500 Journalists Laid Off in January

The decline of the mainstream media continued in the first month of 2024, with over 500 journalists being fired in January alone.

As Politico reports, there were 538 layoffs in the month of January in the media industry, including jobs in print, broadcast, and digital media. The report from Challenger, Gray, & Christmas suggests that the trend first seen in 2023 will not be slowing down in 2024. Last year, there were 3,087 layoffs in the news industry, which marked the highest annual total since the 16,060 firings in the year 2020, which was primarily due to the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic.

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Derek Chauvin Still Fighting Convictions Despite Stabbing, Solitary Confinement

Even though he is still recovering from a near-fatal stabbing, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is seeking legal help while confined to solitary medical confinement in a federal prison facility.

“There was no question he was trying to kill him. It was more serious than anyone knew,” Carolyn Pawlenty said of the violent attack on her son in the prison law library at the facility in Tucson, Ariz., on Nov. 24, 2023.

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The New York Times Fails to Report Accurately on Election of New AZGOP Chair Gina Swoboda, an Election Integrity Champion

Election integrity champion Gina Swoboda was elected chair of the Arizona Republican Party on Saturday, prompting negative coverage from the mainstream media. Endorsed by both Donald Trump and Kari Lake, she won the election in a landslide over another MAGA conservative, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor, but The New York Times portrayed the election as chaotic and evidence of the party’s “yawning ideological divide.” 

The article said Swoboda “runs a nonprofit group that has falsely claimed to have found huge discrepancies in voting records in a number of states.” The article linked to a piece by ProPublica which reported on the work of Swoboda’s Voter Reference Foundation (VoteRef). VoteRef discovered discrepancies between the number of voters and the number of ballots cast in numerous states. ProPublica cited objections to the report from several election officials as evidence the work was invalid. 

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Commentary: Mainstream Media Has Convinced Even Republicans to Believe Hunter’s Business Is No Big Deal

After reading my commentary about my self-inflicted ordeal of listening to NPR for a month, a friend noted this station’s “reports” bear no resemblance to “objective reality.” Can so many Americans, asked my correspondent, believe that the U.S. is full of oppressed transgendered who must take up arms to protect themselves against “anti-trans rhetoric?” Do NPR listeners really think American blacks are suffering from “systemic white racism,” and that only increased government control can protect them from being shot on the streets by white racists?

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Kari Lake Announces Intent to Appeal Superior Court Ruling, New ‘Chase the Ballot’ Effort

A day after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled against Kari Lake on her second election challenge trial, Lake held a press conference outlining her future plans. She said she is looking at “several paths for appeal” and is also launching a new “chase the ballot” group headed up by EZAZ grassroots organizer Merissa Hamilton. During the event, Lake, who is known for getting the best of reporters due to her skilled background as a news anchor, tangled repeatedly with the local mainstream media.

Lake denounced the election fraud and the disappointing court rulings against her. “They know they’re frauds,” she declared. “They absolutely know they’re frauds.”

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Commentary: Take GOP Debates Away from the Mainstream Media

Tucker Carlson reportedly wants to host his own GOP presidential debate. The idea struck a chord with many people. It would be must-see TV for the most popular commentator on the Right to grill presidential hopefuls before a national audience. Republican voters would also prefer if those asking the candidates questions were not liberal reporters.

With Carlson now visible primarily on Twitter, it looks like he will have the opportunity to host the debate on the social media giant. According to the Washington Post, “Carlson wants to moderate his own GOP candidate forum, outside of the usual strictures of the Republican National Committee debate system.”

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News Reports Debunked That Former Cochise County Elections Official Received Death Threat

Lisa Marra

The media is hyping up complaints by election officials that they are receiving threats for refusing to address complaints about voter disenfranchisement. Arizona Public Media reported in March that controversial former Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra received a death threat several weeks before the 2022 election, but an investigation by the Arizona Daily Independent found that Arizona Media incorrectly assumed it was Marra.

