Next tech bro startup: Vader, an AI chatbot targeting kids with absentee fathers.

New, from me: The NYT reporter who specializes in profiles of beleaguered right-wingers on campus went to New College...and found out that things were going ok! So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...

As a Jew, it’s fun watching the administration post Christian nationalist messages while also saying they are doing everything they can to curb antisemitism.

There is 1000x more money in ranting about being a victim of “the woke left” than there is in being an actual member of the left.

The right-wing turn by these institutions has never made business sense to me. Maga does not watch or read news. They watch Fox and look at Facebook memes. Trying to appeal to them will fail because they aren’t your target demo. Meanwhile you’ll cause your loyal fans to leave you. It’s just dumb.

I'd be delighted to have a hairstylist or a youth soccer coach visit for a night

This has become true of social media in general. Proponents still love to go on about how platforms have democratized success but that’s really only true for the tiniest fraction of users, and it’s not a meritocratic system. Those already with audiences benefit. Algorithmic discovery is fickle.

The US just banned a guy from the country (Imran Ahmed) for pointing out that X is full of hate speech

From @parkermolloy.com at New Republic. newrepublic.com/article/2047... I'd go a bit further. The system needs no conspiracy to function. It just needs everyone to understand the direction things are going in. Bari Weiss was put there not to protect a legacy, but to align its politics differently.

A foggy Utrecht in medium format. 📷 Rolleiflex T 🎞️ Kodak Gold 200

Among the newly-released Epstein files. This Justice Dept email from Jan 2020 'I wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported"

The CBS investigation portrays a modern concentration camp, similar to the Soviet GULAG (like CECOT, an acronym): sadistic guards, 24 hour lighting, isolation cells. Americans once opposed this inhumane system. The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

“Stop stealing and start creating” is a real thing an “AI artist” said

"Nenko was arrested by ICE on Sept. 23 when he showed up for an interview to discuss his green card application at the USCIS Chicago office... Nearly three months later, the day that his wife was notified of Gantchev's death - Dec. 16 - was the couple's eight-year wedding anniversary."

These folks are being so openly and casually antisemitic, it makes me wonder if some other outlets' are sanewashing their focus groups.

All this defiling of America, these symbolic shifts from "We the People" to a personalist regime, must be removed entirely as soon as the American people regain their democracy. The gross bribe-funded ballroom, the illegal "Department of War," the illegal renaming of the Kennedy Center, all of it.

Good time to repost my reporting on the implications of this sale, back when it was first announced as a possibility:

“Why can’t we all just talk to each other?” is the type of question only asked by people that constantly go out of their way to offend half the country. It’s like the relative that ruins Thanksgiving every year asking why we can’t just have a nice Thanksgiving. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Percentage of Americans holding multiple jobs: a 25-year high. 👀 (via Schwab)

Another way to look at this (just eyeballing here) is that, sans the black swan that was the pandemic and the subsequent recovery, unemployment is at its worst levels in nearly a decade. Also really makes you appreciate the Obama and Biden admins. Inherited horrible job markets, left them great.

Interesting roundup of changes in media this year by @kang.bsky.social. I hadn't seen this revealing Pew report. Link to Kang's piece: www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...

An ad-funded BBC doesn't make sense from a competition perspective. The BBC would still get public funding to help produce its bevvy of news and entertainment, and also get to compete in an ad market with broadcasters/publishers that don't get that benefit. Everyone else would get crowded out.

I fear that 4.6% figure hides an even worse economy, full of gig workers and influencer wannabes earning paltry pay, barely scraping by amid tariff-caused price inflation. Loads of class of 2025 grads I know just simply can't get work right now. The "entry level" is in dire health.

If there's one takeaway from this piece (though this has been obvious for some time), it's that Weiss has always been and has continued to be very much part of the "establishment", extremely well-connected and with a constant slew of wealthy financial backers that find her worldview useful.

This is an extraordinarily good summary of the current moment. It's going to be worth checking this lecture's audience performance online. To a point Bregman makes here, this is deserving of our attention; yet, will it receive as much attention as a viral AI slop video? A far right podcaster?

