004380">young</a> <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/17/young-women-teen-girls-gen-z-birth-control-beliefs-democrat-republican-tiktok-misinformation-contraception/">women</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/17/birth-control-why-are-influencers-turning-away-from-the-pill-and-towards-natural-contraceptive-methods">rejecting</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/10/09/health/ob-gyn-reveals-troubling-trend-shes-seeing-with-gen-z-women/">hormonal</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/style/birth-control-skepticism-wellness-tiktok.html">birth</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03/21/stopping-birth-control-misinformation/">control</a> is the claim that their concerns are fueled by “misinformation” or based on “unfounded theories.” I’m a younger millennial. I’ve never used hormonal birth control, and I don’t plan to. But what these writers and doctors fail to grasp is how fed up women are of being told their pain is normal and prescribed a pill at 13, only to be told they have “unexplained infertility” and need IVF at 30.
It doesn’t take a medical degree to hypothesize that women’s healthcare has gone terribly wrong. It is almost entirely structured around either suppressing or bypassing the female reproductive system altogether. When journalists and doctors claim women like me are misinformed, they reject an opportunity to help make women healthier. 
For 60 years now, the standard of care for women in the United States has been a protocol that seeks not to understand and work with the female body, but to inhibit and short-circuit it. It’s no surprise that the women who watched their mothers and grandmothers unquestioningly swallow the pill and continue to suffer are now demanding a better way.
The increased rejection of hormonal birth control also comes amid a tectonic shift in medical treatment for minors.  Several major medical associations recently issued <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pediatricians-group-says-research-doesnt-support-gender-affirming-treatments">statements</a> against pediatric gender transition in the wake of the Fox Varin lawsuit, which held medical providers responsible for performing a double mastectomy on a minor. Sex-rejection treatments and surgeries involve medicating children with puberty blockers and hormone therapies, among other things. And yet many adolescent girls, some as young as 11, are prescribed hormone therapy in the form of the hormonal birth control pill or an IUD, despite their long-term effects being largely unknown.
Of sexually active 15 to 19-year-olds, almost half are prescribed some form of hormonal birth control. This, despite the fact that there are no large randomized controlled trials on the effects of synthetic hormones during girls’ pubescent years. Some research on this cohort has shown <a href="https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/120/5/1135/71113/Contraception-and-Adolescents?utm">reductions</a> in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010782408002801?utm_source">bone mass</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40097087/">density</a>, which is itself concerning. But little exists on long-term effects to adolescent brain or cardiovascular health, both of which actively require sex hormones for development. Animal studies <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40188588/">show</a> that exposure to hormonal contraceptives during adolescence has persistent effects on the female brain and behavior, though it’s unclear how this translates to humans.
Your response to women rejecting hormonal birth control will almost certainly depend upon your answer to one question: What is medicine? The same ideology that undergirds the transgender movement forms the foundation of women’s health, too: “My body, my choice.” But making your body in your own self-image is not medicine. It’s choice theory applied to the human body. And the philosophy of choice will always be insufficient because it inherently rejects the bounds of reality.
What if women’s health was actually about making women healthy instead of maximizing choice? The solution to America’s health problem is the same as the solution to transgender ideology: Respect reality, recognize that our bodies bound us and we can’t make ourselves into whatever we choose to be, and accept that women’s bodies are different from men’s. That’s not only okay but also good. Women’s bodies were made to bear children; blaming the patriarchy or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-pursuit-of-equality-is-ruining-your-marriage">raging about the system</a> will not change that fact. Let medicine be about restoring the body’s natural function, not trying to change it. When we become unfocused on what the practice of medicine is in principle, people get hurt, even when medical professionals have the best intentions.
As a woman who has been on the receiving end of so-called “women’s healthcare,” it seems as though there is little will to understand the potentially negative effects of hormonal birth control, or the positive effects of working with rather than against the female body’s natural function. After all, birth control is convenient and perhaps even something of a sacrament to the feminized, sexually evolved West.
