American media

Around 750 employees for the Washington Post walked out on their jobs Thursday in the first labor strike against the newspaper in fifty years. A couple hundred of the actively striking employees gathered outside of the paper’s headquarters in Washington, DC, where they marched in tandem and noshed on coffee, pastries and pizza provided by local businesses. Coincidentally, that is about even with the number of jobs — 240 — the Post says it needs to cut amid negative profits and struggles to grow its subscriber base. So far 120 employees have accepted voluntary buyouts to leave their roles, meaning just as many will likely be laid off in the coming months. Nonetheless, the employees mostly seemed happy and excited to be on strike.

Gone are the days when local news anchors and weathermen went viral for unfortunate slips of the tongue or medical emergencies. Now these local TV staples are dancing and singing their way through their on-air reports, supposedly with the goal of making the news more "fun." Of course, these silly moments also coincidentally help these news anchors build their followings on TikTok. Nick Kosir, a former meteorologist for a local Fox affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina was one of the first local anchors to enjoy viral fame. He first garnered headlines by posting copycat versions of NFL quarterback Cam Newton's wildest fashion moments on his social media accounts, then exploded after nailing a dance challenge while wearing a business suit.

Tucker Carlson’s six years on Fox News seem to have artificially extended the life, and relevance, of cable news itself. While he was there, the top-rated host in the medium brought in an entirely new audience: young people, especially young men. He not only drew the largest number of viewers in the coveted 25-54 demographic, he took in the top rank for Democrats in that age group too. But even Carlson knew cable news was a dying model, one that had lasted longer than anyone expected, as he told me when I spoke to him for my upcoming book, Tucker. “I really do think the cable news business has a limited future,” Carlson said, two weeks after his show was abruptly pulled off the air. “It’s too obviously controlled.

In last Friday's gossip column (which you really should sign up for), Cockburn revealed how Emma Tucker, the London newspaper editor who took the helm of the Wall Street Journal in February, has been unimpressed with the lousy work ethic of her new colleagues.  “What do they all do all day?” the former Sunday Times of London chief is reportedly prone to wondering out loud. Much to Cockburn’s surprise, the small piece of gossip has blown up on the internet, drawing the ire of America’s "hard-working" hacks.  It wasn’t long before journalist complaints started to roll in. How they managed to carve out the time to do so between copying and pasting press releases, Cockburn does not know.

The Wall Street Journal made an interesting hire last year that went mostly unnoticed, aside from minor trade publications. The NewsCorp-owned media outlet announced in May 2022 that they were bringing on Robin Turner to be the vice president of training, culture and community. Turner's charge was to work with Dow Jones newsrooms, including WSJ, to "drive DE&I strategy into all aspects of our global business." DE&I of course refers to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, those corporate and academic cultural programs that insist that historically marginalized groups require special treatment in order to overcome systemic oppression. DEI has become baked into the WSJ's news operation while simultaneously being excoriated by the paper's editorial board.

A recently updated version of Politico’s style guide reveals that the outlet is doubling down on forcing reporters to use so-called "inclusive" language — such as "pregnant people" instead of women — and will require all articles on transgender issues to be specially reviewed by multiple editors. I first reported on Politico’s woke style guide in my book The Snowflakes’ Revolt, which also uncovers how reporters were required to attend a struggle session led by transgender activists. As I lay out in an excerpt published in The Spectator, that version of the guide, which was created in January 2022, warned reporters to avoid gendered language like "manmade," "manhunt," "waiter or waitress," "biological sex" and more.