"A modicum of self-awareness [...] is in short supply in grievance memoirs."

Jamelle is 100% correct, and it’s something I find worrisome. Journalism, with some exceptions, is best communicated via text, photo, or long-form documentary. Short-form video is a square hole for the round peg that is the craft of information communication.

Meta earned $18bn in ad revenue from Chinese companies advertising to foreign consumers last year. 19% of that total was derived from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content. Per @reuters.com's @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social and Engen Tham.

Per @maxtani.bsky.social: WaPo released AI-generated podcasts even after internal tests found that between 68% and 84% of AI-generated scripts failed internal editorial standards by introducing bias, inaccuracies, fabricated quotes, etc. Utter embarrassment. Journalism doesn't need AI in this way.

Major advertisers appeared to sit out a new CBS News town hall telecast Saturday, moderated by Bari Weiss and featuring an interview with Erika Kirk. Lack of Madison Avenue support could challenge the viability of the format, which Weiss wants to expand variety.com/2025/tv/news...

Yom Kippur in Manchester, Hanukkah in Sydney… Just horrific. The result of a terrifying groundswell of hate directed at Jewish people globally. Again.

London is the safest city I’ve ever lived in. Every other American I know that lives here feels the same way simply by virtue of the lack of gun violence. Any pundit or public figure (often taking gulf $) trying to paint this city as crime-ridden is plainly wrong and probably lying to you.

America is a mass surveillance state run by an authoritarian leader and it should be treated like one.

Good piece about the rise of video podcasting from @chaykak.bsky.social this week, but it misses a key commercial point: pivoting to video unlocks much larger budgets from advertisers. The same content, with very little added production cost, can massively increase average sponsorship revenue.

Per HtFP: 4.4m Brits are now living in "news deserts", defined as areas without a dedicated local news provider. 1 in 10 local authority districts now qualify as news deserts, with 27 council areas having no news provider at all and an additional 10 only covered by multi-district news outlets.

Just to make this absolutely crystal clear: just 3 companies will earn 58% of all global ad revenue outside China next year. Just 3.

It's absurd, when you think about it. OpenAI stole Disney's IP. Now it's getting rewarded for it. Not only does Disney capitulate by allowing Sora to use its IP, but Disney is the one giving money to OpenAI for that privilege.

Disney has struck a 3-yr content licensing partnership with OpenAI. Sora users will be able to generate short AI videos that draw on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters. Disney will also make a $1bn equity investment in OpenAI and become a "major customer" of OpenAI.

Warc has upgraded its global adspend forecast, now expecting 8.9% growth next year to $1.19tn. But growth is being "concentrated" in Big Tech: Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are expected to take a combined global ad market share of 56.1%, excluding China. This is forecast to rise to 58% next year.

New this morning: Mirror editor-in-chief Caroline Waterston will step down from the role at the end of the year. Chloe Hubbard, currently UK editor at the Independent, has been named her replacement.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison “offered assurances” he would drastically transform CNN if he bought Warner Bros. Discovery www.wsj.com/business/med...

The President of the United States unilaterally levied a tax on all of us and is redistributing our taxes to a core segment of his supporters.

Wonder where they could’ve got that idea.

Same headline. Seven years apart. 🤡 @politico.com www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

To be sure, the only reason Paramount might be allowed to buy Warner Bros Discovery is because the president’s own son-in-law is an investor in the deal, and because Paramount is owned by a close friend of the president.

Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery in a last-ditch effort to outbid Netflix. Paramount is now offering to buy the entirety of WBD's business for $108.4bn. Netflix had agreed to purchase Warner Bros' studios and streaming business for $82.7bn.

The EU has slapped a fine on Musk's X because it is untransparent and supports deceptive practices. Nothing to do with "censorship."

Tech oligarchs really looked at BioShock and said yep, looks utopian to me.

A lot of 24/7 cable news does this too but I agree it’s worse on platforms. News is a commodity. Even if you publish a scoop it’ll be reported by a dozen other sites and clipped by TikTokers within a few hours. Issue often is a lack of credit or willingness to send users back to the original site.