“Women have been taking the pill for decades,” I was told by a pushy doctor at an Ivy League research hospital, who wouldn’t let me leave his exam room without a prescription for the minipill for the extreme cramps I was having in my early 20s. When I asked for a hormone panel to help diagnose a potentially underlying health condition, fearful I’d be unable to conceive later in life, he said, perhaps revealing more about himself than intended, that a hormone panel wouldn’t tell him anything.
But not all women’s health practitioners are so unimaginative. Dr. Naomi Whittaker is a board-certified OBGYN and surgeon focused on women&#8217;s restorative reproductive medicine. She’s also the founder of <a href="https://www.rrmacademy.org/">RRM Academy</a>, which employs both conventional medicine and the latest in restorative reproductive techniques. “Working with the female body rather than against it is the cornerstone of what I do,” she said. “I see hormones not as a nuisance to suppress, but as a language the body uses to communicate.” She calls restoring the body’s natural function “the spirit of restorative reproductive medicine.”
Even still, the establishment offers these doctors no help. Medical associations and education do not teach the kind of medicine Dr. Whittaker practices, and they are deeply skeptical of it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine have <a href="https://www.asrm.org/globalassets/_asrm/advocacy-and-policy/advocacy-activities/2025/2025-08-13-joint_letter_opposing_rrm_081425.pdf">issued statements</a> and <a href="https://www.asrm.org/news-and-events/asrm-news/press-releasesbulletins/asrm-hosts-capitol-hill-briefing-for-policymakers--congressional-staff-to-hear-from-providers--patients-about-importance-of-ivf-access-realities-and-limitations-of-restorative-reproductive-medicine/">held congressional briefings</a> against restorative reproductive medicine. After all, it is a competitor to the medical status quo at a time when the government has expressed more interest in women’s health and fertility. It seems as though the medical establishment is vying for a cut of a much-hoped-for government check.
Regardless, women continue rejecting the status quo. And this rejection comes amid an explosion of so-called “fem-tech” companies marketing devices (usually wearables, such as rings or watches) to assist women in either avoiding or achieving pregnancy naturally.
These devices use sensors to track temperature, sleep, and heart rate, among other things, to pinpoint ovulation or even underlying health conditions. Natural Cycles, which uses an AI algorithm adjusted to each individual user, became the first app to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration as birth control in 2018. And Oura, whose sensor-laden rings have become something of a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/09/oura-ring-lobbying-rfk-maha-washington-00770320?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nname=playbook&amp;nrid=b076877d-0054-4fa6-8bd9-93aa06bde864">status symbol</a> in Washington, is aiming higher than transforming women’s healthcare: It is purporting to change the face of American healthcare altogether.
Wearables such as the Oura ring are not only designed for tracking menstrual cycles, though they can do that. They are also designed to help wearers know more about their bodies (sleep quality and blood oxygen, activity, or stress levels, for example) and to help alert them to potential illness. Only a few months ago, an older-style wearable — the Fitbit — alerted me that my heart was in arrhythmia and told me to go to the emergency room. At 31, I am not the usual candidate for atrial fibrillation, and the ER doctor assumed the device had been faulty. After performing an EKG, he was amazed to find the watch had been right. Untreated heart arrhythmias are the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in the world.
American medicine has long suffered from being reactive rather than proactive. We treat symptoms and diseases rather than teaching people how to avoid them. After all, symptom and disease management is where all the money is, and healthcare, like all businesses, needs money to survive. But wearables may be a sign that’s changing. After all, Oura’s market valuation of $11 billion dollars is more than four times greater than it was just three years ago. 
As women continue rejecting the pill, those beholden to the medical status quo will probably continue blaming women for falling prey to misinformation. That’s a lazy response. They’d do well to look a little closer: Women may be the early adopters of a new age of American medicine, rejecting pills and their unintended side effects in favor of preventative and restorative approaches, with wearables at the helm. American women seem to be ahead of the curve in heralding a return to true medicine. The only question is: Will the medical establishment get on board?
***
Katelyn Walls Shelton (<a href="https://x.com/AnnaKateShelt">@AnnaKateShelt</a>) is a visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Bioethics, Technology, and Human Flourishing Program and a 2025 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. Her Substack is <a href="https://katelynshelton.substack.com/">Technically Human</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Birth Control Pills, Female Contraception Estrogen Hormones, Prescription Medicine for PMS

