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Monday, September 15, 2025 |
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Hey, good morning. Here's the latest from Dana Bash, David French, Karen Attiah, Stephen Collinson, Dannagal Young, Kevin Liptak, Erick Erickson, Bill Carter, and many more... |
In the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder, there is heightened alarm about the safety of elected officials and political activists — as well as members of the news media and associated public figures. "How will Kirk's slaying alter security?" is one of the front page headlines in today's L.A. Times.
Media companies have stepped up their security efforts, and this first story unfortunately illustrates why that's necessary.
According to the AP, "two men have been arrested on suspicion of placing an incendiary device under a news media vehicle in Salt Lake City." Investigators determined that the bomb "had been lit but failed to function as designed," according to a court filing about the arrests.
The device was found on Friday under a vehicle belonging to KSTU, the local station known as Fox 13 News in Utah. The Scripps-owned station confirmed the news on Sunday night and said "FOX 13 News is working closely with law-enforcement and our risk management team, with the safety of our employees as our top priority."
Authorities haven't explicitly said that the local Fox news crew was targeted, but the fact pattern is chilling, to say the least. Other Utah news outlets visited the home where the FBI arrested the two suspects and took photos of anti-Trump signs outside the home.
So when you read stories like this one from WaPo — "elected officials and other political leaders are canceling or postponing in-person events, aiming to beef up security, and weighing how to engage with the public" amid threats — keep in mind that the same concerns are bubbling up in related fields. The NYT is out with a story about anxiety among "creators and commentators" on both sides "reckoning with a new level of fear."
"Many are considering ratcheting up their security, if they haven’t already," the story says. "Others are recalibrating how to safely interact with audiences in person — or whether to keep making content in public at all."
If the perceived risk is too high, if the cost is too steep, then people will retreat from public life and choose other professions — and everyone will be worse off.
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5️⃣ key notes from the news coverage |
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Image |
>> VP JD Vance will be the fill-in host on "The Charlie Kirk Show" at noon ET.
>> Before you read more about the possible motivations of the suspect, read this X post from Dave Troy: "People need to understand that the darkest forms of online radicalization don't lead to 'left' or 'right' orientations, but rather to an extreme, cynical, and purposely impenetrable disdain for society and existing power structures. Everything is irony; everything is a joke."
>> The best thing I read over the weekend was this David French column about resisting confirmation bias and recognizing that America has an "immense problem with violent extremism on both sides of the ideological aisle." He says, "There are monsters in your midst, too."
>> Dana Bash's closing segment on "SOTU" yesterday: "Social media algorithms are rotting America's soul."
>> Plainly stated: "America does not look like a country that wants a civil war," CNN's Stephen Collinson points out.
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Kirk's next book is already #1 |
In Saturday's special edition of this newsletter, I wrote about Kirk posthumously gaining millions of subscribers on social media. Yashar Ali reports that Kirk and TPUSA accounts have now surpassed 20 million new followers since the shooting. And here's another digital data point: Kirk's next book, "Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life," is firmly #1 on Amazon's new releases list. The book isn't due out until December, but preorder sales have skyrocketed in the past few days, pushing it ahead of Kamala Harris and others on the list.
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'Restraint' in MSM reporting |
Univ. of Delaware comms professor Dannagal Young told the NYT that "she had noticed a restraint in mainstream media reporting about Mr. Kirk's death." And she explained it this way: "I think there is a recognition that this moment is so important, and this country is such a tinderbox, that people who are in media and journalism, especially those on the left, are aware that they have a responsibility to take the temperature down. And I think that's a very good thing in terms of democratic health."
Others disagree, obviously, and I have heard from quite a few of them who feel the media has a responsibility not to "canonize" Kirk in death. The general take can be summed up by this headline on Moira Donegan's column at The Guardian: "Charlie Kirk's killing was a tragedy. But we must not rewrite his life."
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'Cancel culture' is back... |
...Because it never really went away. Over the weekend, I covered the growing conservative campaign to get Kirk bashers fired. And I tried to point out that the offending commentary ranges dramatically, from outright celebration of Kirk's death to a performative lack of sympathy about it. CNN's Ramishah Maruf has a detailed story about it here. The free speech group FIRE calls it "the cancel culture part of the tragedy cycle" and says "we should remember we don’t win an argument by ruining someone's life. We just ruin someone's life."
Principled writers are speaking out against the "Expose Charlie's Murderers" energy for conservative publications. "The more entrenched 'cancel culture' becomes... the less space there is for dissenting opinions," Ralph Leonard warns in this UnHerd essay. "The result is a society in which fear dominates, and those eagerly joining the mob today may find that, by tomorrow, they are the ones at risk."
>> "Based on my replies, I'm genuinely impressed by how quickly the right has adopted every left-wing justification for campus censorship from the past decade," Nico Perrino remarked last night.
