26, 2021 ByHollywood’s China problem can be summed up neatly in one series of events from . In her acceptance speech for Best Director, Chloé Zhao was sure to cite her experience growing up in the Middle Kingdom and reflect on a Chinese proverb. The Chinese Communist Party still blacked her out.For background purposes, China’s notoriously sensitive censors have sought to blackout Zhao’s success largely because she once said there were “lies everywhere” in the country during a 2013 interview with an obscure magazine. (Another interview initially contributed to the controversy, but as The...…26, 2021 ByHollywood’s China problem can be summed up neatly in one series of events from . In her acceptance speech for Best Director, Chloé Zhao was sure to cite her experience growing up in the Middle Kingdom and reflect on a Chinese proverb. The Chinese Communist Party still blacked her out.For background purposes, China’s notoriously sensitive censors have sought to blackout Zhao’s success largely because she once said there were “lies everywhere” in the country during a 2013 interview with an obscure magazine. (Another interview initially contributed to the controversy, but as The...WW…

By 7, 2021The media’s false reporting about new election legislation in Georgia whipped up a controversy that left millions of people grossly misinformed, frightened voters, mired major corporations in high-stakes public relations frenzies, distracted the political discourse, and furthered the country’s divisions. In short, it’s a perfect example of how the media is fueling our national conflict.In this case, the media uncritically regurgitated Georgia Democrats’ partisan hyperbole, treating a narrative the party strategically crafted to defeat the legislation as fact and turning it into a...…By 7, 2021The media’s false reporting about new election legislation in Georgia whipped up a controversy that left millions of people grossly misinformed, frightened voters, mired major corporations in high-stakes public relations frenzies, distracted the political discourse, and furthered the country’s divisions. In short, it’s a perfect example of how the media is fueling our national conflict.In this case, the media uncritically regurgitated Georgia Democrats’ partisan hyperbole, treating a narrative the party strategically crafted to defeat the legislation as fact and turning it into a...WW…

26, 2021 ByA USA Today “race and inclusion” editor was fired this week for using her professional Twitter account to report flagrant disinformation in the wake of a mass shooting. In response, she wrote a lengthy Medium that briefly admitted “regret” for her “careless error in judgement” but focused mostly on how the corporate press is allegedly “subservient to white authority.”In the wake of the mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., Hemal Jhaveri tweets with Deadspin senior editor Julie DiCaro.“Extremely tired of people’s lives depending on whether a white man with an AR-15 is having a good day...…26, 2021 ByA USA Today “race and inclusion” editor was fired this week for using her professional Twitter account to report flagrant disinformation in the wake of a mass shooting. In response, she wrote a lengthy Medium that briefly admitted “regret” for her “careless error in judgement” but focused mostly on how the corporate press is allegedly “subservient to white authority.”In the wake of the mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., Hemal Jhaveri tweets with Deadspin senior editor Julie DiCaro.“Extremely tired of people’s lives depending on whether a white man with an AR-15 is having a good day...WW…

By 19, 2021Michelle Boorstein made a simple mistake. Boorstein, a religion reporter for the Jeff Bezos-backed Washington Post, , “Some religious objectors to the Equality Act say the issue isn’t exemptions — it’s that LGBT equality is akin to ‘what gave us the Holocaust,’ a concept that humans are trying to overrule God.”She was partially quoting from a lecture Ryan Anderson gave in 2016. Boorstein’s attempt to paraphrase Anderson conveyed a verifiably false representation of his position on the legislation, which she has since refused to correct. Meanwhile Amazon, another powerful business...…By 19, 2021Michelle Boorstein made a simple mistake. Boorstein, a religion reporter for the Jeff Bezos-backed Washington Post, , “Some religious objectors to the Equality Act say the issue isn’t exemptions — it’s that LGBT equality is akin to ‘what gave us the Holocaust,’ a concept that humans are trying to overrule God.”She was partially quoting from a lecture Ryan Anderson gave in 2016. Boorstein’s attempt to paraphrase Anderson conveyed a verifiably false representation of his position on the legislation, which she has since refused to correct. Meanwhile Amazon, another powerful business...WW…

24, 2021 ByWashington Post employees should vehemently protest their owner and his flagship company for eroding norms of free expression.Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s famous founder and CEO, owns The Washington Post, a news outlet presumably staffed by people with an interest in preserving a culture of free expression given that it makes their journalism possible. Bezos is allowing Amazon’s corporate might to deplatform Ryan T. Anderson, a perfectly mainstream conservative writer who researches transgenderism with nuance and compassion.Amazon recently yanked Anderson’s popular 2018 book “When Harry...…24, 2021 ByWashington Post employees should vehemently protest their owner and his flagship company for eroding norms of free expression.Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s famous founder and CEO, owns The Washington Post, a news outlet presumably staffed by people with an interest in preserving a culture of free expression given that it makes their journalism possible. Bezos is allowing Amazon’s corporate might to deplatform Ryan T. Anderson, a perfectly mainstream conservative writer who researches transgenderism with nuance and compassion.Amazon recently yanked Anderson’s popular 2018 book “When Harry...WW…