The news went national, as Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) used Marra as a source for discussing those types of threats. Arizona Media quoted Marra telling him, “I believe that we should have some defined laws, we should have some penalties, we should have some things with teeth. It concerns me that the longer that we go on, the angrier people are getting, and at some point, there’s a tipping point.”

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Commentary: DeSantis Charms GOP by Condemning ‘Leaks’ and ‘Palace Intrigue’

On its face, there wasn’t anything unusual about the email that landed last week in the press office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Background interview request from the Washington Post,” read the subject line that summarized the industry-standard process whereby information is shared with reporters under pre-negotiated terms, usually anonymity. When sanctioned by a politician or their team, it is called “going on background” to shape and broaden a story with additional facts and contexts but without direct attribution. When not sanctioned, well, then that is just called leaking.

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Kari Lake Responds to Rumor She Is Considering Running for U.S. Senate

Kari Lake is appealing the dismissal of her lawsuit contesting the results of a botched election for Arizona governor, which placed her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, in office, but rumors are swirling in the mainstream media that she is moving on and considering running for U.S. Senate.

The rumors began when CNN reporter Kate Sullivan tweeted on Monday, “I’m told Kari Lake is considering running for the US Senate seat held by Kyrsten Sinema in 2024.” Newsweek published an article titled, “Kari Lake Might Have Finally Given up Her Hopes of Becoming Governor.”

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Arizona AG Election Integrity Unit Attorney Starts Process for Libel Lawsuit over Media Claims She Was Fired

Jennifer Wright, the Election Integrity Unit (EIU) civil attorney for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich until his second term ended earlier this month, resigned before newly elected Democrat Kris Mayes took office, but there are reports in the media spreading that she was fired. Wright gave The Arizona Republic “notice and demand for a correction prior to filing legal action pursuant to A.R.S. 12-653.2.”

Wright believes the false statements were made in order to discredit the work she did investigating voter fraud.

Wright tangled with the Maricopa County Supervisors and Maricopa County Stephen Richer many times, pointing out problems with the elections and demanding evidence and documentation. She asked the county four times to turn over information related to the Arizona Senate’s independent ballot audit of the 2020 election, but all four letters were ignored. 

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Axios Agrees to $525 Million Sale to Cox Enterprises

Axios agreed to sell to Cox Enterprises for an estimated $525 million, the companies announced on Monday.

Cox Enterprises, a global media company with 50,000 employees, is Axios’ most recent lead investor.

Axios CEO and co-founder Jim VandeHei celebrated the deal.

“This is great for Axios, for our shareholders and American journalism. It allows us to think and operate generationally, with a like-minded partner — and build something great and durable that lives long after we are gone,” he said, Axios reported.

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Kari Lake’s Campaign Says Former Friend, a Drag Queen Who Called Her ‘A Complete Hypocrite,’ Will Be Subject to Defamation Lawsuit

A drag queen who said he used to be friends with leading gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake turned on her this month after she posted some concerns about introducing sexualized drag queens to children. However, Lake made it clear that she has no problem with adults engaging in drag shows, or impersonators who aren’t sexualized interacting with children. Rick Stevens, who goes by the stage name Barbara Seville, appeared to blur the distinction. The Arizona Legislature is working on legislation to prohibit children under age 18 from attending drag shows, which Lake supports. 

Lake tweeted criticism of a video of a scantily dressed drag queen dancing provocatively for young children in Dallas on June 4, stating “This is grooming. This is child abuse.” 

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Commentary: The Pathological Nature of Wokeness

It is not often that two contrasting mainstream media events reveal so completely the nature of the deep dysfunction of modern culture. Yet that is precisely what happened last month.

Those two events are as follows: First, contrarian Substack writer and known anti-woke crusader Andrew Sullivan appeared on Jon Stewart’s new show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart.” I do not think I am being uncharitable when I call the appearance a disaster. Which, to be fair, is not entirely Sullivan’s fault, seeing as he was thrust into what was effectively a three-on-one fight (more like a dozens-on-one fight, if you include the studio audience). He was the lone dissenter against a pack of braying fanatics, egged on by a motley trio consisting of a grifter and two useful idiots, one of whom is the most famed enforcer of liberal dogma from decades past.