The Pill Revolt — Why Millennial Women Like Me Are Rethinking Hormonal Birth Control

Birth Control

Health

Pregnancy

Technology

Upstream

Women

Imagine it’s Valentine’s Day at Silicon Valley Middle School. The cafeteria is covered in construction-paper hearts. Everyone pretends not to care — while caring very much. And the most popular kids — the ones who decide who’s cool, who eats lunch alone, and who gets stuffed into lockers — are quietly deciding who deserves a Valentine and who gets the dreaded, “Sorry, we’re just friends.”
Now swap out the middle schoolers for Apple News, Google News, Microsoft’s MSN, and Yahoo News, and you have a pretty good picture of today’s media ecosystem.
Instead of candy grams, these platforms hand out something far more valuable: visibility, traffic, and perceived legitimacy. Algorithms play matchmaker. Editorial choices determine who gets asked to the dance, who goes stag, and who doesn’t even get through the door.
The pattern is hard to ignore.
Research from the Media Research Center examining the “<a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/heather-moon/2026/02/13/it-took-apple-news-100-days-publish-right-leaning-article">Big 4 News Apps</a>” found that left-leaning outlets dominate coverage, while right-leaning outlets are routinely sidelined or completely buried.
Start with Google News, the alpha dog at the lunch table. Google appears especially fond of The New York Times — not a casual acquaintance, but the kind of devotion that fills a notebook margin with hearts. Between Halloween and Valentine’s Day, Google featured about twice as many New York Times stories (215) as its next most-featured outlets, CNN (122) and the BBC (105). Because Google’s news feed appears by default on millions of Android and Samsung devices, that preference carries enormous national reach.
Looking at 106 days of data since Halloween, Google News promoted 1,757 stories. Almost 70% came from left-leaning outlets, 29% from centrist sources, but just 2% from right-leaning media.
Like Google, Apple News also has a bestie from the print world. The Washington Post receives frequent top placement and prominent visibility. Since Halloween, Apple has featured the Post 109 times. Other regulars in Apple’s rotation include NBC News (89), Reuters (86), and the Associated Press (85).
<div id="attachment_1044207" style="width: 872px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1044207" class="size-large wp-image-1044207" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-1132776284-862x576.jpg" alt="CUPERTINO, CA - MARCH 25: Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook speaks during an Apple product launch event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park on March 25, 2019 in Cupertino, California. Apple Inc. announced the launch of , it's new video streaming service, and also unveil a premium subscription tier to its News app. (Photo by Michael Short/Getty Images)" width="862" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-1132776284-862x576.jpg 862w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-1132776284-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-1132776284-768x513.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-1132776284.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 862px) 100vw, 862px" />Michael Short/Getty Images</div>
Overall, of AllSides-rated outlets, Apple News featured 75% left-leaning outlets, 25% centrist outlets — and zero right-leaning outlets in the period studied. Zero is on purpose. Zero means being locked out of the dance. Zero is indefensible. 
Next comes Microsoft’s MSN, whose reach comes from its enormous footprint on desktop computers. While its distribution is not quite as disturbing as Apple’s or Google’s, its preferences are still clear. MSN is more than smitten with Newsweek, publishing 316 Newsweek stories between Halloween and Valentine&#8217;s Day. That level of attention would make any publisher blush.
MSN’s mix included about 10% right-leaning outlets and 37% centrist outlets — higher shares than its competitors, but still leaving Left-leaning sources with the largest slice of attention at 53%.
And then there’s Yahoo News. It’s easy to joke about Yahoo, but the platform draws more than 200 million monthly views, something achieved by only three other outlets. Think of Yahoo as the bad boy who got held back a grade but has a date at every party. And Yahoo certainly plays the field.
Yahoo occasionally features right-leaning outlets, but it has a serious thing for smaller, radical outlets — Buzzfeed, Salon, the New Republic, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post and Mediaite.
Yahoo is also unique among the Big 4 in relying heavily on its own in-house reporting. Those stories leaned left and accounted for a large share of featured content (269 stories). Of the 1,715 stories Yahoo promoted in the study period, 88% came from left-leaning outlets (by far the most of any of the news apps), 6% from centrist organizations, and 6% from right-leaning sources.
Defenders of these platforms argue they are simply promoting “mainstream” outlets with proven “reliability.” But Americans aren’t buying that claim. Gallup polling shows trust in national media has never been lower.
There are reasons for that collapse in confidence. Many Americans remember years of breathless coverage of the Russia collusion narrative, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the dismissal of the Wuhan lab-leak evidence, and persistent shielding of President Biden’s cognitive deficiencies. They’ve also watched elitist media advocate aggressively for DEI, ESG and anti-ICE movements — while insisting they are neutral observers.
Distribution is power. A newsroom can produce solid reporting, but Apple, Google, MSN, and Yahoo are clearly trying to control the narrative. The political Left has long understood that institutions shape culture and public opinion. Today, the Big 4 news apps are the institutions: enormously powerful, largely opaque, and virtually unaccountable to the public.
So yes, it’s Valentine’s Day. And in the digital cafeteria, Google, Apple, MSN, and Yahoo are still handing out cards to the favored few and pushing others into lockers.
But another holiday is coming. The Fourth of July is only months away, and federal regulators are examining whether dominant tech platforms have unfairly restricted competition in parts of the media ecosystem. Congress should also continue to investigate the role Big Tech plays in shaping what Americans see and don’t see.
In a free country, the biggest companies should not determine who is allowed into the dance and who is not, who gets a voice and who gets left out in the cold. Freedom must be available to all.
* * *
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.

