On Nov. 25, 1783, the British evacuated New York City. Gov. Clinton hosted a dinner at Fraunces Tavern for Gen. Washington & his staff. They drank 13 toasts to commemorate the occasion. The 11th toast: "May America be an Asylum to the persecuted of the Earth." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuat...

Link rot's bad. But with enshitified search, you might find even your old published stuff can't be easily located anymore. AI's making this much worse. How I discovered some of my past publications are being hidden by AI. The Latest in the Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/is-ai-hidi...

Disney hiking the price of Disney+ (Hulu, ESPN, etc.) on *the same day* it brings Kimmel back illustrates how unimportant TV ratings are compared to streaming distribution numbers in 2025. The Sinclair/Nexstar affiliate issues probably matter much less than subs. www.vulture.com/article/disn...

“Everything is consolidating,” said Michael Socolow, a media historian at the University of Maine... "To have the opportunity to establish an editorial line across TikTok, CBS News and CNN — that’s a new world.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/t...

I didn't know Nixon despised Dick Cavett, and tried to cancel his ABC late night show - but couldn't. Every now and then it feels like Tricky Dick Nixon died for Donald Trump's sins. Great @oscarwinberg.bsky.social + Sage Goodwin @theconversation.com op-ed theconversation.com/even-as-jimm...

When you think about the gigantic investment in AI, there's basically 2 possible outcomes: 1. It succeeds, and therefore results in massive unemployment. 2. It fails, resulting in the Wall Street bubble bursting, causing a stock market crash. How'd we get here?

My guess: ABC's going to pull a "Colbert" on Kimmel. They'll bring him back to fulfill contractual obligations, they'll let him say a little something tomorrow night, but they won't sign a new contract with him & his show will be off the air in a few months.

Great to see this out in the wild, co-authored w/ @ppopiel.bsky.social @sydneyforde.bsky.social @theine.bsky.social, with excellent editorial support from @theconversation.com @democracyeditor.bsky.social who expertly & expeditiously shepherded it start to finish. theconversation.com/a-paramount-...

Do you remember? It's Earth, Wind & Fire Day. *(Isn't it wild how every September 21st turns out to be glorious, sunny and perfect? Thanks to these guys!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLig...

The @mediaburn.bsky.social Archive is an extraordinary primary source resource, filled with "Lost Objects" from video history that are fascinating, funny, and thought-provoking. If you've never kicked around it, go check it out. The latest in the Lint Trap. open.substack.com/pub/linttrap...

Ever wonder what caused the massive expansion of the H1-B Visa program in the first place? It was Y2K. I wrote about this as Y2K's most important but overlooked legacy in "The Legacy of Y2K" Boston Globe, December 31, 2004. Holds up pretty well. web.archive.org/web/20050404...

Once the "AI assistant" is embeded in your Chrome browser, you'll never get a great deal at Google Flights again. They'll know exactly what you're willing to pay for every flight. They'll use your data against you... in the interests of "convenience." That's how this all works.

I've got a piece in the @midcoastvillager.bsky.social about their 400-year-old idea that might save local journalism in the future. Open a cafe! If you're in Camden, Maine, on a Friday, stop by the Villager Cafe and meet the editorial team. www.midcoastvillager.com/voices/opini...

People aren't even bowling alone anymore.

"AI assistance... [often] solves a problem that doesn't exist." The only people who get excited by the phrase "powered by AI" seem to be desperate AI salespeople watching their demos flail. defector.com/mark-zuckerb...

The real money for Huntley-Brinkley, Cronkite, + Jennings was in catering to vast middle, not fringes. Advertisers wanted that, so that's where news went. Plus, even entry-level jobs at nets required years of wire-service newspaper experience. Even today 3x more people watch David Muir than Fox News

My respect for executives like Robert Kitner at NBC + Frank Stanton at CBS, who stood up to White House in 1960s - 1970s to protect coverage Kennedy, LBJ, & Nixon found offensive + unpatriotic (e.g. civil rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate) has grown immensely in last few weeks.