26, 2021 ByThe country’s most powerful business interests are openly collaborating with a radical advocacy group to push sweeping legislation that would set women back decades at the expense of an extreme, elite agenda. The left’s historic skepticism of corporate power has morphed into a demand for more of it.The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT activist group with far-left interests, has assembled a coalition of the world’s most powerful corporations to support the Equality Act. Scroll through the incredible and you’ll find massive corporations from Amazon to Bain to Best Buy aligned with...…26, 2021 ByThe country’s most powerful business interests are openly collaborating with a radical advocacy group to push sweeping legislation that would set women back decades at the expense of an extreme, elite agenda. The left’s historic skepticism of corporate power has morphed into a demand for more of it.The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT activist group with far-left interests, has assembled a coalition of the world’s most powerful corporations to support the Equality Act. Scroll through the incredible and you’ll find massive corporations from Amazon to Bain to Best Buy aligned with...WW…

By 19, 2021Corporations are using their power to enforce radical cultural standards—imported into their boardrooms from academia—on the rest of the country. Look no further than the last few days at Disney for evidence. The effect, however, is to empower a new infrastructure that will challenge the dominance of legacy cultural institutions.Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Disney-owned ABC a sympathetic report about OnlyFans, endorsing pornography as empowerment without any pushback whatsoever. Then Disney’s Lucasfilms dropped Gina Carano from “The Mandalorian” over a clumsy anti-woke meme she had...…By 19, 2021Corporations are using their power to enforce radical cultural standards—imported into their boardrooms from academia—on the rest of the country. Look no further than the last few days at Disney for evidence. The effect, however, is to empower a new infrastructure that will challenge the dominance of legacy cultural institutions.Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Disney-owned ABC a sympathetic report about OnlyFans, endorsing pornography as empowerment without any pushback whatsoever. Then Disney’s Lucasfilms dropped Gina Carano from “The Mandalorian” over a clumsy anti-woke meme she had...WW…

By 29, 2021Journalists generally assess our politics through the same lens as Democratic operatives, which assumes Democrats are the good guys and Republicans are not. For some in the corporate media, that’s not so much a conscious partisan calculation as it is the consequence of their shared cultural leftism.This is a key driving force behind our national discord. A better lens generally assumes politicians are the bad guys, whether they’re friendly to the press, progressive, Christian, rich, poor, or whatever. That’s not only more accurate, it’s more fair and more constructive for the...…By 29, 2021Journalists generally assess our politics through the same lens as Democratic operatives, which assumes Democrats are the good guys and Republicans are not. For some in the corporate media, that’s not so much a conscious partisan calculation as it is the consequence of their shared cultural leftism.This is a key driving force behind our national discord. A better lens generally assumes politicians are the bad guys, whether they’re friendly to the press, progressive, Christian, rich, poor, or whatever. That’s not only more accurate, it’s more fair and more constructive for the...WW…

By 28, 2021After a chaotic four years, President Biden wants to voters to believe he’s governing as a unifier while actually governing as a hard partisan. For Democrats, that tension doesn’t pose much of a dilemma because the corporate press will uncritically permit Biden to sell his leftism as unification. It’s false advertising.Biden set the tone for his term with a milquetoast inaugural address that pledged to “lower the temperature.” For many in this exhausted and divided nation, that was probably a welcome message. But it’s merely cosmetic and Biden proved that right away.Among his...…By 28, 2021After a chaotic four years, President Biden wants to voters to believe he’s governing as a unifier while actually governing as a hard partisan. For Democrats, that tension doesn’t pose much of a dilemma because the corporate press will uncritically permit Biden to sell his leftism as unification. It’s false advertising.Biden set the tone for his term with a milquetoast inaugural address that pledged to “lower the temperature.” For many in this exhausted and divided nation, that was probably a welcome message. But it’s merely cosmetic and Biden proved that right away.Among his...WW…

Two years ago I wrote about Greg Gutfeld’s eye-popping ratings. The ratio of news coverage to viewers, compared with the ratio of media coverage to viewers for comedians like Samantha Bee, said something profound about the media bubble. It still does. It’s the Coming Apart thesis in practice, a consequence of elite sorting. Call it the Law of Rotten Tomatoes. Why do critics love Nat Geo’s fawning “Fauci” while audiences hate it? Why do critics hate the sharply new Chappelle special while audiences love it? Why is the consensus so different between classes? Because journalists have similar...…Two years ago I wrote about Greg Gutfeld’s eye-popping ratings. The ratio of news coverage to viewers, compared with the ratio of media coverage to viewers for comedians like Samantha Bee, said something profound about the media bubble. It still does. It’s the Coming Apart thesis in practice, a consequence of elite sorting. Call it the Law of Rotten Tomatoes. Why do critics love Nat Geo’s fawning “Fauci” while audiences hate it? Why do critics hate the sharply new Chappelle special while audiences love it? Why is the consensus so different between classes? Because journalists have similar...WW…