Digital NEWS Text Glowing on a Computer Keyboard for Breaking News

The Love Affair Continues: Study Shows Big Four News Apps Still Heart Left-Wing Media

Apple

Google

Leftists

Media Research Center

Microsoft

New York Times

News

Silicon Valley

Yahoo

Vogue&#8217;s Spring 2026 issue delivered a fawning puff piece extolling the virtues of Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) — complete with a photo spread from celebrity-favorite photographer Annie Leibovitz — just as he prepares to wrap up his final term as governor and plan his next move.
Newsom has long been considered a heavy favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 — and if he does choose to throw his hat into the ring, his February 1 Vogue profile (written by Maya Singer) could easily be considered an in-kind donation to his campaign.
Indeed, Singer refers to Newsom as &#8220;presidential&#8221; in her first paragraph. Of course, that came only after she describes him as &#8220;embarrassingly handsome.&#8221;
<blockquote>Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address.</blockquote>
And the fawning continues. Paragraph two begins: &#8220;It must drive Trump nuts. Newsom: lithe, ardent, energetic, a glimmer of optimism in his eye; Kennedy-esque. Add to that his stunning wife and four adorable kids, and the executive strut of a self-made millionaire who has spent the past seven years at the helm of a state big, complex, and rich enough to be a nation of its own.&#8221;
Singer continued in that same vein, observing the differences between her previous Zoom meetings with the California politician and the moment she sat down with him in person.
<blockquote>As he spoke, late-summer sun slanted in through the windows, bathing Newsom in an oh so California magic-hour glow. I’d prepared for this sit-down by consuming the spectacle of Gavin Newsom—tweets, TV hits, interviews, umpteen episodes of his podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom—and was having a hard time taking in the man. His actual molecular reality. Immaculate. Fantastic at gab, like a windup doll.</blockquote>
Her words painted a picture — not just of Newsom, but also of a writer smitten by the subject of her piece.
“Newsom’s lanky frame was folded onto a sofa a bit too low-slung for him. This made him lean back—away from me,” Singer wrote, musing, “Or it could be that his body language had nothing to do with ergonomics and is a function of Newsom’s quality of being at once gregarious and aloof.”
Singer spoke with Newsom about his decision to start a podcast — “This is Gavin Newsom” — and to kick it off with a conversation with the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
“My purpose in having Charlie on wasn’t to discuss his politics. I don’t share his politics. I don’t like the way he talked down to people. I don’t like what he said about the gay community and minorities,” Newsom said, claiming that his purpose had been centered on finding out what Kirk was doing to reach so many people — young men, in particular.
“Wake up. There’s 40 percent or whatever it is in this country that feels deeply differently than we do, and we need to understand this movement and not be so quick to dismiss it. Divorce is not an option. So what are we going to do about this?” Newsom continued. “We’ve got a lot of work to do—rebranding, rebuilding, a lot of work as a party. Wake the hell up.”
Pushing back on critics who’d attacked him for allowing Kirk a platform, Newsom argued that it was Kirk who had platformed him: “I didn’t have one follower. He had millions.”
The governor’s strategy appears to have worked on at least one person: Singer.
“Newsom,” she wrote, “has been vindicated by history.”
Critics were quick to call out the clear bias in Singer’s writing.
Kevin Dalton wrote on X, “‘Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address.’ —Vogue, apparently taken over by a 15-year-old girl with a crush on Gavin Newsom or Izzy.”
Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the whole thing, “Very Beto.”
“The Gavin Newsom piece in Vogue is something to behold. A true monument to sycophancy, obsequiousness and outright slobbery,” Gerry Callahan said, adding, “The writer, Maya Singer, abandons all professional dignity and acts less like a reporter and more like a golden retriever whose owner just returned from a long trip.”