Years ago Howard Stern exposed the arbitrary & pretextual nature of FCC enforcement. When the FCC fined him millions he urged listeners to send in complaints about Oprah to see if FCC treated all local complaints equally. Guess what? They didn't. What FCC's doing now is a dodge.

In Project 2025, Brendan Carr [current the FCC Chairman] wrote "The FCC should promote freedom of speech... [and] pro-growth reforms that support a diversity of viewpoints." (p.877).

"Diversity of opinion is the lifeblood of democracy...The minute we begin to insist that everyone think the same way we think, our democratic way of life is in danger." -John B. Oakes, New York Times editorial page editor and inventor of the Op-ed Page reason.com/2021/04/27/e...

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson telephoned CBS President Frank Stanton to get correspondent Morley Safer fired for his report from Cam Ne, Vietnam. Stanton listened, absorbed the vitriol, and did nothing. Times have changed. Networks are now small parts of large conglomerates, with craven leaders.

Weird to think of all those great journalists on Nixon's "Enemies List" that didn't get cancelled. In fact, their careers ended up enhanced, despite Nixon's White House working surreptitiously to cancel them. But in 2025, Trump's enemies list is being made actionable in public.

A lot of people on the Left support a more activist FCC. For example, the re-establishment of Equal Time rules and the Fairness Doctrine. But what we're witnessing right now is perhaps the most activist FCC in U.S. history. Empowering FCC content regulation can backfire.

First Colbert, then Kimmel. Anybody know how Jimmy Fallon's feeling this evening? Would be very cool if Fallon invited both on his show and the three had a show-length sitdown about the state of late night TV in the age of Trump. *(Never. Going. To. Happen.)

It's reminiscent of when FDR's White House called CBS and General Foods, sponsor of Boake Carter, a CBS News news commentator, and told them to take Carter off the air. Carter was fired a few weeks later. That was real bad then, and it's real bad now. www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

When some Southern affiliates demanded that ABC, CBS & NBC change how they reported on the civil rights movement, the networks told them to shove off. We've come a long way from 20th century media when affiliates [with some FCC muscle] can push a network around like this.

“My epitaph? My epitaph will be this: ‘Curiosity did not kill this cat.’' -Studs Terkel (2008) The Studs Terkel Radio Archive is an amazing primary source resource. The latest in The Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/listening-...

Do we actually know what's currently happening in the labor market? Do we have a good sense of what AI's going to do to the labor market (and unemployment) in the next five years? Ben Sprague asks important questions here. www.thesundaymorningpost.com/p/are-black-...

AI data scraping is causing major problems for digital archives. Many publishers of cool historical material (free for the public), like @hagleycenter.bsky.social, are being hit w/ bot swarms akin to denial of service attacks. Latest in The Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/when-ai-da...

Vibe shift? Heineken beer commercial during college football game features Joe Jonas & big social media influencers suddenly without social media access - a massive global blackout. So they go to a bar & have a great time. Most negative mass pop culture message about social media I've seen.

I'm old. Back in the 20th century, when huge historic events occurred, everyone went out that afternoon or next morning and purchased historic newspapers to save. That's what I did 24 years ago. The other newspapers I found in a box in my father's closet after he died.

This Keystone Kops search for Kirk's assassin is starting to resemble the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park Bombing fiasco. When FBI + ATF couldn't figure it out, they leaked rumors to try a squeeze play on the guy who found the bomb. Many rumors published + broadcast. The bomber wasn't arrested until 2003.

The amount of nutpicking regularly occurring in the wake of every horrific event has gotten out of hand, and it seems like something that could be easily algorithmically throttled. But the business model of social media is amplifying, not dampening, outrage. A truly perverse incentive.

“Lachlan Murdoch’s greatest challenge was never going to be from his siblings. It was always going to be Fox News’ new competitors to their right and the precipitous decline in cable news subscriptions” I'm quoted in Sydney Morning Herald on Murdoch family settlement www.smh.com.au/world/north-...