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Commentary: John Stankey Stinks up CNN Even More

John Stankey

Yo! John Stankey! We told you CNN was stinking up AT&T. Now you are making it worse!

In an interview with CNBC last week, AT&T boss John Stankey exchanged his trademark “Mr. Hollywood Casual” for “Doctor Evil Lite,” while dodging every sensitive question about CNN’s “Mother Zucker” debacle. 

In fact, Stankey did the best non-stop weasel dance since the invention of “Whack-a-Mole.”

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Commentary: Mainstream Media Newspapers Are Stubborn About Correcting Errors

Many iconic U.S. newspapers sport slogans that seek to explain their mission – and self-image. “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has been called “the seven most famous words in American journalism.” “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was an overtly partisan call to arms. But the most telling section of a newspaper’s true values is its “Corrections” page. That’s where journalism distinguishes itself from just about every other profession, routinely and straightforwardly admitting its mistakes. Who else does that?

It is a soul-crushing enterprise. A single misspelled name is all it takes to ruin an otherwise stellar article. We reporters may forget the topic of the piece we wrote last week, while the error five years ago is seared into our memories. But it is also crucial: Reader trust is the lifeblood of journalism. If you can’t believe what you read, why bother?

And yet, we do get things wrong all the time. Despite the self-righteous claims of too many news outlets, journalists don’t print The Truth. The “first draft of history” is necessarily messy and incomplete. What journalists have long promised readers is that we will do our best to get the story right initially and then set the record straight when better information emerges. This isn’t solely a commitment to high-minded ethics. It is also transactional: Journalists can so readily acknowledge errors because readers honor and reward our honesty. They forgive us our trespasses because we acknowledge them.

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Arizona Republic Employees Say They Lament the Gradual Decline of the Newspaper

Employment in journalism has taken a hit in recent years, and The Arizona Republic, known as AZCentral online, is no exception. The Republic was bought by the left-leaning publisher Gannett in 2000, which bought up several large newspapers in the 2000s. The paper took a sharp lurch to the left politically, and since then, there have been numerous high-profile layoffs and furloughs as the paper shrank faster than most other large newspapers.

Rebekah Sanders, a consumer protection reporter and the president of the paper’s union, Arizona Republic Guild, tweeted about the latest cutback on Dec. 2. “The company is planning to discontinue work cell phones,” she complained. “A [bat sh*t crazy] idea for a company whose entire workforce depends on phone calls! But we will push back and make sure our members are taken care of.”

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Fox News Contributors Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes Say They Quit Paid Carlson’s Jan. 6 Content

Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg

Journalists and conservative pundits Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, whose commentary has not supported President Trump, have resigned from their paid TV contributor jobs at Fox News.

Hayes and Goldberg, long-time conservative commentators who most recently have rebuked Republican politics that revolves around Trump, co-founded The Dispatch in 2019. The site is described as “a place that thoughtful readers can come for conservative, fact-based news and commentary.”

On Sunday, they announced their joint resignation from the posts they have respectively held since 2009. They write that the network’s irresponsible coverage now outweighs its responsible coverage, which long kept them tethered to their lucrative contracts.

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‘Actual Malice’: Courts Greenlight Devin Nunes Defamation Lawsuits Against Mainstream Media

Journalists who get into public spats with politicians may want to rethink their eagerness to pour salt into old wounds, at least in the middle of litigation.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resurrected a defamation lawsuit by Rep. Devin Nunes against Ryan Lizza and Hearst Media, because the journalist called attention to his article on Nunes and illegal immigrant laborers after the California Republican sued.

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Arizona’s U.S. Senator Mark Kelly Proposes Legislation to Fund Local Mainstream Media

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) joined U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) to co-sponsor legislation that indirectly funds local media. The Local Journalism Sustainability Act establishes tax credits that give consumers a huge deduction on media subscriptions, subsidizes journalists’ salaries, and funds news outlets by paying for businesses to advertise.