Governor Newsom And San Francisco Mayor Lurie Announce New Funding For Homelessness And Mental Health Ffforts In The City

Vogue Puff Piece On Gavin Newsom Delivers Overdose Of Cringe

2028 presidential election

Gavin Newsom

Vogue Magazine

People Magazine and several other outlets are getting dragged for the headlines they used to report the death of cartoonist Scott Adams on Tuesday.
Adams, best known for creating the satirical comic strip “Dilbert,” died at the age of 68 following a terminal cancer diagnosis. Most mainstream outlets stuck to the facts or buried their criticisms of Adams deep in the article copy. The Left despised him for being a conservative and a huge fan of Donald Trump.
But some outlets put their bias front and center. People ran an article by staff writer Victoria Eden, which had the headline: “Scott Adams, Disgraced Dilbert Creator, Dies at 68,” and followed up with the subheading, “&#8217;Dilbert&#8217; was pulled from wide circulation after Adams’ racist rant in 2023.”
Social media followers expressed their frustration over the phrasing.
“You cannot hate the media enough,” one X reply <a href="https://x.com/mattvanswol/status/2011128217609130295">said</a> in response to the article being tweeted from the official People X account. That tweet was later deleted, but the article with the same headline still remains on the website as of Tuesday afternoon.
The outlet also removed Edel’s name from the online article and replaced it with “People Staff” after commenters began calling her out by name on the social media platform.
It wasn’t just People disparaging Adams as they reported on his death. While The New York Times selected a neutral headline on their website, the accompanying social post was more opinionated.
“Breaking News: Scott Adams, whose comic strip &#8216;Dilbert&#8217; was a sensation until he made racist comments on his podcast, has died at 68,” the legacy outlet shared in an X post.
“Stuff like this used to make me angry, but I honestly laughed as your hack behavior is too predictable. You will be hated until your dying days, you have no loved ones, when you die, people will rejoice,” one response to the NYT post <a href="https://x.com/Cernovich/status/2011135485494829274">said</a>.
“You have no shame. Unreal,” echoed <a href="https://x.com/realELFIGURIN/status/2011129288146210992">another</a>.
BBC News went with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y320k72vyo">headline</a>: “Controversial Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams dies aged 68.” NPR also <a href="https://www.npr.org/2026/01/13/nx-s1-5413219/scott-adams-dilbert-dies">referred to</a> Adams as a “controversial cartoonist” in their article.
“Scott Adams, ‘Dilbert’ Creator Who Courted Controversy, Dead at 68,” the headline from far-Left outlet Rolling Stone <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/scott-adams-dilbert-creator-dead-obtiuary-1235496233/">said</a>.
Some X users contrasted this phrasing to how mainstream outlets covered other notorious figures like convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. For Epstein’s death, The New York Times ran the headline, “Jeffrey Epstein Dead in Suicide at Jail, Spurring Inquiries.”
The controversy these outlets reference goes back to the “Dilbert” cartoon being dropped from major newspapers following an incident in 2023. During a podcast episode, Adams discussed a Rasmussen poll, which found that nearly half of black Americans were unable to agree with the phrase, “It’s okay to be white.” Adams’ reply suggesting that the poll results indicate that black Americans are a “hate group” went viral.
“Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the f*** away,” Adams said at the time after commenting further on race relations and crime.
“Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”