Once regulatory approval has been secured, the robotaxis in Las Vegas will end their introductory free or reduced-priced service and will charge the same current fares as human-driven taxi services. If you can't spot the issue with that, I don't know what to tell you.

In 1971, CBS President Frank Stanton was willing to go to jail to protect CBS News rather than surrender to a Congressional witchhunt. In 2025, CBS just hands the President $16 million for a lawsuit they would've won. I'm quoted in today's @columjournreview.bsky.social www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-...

"I remember thinking at the time: How will the future remember the largest mass death event in U.S. history? So I decided to try to launch a memory project. I named it 'Maine Remembers the Coronavirus.'" The Latest in the Lint Trap linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/maine-reme...

Two things can be true simultaneously: 1. The Zarutska murder is a horrific + tragic news story about violence in U.S.A. 2. Right-wing in USA & Europe are propagandistically exploiting it to intensify racial tensions & justify Trump deploying National Guard, etc. kyivindependent.com/how-the-righ...

The real challenge facing Fox News in 2025 has nothing to do with Murdoch family machinations. The real challenges: 1. The preciptously decline of cable TV subscriptions + sub revenue (cord cutting) & 2. Recent Fox News challengers from the right: OANN and Newsmax, Podcasts, etc.

I frankly don't understand why the media is treating the Murdoch news as some kind of bombshell surprise? Fox News's controlling shareholder just settled everything so Fox News will continue as is. That's it. It was always a real long-shot that anything else would happen.

There's a great book about how & why MTV moved out of the music television business: "Millenials Killed the Video Star: MTV's Transition to Reality Programming" by @amandaannklein.bsky.social Highly recommended, even if a Gen X'er like myself finds the devolution depressing.

"Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?" -Julia Child, Chef (2001) A legendary magazine feature: @esquiremag.bsky.social's "What I've Learned" Latest in the Lint Trap. linttrapofhistory.substack.com/p/esquires-l...

RIP Ken Dryden. Incredible hockey player, won NCAA+Stanley Cups, went to law school, one of all-time greatest Ivy League athletes (like Lou Gehrig and Sid Luckman). Also a terrific broadcaster: It was Dryden sitting next to Al Michaels in 1980 for the Miracle on Ice. Called the game perfectly.

Flipping channels, I just tuned in the broadcast where Oregon is leading Oklahoma State right now 69 to 3. There's 9:30 left in the fourth quarter! I'm not sure I've ever heard more desultory TV announcers, they know there's nothing much to say to sell this stinker of a game. They sound defeated.

Watching Chargers on YouTube this evening, I'm reminded of the wild story of the 1963 Chargers. They were the NFL's first steroid team (before 'roids were illegal). Steroids were gobbled up like vitamins during Sid Gillman's insanely brutal camp at "Rough Acres." www.espn.com/espn/otl/new...

It's amazing that you never read a profile of America's most powerful + influential TV journalist [by viewership] or his TV show. Media critics love to write about Fox News, CNN, anything but the show most American TV news consumers are watching. That's odd, when you think about it.

For 16 consecutive weeks [all summer], David Muir's "World News Tonight" has been by far the most-watched show on *all* U.S. TV. (~8 million viewers). More than any primetime entertainment, more than any sports broadcast, much more than anything on cable. www.adweek.com/tvnewser/wee...

As I pointed out in @us.theconversation.com in 2019, live TV interviews [or, in this case: unedited] will always favor liars and those seeking to misinform the public. That's why *everyone* (including Fox News) now interviews Trump on tape & edits it. theconversation.com/a-brief-hist...

Since 2017 CBS Evening News has had 6 anchors: 1. Scott Pelley 2. Anthony Mason 3. Jeff Glor 4. Norah O'Donnell 5+6. John Dickerson + Maurice DuBois 5 CBS News Presidents in 6 years + 6 CBS Evening News anchors in 8 years. That's incredible instability.

If you're a journalist, author or scholar: Be aware. AI has begun actively hiding your past, published work - even if it appeared on the web & is in the Wayback Machine. One example. I asked Google Gemini to find an Op-ed I wrote for Boston Globe in 2004 - it couldn't.