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Former Drudge Report Editor Joseph Curl to Launch New Conservative News Aggregator Site

Joseph Curl, the former editor of the Drudge Report, announced on Tuesday that he will launch a conservative-oriented news aggregator to deliver to individuals who “devour news all day.”

The new site, dubbed “Off The Press,” will deliver 24/7 access to breaking news with the goal of preventing the continued mainstream media echo that many sites produce.

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Commentary: The Democrats’ Topsy-Turvy Spin Machine

Joe Biden talking to staff members

The guessing game of how long the levitation of the Biden presidency can be taken seriously seems to be entering a new phase. The deluge of illegal entries into the United States at the southern border is now running at a rate of closer to 3 million than 2 million a year and yet we still see and hear the bobbling talking head of the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assuring us, “The southern border is closed.” 

The media has provided almost no coverage of this calamitous invasion. A recent Trafalgar poll found that 56 percent of Americans don’t think Joe Biden is “fully executing the duties of his office,” yet the docile White House press corps continues to ask him about his ice cream and other such probing questions of national interest. Apart from a rising stock market and a quieter atmosphere, the record of the new administration is one of almost complete failure. 

The oceanic influx of unskilled labor at the southern border cannot fail to aggravate unemployment and depress the incomes for the vulnerable sectors of what, under President Trump, was a fully employed workforce. The administration has reduced domestic oil production and squandered the country’s status as an energy self-sufficient state. These are all familiar issues to those who follow public affairs, but the 95 percent Democratic-supporting media preserve the cocoon of a fairyland Biden presidency, whose bumbling chief flatters himself with comparisons to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Commentary: The Massive Pushback Brewing Against the Progressive Left Could Dwarf the Tea Party Sea Change of 2010

Joe Biden and Donald Trump

Victimizers quickly becoming victims is a recurrent theme of Thucydides’ history. In his commentary on the so-called stasis at Corcyra, he offers his most explicit warning about the long-term dangers of destroying legal institutions, customs, and traditions that serve the common good for short-term gain. 

The historian notes that in the inevitable yin and yang of politics, the destroyers inevitably will seek, but do so in vain, refuge in what they have destroyed. Between 2017 and 2021 the Left has done exactly that. 

What was common to the media’s deification of the criminally minded Michael Avenatti, and the promotion of a series of abject hoaxes? Do we remember the Steele “dossier,” the supposed authority of Fusion-GPS, the Schiff “report,” and the entire Russian “collusion” yarn? 

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Commentary: Biden Is Unfit to Be President — And the Media Is Unfit to Cover Him

Joe Biden

Joe Biden is not mentally or physically fit to be president of the United States. This has been obvious to anyone with eyes or ears for the entirety of his presidency. Acknowledging this simple fact should not be a partisan issue. Regardless of policy disputes, Republicans and Democrats alike should want the leader of the free world to exhibit strength, power, and reassurance on both the national and the world stage. But Biden is merely a figurehead. He is a facsimile of a leader in an office that normally demands sharpness, stamina, and clear-headedness.

No honest assessment can conclude that Biden’s public appearances present a man who is in control of his faculties or who looks sharp and confident. On the contrary, he looks frail, weak, indecisive, unsure of himself, and unsteady. When he speaks, he often says things that simply don’t make sense, even as he almost exclusively reads from a teleprompter or uses notecards. He has repeatedly said that if he takes unscripted questions from the press, he’s “gonna get in trouble” from his staff.

Yet those who do not follow politics closely or ignore conservative outlets could be forgiven for thinking that Biden is fully capable, thanks to the corrupt Fourth Estate that has refused to accurately cover Biden’s ever-increasing list of embarrassing moments.

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Commentary: ‘The Truth’ vs. Objectivity in American Journalism Today

Lately, the local ABC News affiliate in Washington, D.C., has been running promotional spots with the well-worn tagline “speaking truth to power.” That is an odd slogan for a media outlet that can certainly be counted among the powerful in the region. It also raises a question as to whether this local news department has truly discovered “the truth” and is devoting its broadcasts to sharing it with its viewers.  