Scott Adams

People Magazine Obit Calls Scott Adams ‘Disgraced Dilbert Creator,’ Spurring Backlash

People Magazine Obit Calls Scott Adams 'Disgraced Dilbert Creator,' Spurring Backlash

Conservatives

Death

U.S.

For most of its existence, Wikipedia has been hailed as a marvel of the digital age: a sprawling, collaborative encyclopedia written by anyone and corrected by everyone. An open marketplace of knowledge. A monument to the democratization of information.
But democracies — political or epistemic — rarely collapse in an instant. They erode from within. And what my team at the Media Research Center (MRC) has uncovered about how Wikipedia operates, and how carefully it conceals that machinery, should alarm anyone who believes a self-governing society depends on an open, honest information sphere.
<a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/11/17/how-wikipedia-infiltrated-colleges-train-next-generation">Our recent investigation</a> shows that Wikipedia and its educational partner, Wiki Education, have developed a vast, little-known system for shaping, and increasingly weaponizing, the content millions of Americans rely on every day. What we found is not simply concerning; it reveals the quiet architecture of an ideological project. It is also possible that, in attempting to hide its operations, Wikipedia has crossed legal lines that could carry serious consequences.
Wikipedia’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, has said openly that the platform no longer reflects its original mission of neutrality. It has become a curator of political narrative, amplifying the messaging of the left rather than serving as an impartial arbiter of knowledge.
<h2>The Blacklist(s)</h2>
Wikipedia is transparent about one thing: it blacklists right-leaning news outlets and conservative non-profits. But even this admission obscures more than it reveals. In reality, <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/02/03/exclusive-wikipedia-effectively-blacklists-all-right">Wikipedia maintains three tiers of blacklists</a> — Blacklisted, Deprecated, and Generally Unreliable — each designed to exclude certain publishers from the encyclopedia’s information ecosystem.
The “Blacklisted” category is the most severe. Sources here are blocked entirely; links cannot even be submitted for review. This is Wikipedia’s “do not pass go” list. It includes outlets such as the Heritage Foundation, Breitbart News, and the Washington Examiner. Content from these organizations is not debated or fact-checked, it is simply turned away at the gate.
The second level, “Deprecated,” involves sources that are “generally prohibited.” Users attempting to cite to these sources receive warnings, before Wikipedia’s editors almost always reject the suggestions. LifeSiteNews, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, and Blaze Media fall here. The effect is the same as the first list, exclusion, just with a thin procedural layer.
The third category, “Generally Unreliable,” is essentially a blacklist with a tiny escape hatch. Wikipedia discourages use of these sources and directs contributors to “more reliable” outlets. The Daily Wire is stuck in this purgatory: technically citable, but heavily disfavored.
The disparities this system produces are staggering. The Daily Wire has been cited only 445 times across Wikipedia. The New York Times, by contrast, appears in more than 1.6 million citations — meaning Wikipedia cites the Times nearly 4,000 times for every single Daily Wire reference. Similar gaps exist with Newsweek, Politico, and The Washington Post, which are cited hundreds of times more frequently than their far more reliable conservative counterparts.
More broadly, <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/02/03/exclusive-wikipedia-effectively-blacklists-all-right">MRC research shows</a> that Wikipedia cites to left-leaning outlets almost 20 times more often than to right-leaning outlets. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx">Trust in the media is at an all-time low</a>, specifically because of the bias injected into news stories. Wikipedia intentionally magnifies that bias, resulting in gross distortions of reality. We have documented Wikipedia’s smears against many political figures, including President Donald Trump, Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Charlie Kirk. 
When gatekeepers designate half the country’s media ecosystem — representing tens of millions of readers — as inherently “unreliable,” the result is not a pursuit of truth. It is a systematic silencing of outlets disfavored by the ideological left. The encyclopedia built on openness now thrives on exclusion.
<div id="attachment_1011409" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1011409" class="size-large wp-image-1011409" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-864x576.jpg" alt="skynesher. Getty Images. Male teacher giving a lecture from desktop PC during a class at computer lab." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />skynesher. Getty Images.</div>
