Over the last decade, American news outlets have pulled off a miracle of modern engineering: they turned what was supposed to be a public service into Continue Reading
Media
Monetizing Your Fight Or Flight
Fear and anger keep the lights on in American politics and media. They also keep your sympathetic nervous system on a hair trigger. In short bursts, Continue Reading
Senator Survives Harrowing Alaska Climate-Change Fact-Finding Mission
By Untactic Al ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A California senator conducting a congressional fact-finding mission on climate change narrowly survived what he Continue Reading
What’s on your digital spoon?
If you spent any time in front of a glowing screen last week, it undoubtedly sent you something about Charlie Kirk. It may have sent you hours of it. Continue Reading
Living in a World of Facades
In the song "1000 Years" by The Gaslight Anthem, Brian Fallon sings “I heard about a woman once, who did everything ever asked of her. She Continue Reading
When Outrage Becomes Violence
Every so often, tragedy forces an uncomfortable question: When words serve not to inform, but to inflame, do the purveyors of that rhetoric bear Continue Reading
The Press Put On a Cape and Forgot Its Pants
There was a time when a television journalist’s job was to tell viewers what happened, explain what could be verified, and then resist the Continue Reading
The Last Ratings War
Washington, D.C.July 4, 2048 Professor Michael Reynolds stood near the entrance of the Memorial of the Lost Republic and watched another school Continue Reading
The Polling Sausage Machine Still Gets Invited to Dinner
The modern political poll is no longer a thermometer. It’s a sausage machine wearing a lab coat, grinding assumptions, incentives, and audience Continue Reading
Your Opinions Have a Landlord
The old fairy tale says we live in a marketplace of ideas. How adorable. That phrase always arrives dressed like a civics teacher and leaves smelling Continue Reading
The Information Age Made Communication Worse
For decades, we were told that computers, email, and digital communications would create the paperless office. The promise was simple: information Continue Reading
The Hot Take Laundromat
Nothing in modern public life is more impressive than the speed with which allegedly serious people can convert ignorance into certainty. Give them a Continue Reading