Justice Department Indicts Right-Wing Media Conglomerate
We begin today with Andrew Couts and Tim Marksman of Wired magazine and their report about the Justice Department’s indictment against right-wing media conglomerate Tenet Media for allegedly receiving nearly $10 million from the Russian state media network RT.
Tenet Media’s Network
With the tagline “Fearless voices live here,” Tenet Media’s network includes online creators known for their right-wing politics, including Johnson, Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern. In addition to the followings of the network’s individual creators, which collectively number in the millions, Tenet Media itself boasts more than 315,000 followers on YouTube and thousands more across Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.
Responses from Influencers
Johnson, Pool, Rubin, and Southern did not immediately respond to requests for comment; none are accused of wrongdoing. “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment,” Johnson wrote on X, referring to himself and his lawyers, “which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.” Pool also released a statement on X, saying in part that “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.” Rubin retweeted Pool’s post.
Details of the Indictment
Tenet allegedly received some $9.7 million from RT, according to the DOJ. Of that, $8.7 million went to the production companies of three unnamed commentators, the indictment claims. One, referred to as “Commentator-1”—the description appears to be of either Johnson or Rubin—was allegedly contracted for $400,000 per month for four weekly videos. The nearly $10 million Tenet Media allegedly received from RT “represents nearly 90%” of funds deposited in the company’s accounts, the DOJ claims.
Alt-Media and the Election
So while right-wingers and MAGA have built up an alt-media on multiple platforms (some being paid with foreign funds), MSM wants to grumble and complain about “content creators” at the DNC.
Kamala Harris’ Media Strategy
Helen Lewis of The Atlantic writes about the shoe salesman’s alt-right media campaign. In this presidential election, both candidates are mostly avoiding set-piece interviews with traditional outlets—but only one can rely on a ready-made alternative media ecosystem. Kamala Harris finally did her first full-length sit-down last week, bringing Tim Walz along as a wingman. Instead of submitting Harris to adversarial accountability interviews, her team is wildly outspending the Trump campaign on digital ads, taking the Democrats’ message directly to voters. The Republicans have a cheaper, punkier strategy: hang out with all the boys.
Trump’s Media Strategy
“The funniest component of the Trump campaign’s media strategy so far is its commitment to dipshit outreach,” the Substacker Max Read wrote last month. The constellation of influencers with whom Trump has become enmeshed does not yet have a widely accepted name. “Manosphere” comes close, because it links together the graduates of YouTube prank channels, the Ultimate Fighting Championship boss Dana White’s sprawling empire, shitposters on Elon Musk’s X, and the male-dominated stand-up comedy scene. This is a subset of the podcast world with its own distinct political tang; it is suffused with the idea that society has become too feminized and cautious, and the antidote is spaces dedicated to energy drinks, combat sports, and saying stupid things about Hitler. Think of this as Trump’s red-pill podcast tour.
Anti-Intellectual Podcasts
These podcasts are often self-consciously anti-intellectual, marketing themselves as the home of deliberately dumb acts, edgy jokes, and rambling conversations about UFOs and sports statistics. Their spiritual daddy is Joe Rogan, but whereas he presents himself as a disaffected liberal, the new generation is happy to back right-wing causes and candidates: The Nelk Boys danced the YMCA with Trump at a rally in 2020, and Ross has explicitly endorsed Trump for president.
Sanewashing and Misinformation
Parker Molloy of The New Republic says that in “sanewashing” most of the shoe salesman’s incoherent statements, the mainstream media is misinforming the public.
Threat to Democracy
This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
Erosion of Shared Reality
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.
Voter Perception
Voters who rely solely on traditional news sources are presented with a version of Trump that bears little resemblance to reality. They see a former president who, while controversial, appears to operate within the bounds of normal political discourse—or at worst, is breaking with it in some kind of refreshing manner. You can see this folie à deux at work in a recent Times piece occasioned by Trump’s amplification of social media posts alleging that Harris owed her career to the provision of “blowjobs”: “Though he has a history of making crass insults about his opponents, the reposts signal Mr. Trump’s willingness to continue to shatter longstanding norms of political speech.” Meanwhile, those who seek out primary sources encounter a starkly different figure—one prone to conspiracy theories, personal attacks, and extreme rhetoric.
Scandal Hunting in the GOP
Charles Blow of The New York Times says that we’ve reached a stage of the presidential race where the GOP will see a scandal anywhere they can find it and report it.
Asymmetrical Battle
We have entered the scrounging-for-scandals stage of the presidential race. The battle is asymmetrical. Donald Trump is plagued by so many scandals that they start to blend together and people become numb to them, while videos keep emerging of his running mate, JD Vance, repeatedly vilifying people, particularly women, for not having children.
Impact of Scandals
Scandal can work two ways in a campaign. It can reinforce a negative impression. That is what the “stolen valor” attacks are meant to do, to cement the idea that Walz — and Kamala Harris, to a degree — are not what they seem, that they are inflated beyond their actual accomplishments.
Seismic Events
The other way scandal can work is on a larger, more race-altering level, where it lands with such weight and so close to the election that there isn’t enough time for the subject to adjust for it. These are seismic events, and they are rare. This race has already had two seismic events: the attempted assassination of Trump, which has receded in prominence, and the replacement of President Biden with Harris, which has completely shifted the race.
Measles Outbreak in Oregon
Beth Mole of Ars Technica reports about the record-setting outbreak of measles in Oregon.
Rising Exemption Rates
Since the start of the year, Oregon has tallied 31 cases of measles, all in unvaccinated people. The cases have been accumulating in sustained waves of transmission since mid-June. Last month, when the outbreak tally was still in the 20s, health officials noted that it was nearing a state record set in 2019. There were 28 cases that year, which were linked to a large outbreak across the border in Washington state. But, with that record now surpassed, the state is in pre-elimination territory.
Historical Context
In 2000, when measles was declared officially eliminated, only about 1 percent of kindergarteners in the state had exemptions from childhood vaccines, such as measles. But in the years since, Oregon has become one of the states with the highest exemption rates in the country. In the 2022–2023 school year, 8.2 percent of Oregon kindergarteners had exemptions from vaccinations, according to a CDC analysis published in November. Only Idaho had a higher rate, with 12.1 percent of kindergarteners exempt. Utah was a close third, with 8.1 percent, followed by Arizona (7.4 percent) and Wisconsin (7.2 percent).
Current Situation
Oregon’s exemption rate has risen since then, with the exemption rate now at 8.8 percent, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Any exemption rate above 5 percent is concerning. At that threshold, even if every non-exempt child is vaccinated, a state will not be able to achieve the target of 95 percent vaccine coverage expected to prevent sustained transmission of infectious diseases.