<h2>The Student Army</h2>
Yet the core of the MRC’s latest findings lies not in the blacklist itself, but in the machinery feeding content into Wikipedia: Wiki Education, a California nonprofit created as a spin-off of the Wikimedia Foundation, operating with its funding, personnel, and blessing.
Wiki Education recruits college professors to assign Wikipedia editing as coursework. Since 2010, more than 145,000 students have participated, generating over 120 million words of content. On the surface, this could be a civic success story — young people helping build a shared public resource.
But the reality, based on the courses Wiki Education recruits and supports, is far more ideological. Classes such as Queering Religion, Critical Race Feminisms, Queer of Color Critique, Gender and Identity in STEM, and similarly activist-oriented seminars are not fringe exceptions; they are typical of the curriculum Wiki Education promotes.
These disciplines are not merely academic; they are frameworks for political activism. And the content they generate — guided by ideology rather than neutrality — flows directly into Wikipedia. The encyclopedia becomes the final destination for arguments crafted within contemporary left-wing academic theory.
<h2>The Taxpayer Foots The Bill</h2>
Even more astonishing is that this ideological pipeline is largely underwritten by taxpayers. Because Wiki Education embeds itself in public universities, it leverages state-funded faculty, classrooms, and infrastructure to funnel student labor into Wikipedia. Students believe they are learning digital literacy; in practice, many are producing politicized content for a global platform.
The pattern extends to Wiki Education’s leadership. Every traceable political donation from its senior staff and board flows to Democratic candidates, progressive PACs, and left-aligned advocacy groups. While not illegal, it reveals the institutional alignment shaping the organization’s priorities.
<h2>A Potential Legal Problem</h2>
This coordinated system — Wikipedia funding Wiki Education, Wiki Education training student editors, students supplying content that reinforces Wikipedia’s ideological filters — creates not only an informational problem but potentially a legal one.
When Wikipedia spun off Wiki Education in 2013, the structural ties between the two organizations remained unusually close. Yet Wikipedia has insisted in court filings, sworn under penalty of perjury, that it is merely an “interactive computer service,” not a “publisher.” It did so to seek the liability protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
If Wikipedia effectively controls Wiki Education as an alter ego — training, directing, and financing its editorial labor — then it may have misrepresented its true operations under oath. Filing false statements in court is a crime under state and federal law. Attorneys general in jurisdictions where Wikipedia has invoked Section 230, like the state of Florida, may have ample reason to investigate those claims. And while the U.S. Department of Justice has its hands full unwinding the malfeasance committed during the Biden administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi might be interested in this, too.
<h2>Why It Matters</h2>
Wikipedia is not just a reference site. It is infrastructure. It consistently dominates Google search results — Google itself being a company that aggressively manipulates search results to push its own ideology. And modern AI systems, including chatbots, draw heavily from Wikipedia’s content pipelines. When Wikipedia’s entries tilt, so does the entire information ecosystem.
Its blacklist system also has downstream economic effects. Being labeled “unreliable” reduces an outlet’s visibility, decreases traffic, and predictably harms ad revenue. The encyclopedia’s judgments ripple outward into media markets and public perception.
Given these stakes, Congress should investigate. So should the Federal Trade Commission. And attorneys general, especially in cases where Wikipedia has defended its corporate structure under oath, should scrutinize whether the organization misrepresented how it operates.
Wikipedia has every right to express ideological preferences. But it does not have the right to cloak them behind false claims of neutrality to donors, to engage in deceptive or anticompetitive practices, or to misrepresent its structure in legal proceedings.
Transparency requires accountability. And it is long past time for the public to understand what Wikipedia has become.
* * *
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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From Open Encyclopedia To Ideological Weapon: Wikipedia’s Hidden War On Truth

