Viewers are flocking to “independent” media that serves up a never-ending stream of anti-Trump content. But this stuff is intellectual poison and may even help the right.
Viewers are flocking to “independent” media that serves up a never-ending stream of anti-Trump content. But this stuff is intellectual poison and may even help the right.
To some extent we can also blame TYT’s inward collapse and rightwing pivot. They were the clearing house of all things resistance and progressive. Their rightwing/ MAGA pivot has to be one of the greatest betrayals in all media. To quote Mondale Robinson: “They took too damn much from the ethos!!”
Its not Meidas Touch, whom were never themselves progressives or even contending to be anything other than center right neoliberals and neoconservatives, its not their fault there is no media space to support progressive policies/ progressive news reporting.
The Majority Report (Sam Seder/ Emma) is great, but its not a “pure news” show in the way that TYT or Meidas Touch is. Its too wonky, too ‘pure politics’ in the traditional sense of political reporting. Its a politics show for people are deep into it. TYT was a daily show for people to take in, after the events of the day, but they’ve jumped the shark.
Because of this there is a void, and despite them being maybe not the right size/ shape, people are starving for honest reporting, or anything that seems to be representing it.
I’d love to see the whole “grab bag” of leftist political shows bundle up into one show, and produce an evening news show. Its too much “political hot takes” and not enough “news of the day”. Of course, make your political hot-takes, but mostly, just tell me what happened.
I really like Some More News. They’re kinda like Last Week Tonight in style: in-depth reporting on bigger issues, with some jokes thrown in. They also make two episodes of Even More News a week, but those are more hype-of-the-day with less analysis behind them. Honestly feels like it’s just their brainstorm sessions recorded and released as a podcast.
As a Canadian I thank God every day for Steve Boots. But unfortunately for you guys he keeps his content very much focused on our political sphere.
Democracy Now has a daily news podcast I like to listen to sometimes
I like the Crooked products, specifically Pod Save America. I wouldn’t call them strictly progressive or liberal because they’re far too analytical to be a bli d cheerleader. Some of the other podcasts under their umbrella do get into the cheerleader effect a bit though.
I mean, look, you are probably going to take this the wrong way, and you should.
But Pod Save is some of the most toxic garbage there is available, and if someone tells me this is where they get their news, I’m writing them off. The are PURE neoliberal, Blue-MAGA, cultist; the culimination of why the modern Democratic party is a failure for all humanity.
They are a crew of one-off Obama era consultants whose primary job it is to manufacture consent for the extant power structures within the Democratic Party. They are incredibly pretentious and their takes are about as vapid a helium gas. They have no ability to predict what comes next in politics; the predictive capacity of their internal models is zilch. The advice they put out their is almost always the opposite of what one should do.
They aren’t just representative of whats wrong with the Democratic party, they are the thing that is wrong with the Democratic party.
Ive listened to pod save for years and after the election just couldn’t bring myself to listen to it anymore. It’s been a lot of bad takes and frustrations. Who do you recommend I go to for news?
I’ll be honest, sometimes I can’t handle the full hour, because Amy puts it out there raw as it is and sometimes when the shit is real bad, I just can’t emotionally handle it. But the sanitizing of our news, thats a major part of the problem; sane washing in an insane time is a form of lying. If I don’t have time for that, then I just watch the headlines.
I try and separate the politics from the news as best I can. I consider Majority to be much heavier on the Politics than the News side, which is fine. They also have complementary schedules. If its an interview I’m not interested in, I’ll turn it off. The fun half is good for getting an understanding of what MAGA is doing.
I do try and keep track of what the “centrists”, or better phrasing, neoliberal/ neoconservative, “raised on corpo media take” is. Don Lemon is about as safe as you get. I also feel like I owe him one because he put a project of mine on his show right after J6, and that launched us in a big way. I watch Don Lemon to get an idea for what corporate media is thinking.
I do watch Meidas Touch, but only if there is an important trial going on. As far as courtroom news, these are the ones to follow. They have the best “judiciary”/ law takes, because, well, they are all lawyers. Their politics are drivel and not worth listening to.
Ben barely ever puts out content since he started preaching again but he was one of my favorite contributors in the early days of TYT. I was making bootleg Benjamin Dixon show swag almost a decade ago and was one of his first patreons. I always tune in and love his takes. He was making the clearest most consistent points about the rise of white nationalism from 2016-2024 of anyone, but just had to step back because it was grinding him down.
Squirrelgang rise up. These guys know how to win elections and ultimately, thats what matters. They take an unapollegitically black male perspective, which imo, needs to be elevated. They stream on Tuesdays.
I like Nathan J. Robinson, even though I think he’s a Chomsky fanboy and Chomsky is mostly not worth listening to.
Just to keep tabs on the zoomers.
Again, too much of an apologist for the system and for power, but i’ve got a thing for Jon.
My goal with my media consumption is to gather a diversity of opinions, evaluate those opinions against what they say is going to happen versus what does happen, and weight them accordingly.
@[email protected] made a point below about my “strong opinions”; yes, I have conviction around what I believe to be true. But my goal with my perspective is to have opinions and takes that predict future states of the world, and I think I’ve demonstrated a strong track record for that. I’ve been following politics, in excruciating detail, since like… 1997/8/9.
I think too often people offer charity that news sources don’t deserve because they like the “tone” or manner in-which information is presented, rather than evaluating a given sources ability to predict future states. That’s the only signal of virtue to me: does your opinion of what will happen predict the future?
There is too much weight put on conventional wisdom and conventional news sources when they are trash at predicting future states of the world.
I used to watch TYT for the evening news. DN! for the morning with Sam and Emma for politics and then TYT in the evening was a great way to keep on top of pretty much everything that mattered. I also liked the more international focus DN! and MR (when it had Micheal Brookes, RIP) had.
But I’m a boat adrift for a decent evening news program now.
Thanks, and yeah I don’t dislike strong opinions. You gave an essay answer about some folks you didn’t like so much, so I figured you’d have an essay for those you did like.
Do you ever listen to On the Media? I have appreciated their more focused goal of analyzing how the news is reported.
On the Media is fine, but I have a strong and deep distaste for “manufactured consent” experience which is NPR. Its prob the take that would get me most heavily down-voted most heavily. It was January 2015, and NPR ran some segment which was basically an explainer on why no one should bother running in the DNC primary that cycle because obviously Hillary should and will be the nominee, and would just wipe the floor with any Republican. I remember how idiotic they sounded, considering that even then , Hillary was just about the worst candidate you could have ever ran.
I have a special hole in my heart just for hating on NPR. I think its been one of the most destructive forces in American politics because it creates the illusion, the sensation of understanding without anything to back it up. It makes you feel like you are smarter than you actually are, just like pod-save. Its a pro-corporate narrative (I mean just listen to who gets the sponsor spots) with a veneer of “Americanism” and centrism, as if its just L v R and we’ll still go to bed under the same sheets. The world is an existential and material fight for existence and NPR creates the sensation in people that they are doing something, that they are involved in something, when they are not. Its like the DNC. It stands in where something real should be.
I dip in and out with them. Sometimes I just need to hear some other people bitching about shit (because it’s easier than riling up my group of friends all the time). But I definitely tire of the constant outrage.
Also I’m not sure I agree with the other guy’s take on “consent for extant powers” when they were pretty fucking vocal about and critical of Biden last year… long before the catastrophic debate.
I prefer Offline and PSTW for the (usually) more even-keeled discussions and thoughtful interviews.
You’ve got a lot of very strong opinions here. What news are you yourself listening to regularly?
I mentioned you in my answer, written above.