At least implicit in the use of the slogan is a recognition by the station that truth does indeed exist. Sadly, many in American journalism are increasingly denying the existence of objective truth and calling for an end of objectivity in journalism. As Stanford University communications professor emeritus Ted Glasser said recently, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”  In other words, the task of a journalist is to push the progressive narrative forward, truth and objectivity be damned. 

Glasser isn’t alone. Recently, in a speech at Washington State University, “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt also questioned the value of objectivity. “I think it’s become clearer that fairness is overrated,” he said. “The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in.”  

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Interview: Arizona Governor Hopeful Kari Lake on Her Faith, Media Bias, and Why She’s Running

PHOENIX, Arizona – Longtime Fox News Emmy Award-winning anchor Kari Lake discussed faith, media bias, and her plans for governorship in an interview with The Arizona Sun Times. The governor hopeful offered insight honed from nearly 30 years of reporting in the state – how it was the people’s stories and needs that inspired her to take the leap from reporting to running for office.

“I have no special interests except for the people of Arizona,” said Lake.

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A Recap in the Last Days of the Arizona Audit: Mainstream Media Meddling and ‘Blue Pen Jen’

PHOENIX, Arizona – The most eventful aspect of the Arizona audit appears to have had nothing to do with the audit itself – rather, it was antics from the mainstream media who came to cover it. Officials recounted to The Arizona Sun Times one incident in which several reporters left their designated seating, returned to the entryway, propped open the doors, and took pictures. Later, those reporters published stories claiming that the doors were left wide open during the audit.

After that, The Times was told, officials had to direct some of the Arizona Rangers serving as security to escort media and ensure they didn’t roam freely.

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Husband of Ashli Babbitt Files Lawsuit to Demand Name of Capitol Police Officer Who Killed Her

Ashli Babbitt

The widower of Ashi Babbitt, the Air Force veteran who was killed by a Capitol Police officer on January 6th, has filed a lawsuit seeking to finally uncover the name of the guilty officer, the New York Post reports.

Aaron Babbitt filed the lawsuit in the Washington D.C. Superior Court, demanding all information related to his wife’s murder, including video footage and statements from witnesses to the incident, in addition to seeking the identity of the officer who fired the fatal shot. Separately from this lawsuit, Babbitt’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit for $12 million against the Capitol Police, according to the Babbitt family’s attorney Terry Roberts.

Babbitt had previously filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), but the MPD failed to respond by the original May 12th deadline, by which time they either had to provide the material or give a formal response explaining why they could not hand over the materials.

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Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy Michael Waller on Senator Ron Johnson and the Capitol Riots

Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed The Federalist Contributor Michael Waller to the newsmakers line to clarify his first-hand account of the Capitol riots on Janauary sixth and address the media backlash of Senator Ron Johnson for referencing it in the recent investigative hearing.

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Commentary: The Mainstream Media and Social Media Oligarchs Are to Blame for the D.C. Rioting

The Mainstream Media Are to blame for the D.C. rioting. Through four years they relentlessly pursued a single-minded goal: to take down the fairly-and-squarely democratically elected presidency of Donald Trump. Towards that end, they escalated non-stories into major “news” and elevated non-entities into major public figures. As they did in 2014 with the tragic crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, they contorted serious news into theater and abandoned their duties to investigate honestly and report dispassionately, fairly, and responsibly.

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No New News: Mainstream Media and Democrats Recycle Arguments Against Mass Voter Fraud Allegations

A current narrative dominating mainstream media and many top Democratic officials is the total absence of voter fraud. Every top outlet or public figure mirrors the next in language. Reports are swept aside as “false or misleading,” and statements from various secretaries of state and county registrars are cited as proof that no fraud occurred.

The talking points in this election that argue against the possibility of voter fraud aren’t new, or even original. Especially in Virginia.

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