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Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales reportedly stormed out of an interview after being pressed on why he referred to himself as the site’s “founder.”
The incident occurred while Wales was speaking with Tilo Jung for the German political podcast “Jung &amp; Naiv.” When Jung pressed him to clarify if he’s the founder or co-founder, Wales responded, “I don’t care. It’s the dumbest question in the world.”
Jung pressed the topic, asking if there was a “dispute” over the issue. “What are the facts?” Jung asked. “Well, it’s not a fact, it’s an opinion, so you can have whatever opinion you like,” Wales replied. 
Jung tried to nail down that detail again, saying, “For you, you’re the founder?”
“Can I just say again, it doesn&#8217;t matter. I&#8217;ve answered your question four times,” Wales said firmly. He then stood up and said, “You know what? I&#8217;m done. Thank you.”
“What&#8217;s going on?” Jung asked as Wales seemed to head for the exit, prompting Wales to say over his shoulder, “It&#8217;s stupid. Don&#8217;t ask me stupid questions.”
“How is that stupid?” Jung wondered.
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This isn’t the first time this particular issue has caused strife. During a 2023 <a href="https://lexfridman.com/jimmy-wales-transcript/#chapter1_origin_story_of_wikipedia">interview</a> with Lex Fridman, Wales also called the question of who founded the most popular online encyclopedia “unimportant” and “not that interesting.” 
“I actually think Larry Sanger doesn’t get enough credit for his early work in Wikipedia, even though I think co-founder’s not the right title for that,” he said at the time.
Wales is the co-founder of Wikipedia along with Larry Sanger, but Sanger exited the project in 2002 and has been speaking out against it ever since.
“Wikipedia is badly biased. The original policy long since forgotten, it no longer has an effective neutrality policy. It now touts controversial opinions on politics, religion, and science. And examples have become embarrassingly easy to find,” Sanger <a href="https://x.com/lsanger/status/1260975408167759873">shared on X</a> in 2020 alongside a link to a blog post detailing some of the worst offenses. 
Those listed included a “Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing ‘Obamagate’ story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump.” 
“It is time for Wikipedia to come clean and admit that it has abandoned NPOV (i.e., neutrality as a policy). At the very least they should admit that they have redefined the term in a way that makes it utterly incompatible with its original notion of neutrality, which is the ordinary and common one,” Sanger wrote in the post. “Of course, Wikipedians are unlikely to concede any such thing; they live in a fantasy world of their own making.”
In September, President Donald Trump announced that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was investigating Wikipedia over alleged pro-Kremlin, anti-Western, and anti-Israel bias, and that it was raising serious concerns given that AI chatbots heavily rely on the site’s information, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-goes-to-war-with-wikipedia-over-political-slant">reported</a>.
Sanger expressed his gratitude for the probe, saying, “I am glad that Congress is investigating the use of foreign and U.S. government funds to pay for biased editing on Wikipedia. … There is clearly massive support for this sort of investigation.”
The co-founder added that Wikipedia “makes broad editorial decisions about what constitutes reliable sources, which must be respected by large numbers of participants. … The Wikipedia Foundation could address the situation, but does not.”  He noted that the Wikipedia Foundation also “refuses to reveal the identity of its most powerful editors or to override decisions by editors.”

Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia Co-Founder Storms Out Of Interview After Being Asked Simple Question

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