>> This just in: Karen Attiah, WaPo's founding Global Opinions editor, says she was fired last week for her Bluesky posts about Kirk and political violence. She has republished the posts here.
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Fox tries to extinguish Kilmeade fire |
Brian Kilmeade's "just kill 'em" remark about executing mentally ill homeless people aired on "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday. It didn't turn into a problem for Fox until Saturday, when Fox critics like Aaron Rupar picked up on the moment and shared the video clip on social. That's why Kilmeade was on the air Sunday morning apologizing for the "extremely callous remark."
Apologies are very rare in Foxville. But the folks demanding disciplinary action are bound to be disappointed; Kilmeade was back on the show as usual this morning. The show focused on young people "creating a movement" in the wake of Kirk's assassination...
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Next TikTok deadline is around the corner |
Trump's third delay of the TikTok divest-or-ban law expires on Wednesday, and all signs are that he "again will kick the can down the road," Dan Primack wrote for Axios the other day. Trump sounded agnostic about the app's future while speaking with reporters last night, CNN's Kevin Liptak observed. Trump said, "We may let it die, or we may, I don't know, it depends. It's up to China."
As I noted on air last night, these delays are one of Trump's most sweeping assertions of exec power. There are some notable voices within his own party, like Erick Erickson, urging Trump to follow through with the ban. TikTok "is clearly poisoning minds and radicalizing people," Erickson opined over the weekend...
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📉 Declining right-wing website traffic |
Most right-wing digital news platforms experienced double-digit year-on-year audience decreases, according to Similarweb data of 20 publications analyzed by TheRighting and shared with us exclusively. Only three publications seem to have seen gains, including The Free Press, which saw 4% on-year audience uptick. (TheRighting's Howard Polskin labels The FP "right-tilting.")
"It’s reasonable to expect more audience decreases for the remainder of this year for all news websites compared to the election-year surges we saw down the homestretch of the last presidential election," Polskin points out. Here is his full report...
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Netflix, HBO, Apple dominate Emmys |
"A record-setting night for The Studio helped give Apple TV+ its best night ever at the Emmys, while HBO and HBO Max rebounded in a big way to tie Netflix for the top spot among all networks," THR's Rick Porter wrote overnight. "The Pitt" – with its big win for best drama – and "The Penguin" helped HBO score a total of 30 wins, the same number as Netflix, which was recognized for standout projects like "Adolescence." Check out CNN's recap here...
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Hollywood shows solidarity with Stephen |
"Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!" CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister said that "in all my years covering award shows, I’ve NEVER heard as loud of an reaction in the room for any award show win as Stephen Colbert’s win just now." The Emmy for best talk series was also like the "We've Got Your Back Award," LateNighter's Bill Carter wrote, saying the TV Academy sent a message: "Cancel him if you want, but Colbert has the room on his side." Watch the powerful acceptance speech here.
The Academy also paid tribute to the recently-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, causing "a loud chorus of boos" directed at Congress, Deadline's Ted Johnson noted. That leads us to this next story...
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Hyperlocal impacts of PBS/NPR cuts |
Kudos to the NYT for sending Ben Mullin to Kansas, Jack Healy to South Dakota, and David W. Chen to Oregon for this three-bylined deep dive:
"On the windswept prairie of South Dakota, a tribal public radio station is selling off its old records to pay the bills. In Warm Springs, Ore., the NPR affiliate is considering dropping 'All Things Considered' to focus on tribal issues. In Bunker Hill, Kan., (population 103), the public TV station may eventually have to cut ties with PBS, pulling children's shows like 'Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.'" Read all about the ways stations are trying to adapt to the loss of federal funding...
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Penn State station set to close |
The aforementioned Ben Mullin said, "This is the first NPR/PBS station I've seen that's going out of business as a result of the federal rescission:"
"Penn State University plans to shut down its NPR and PBS-affiliated public broadcasting station, WPSU, after the university’s trustees rejected a proposal to transfer ownership to WHYY," the public media powerhouse based in Philly. WHYY's Carmen Russel-Sluchansky has a full report on what happened, and here's some local coverage of the news...
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Penske suing Google over AI summaries |
Penske Media, publisher of titles like Rolling Stone and THR, "has sued Google, alleging that the AI summaries that appear atop search results are illegally using its reporting and depressing online traffic," the WSJ's Ben Fritz reports. He says Penske "is the first major U.S. news company to challenge Google and its parent Alphabet in court over its growing use of artificial intelligence, which many publishers have said is damaging their businesses." Google says "we will defend against these meritless claims."
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Govt still paying for premium news |
Remember all the rhetoric last winter from Trump and Elon Musk about stopping government agencies from shelling out for subscriptions to premium news and info services? The Bulwark's Joe Perticone is out with a smart follow-up piece. He says many federal employees are still subscribed to publications like Politico Pro and Bloomberg LP using taxpayer funds. And while "the number of House Republicans who began new Politico Pro subscriptions in 2025 is notably less than those who began new subscriptions in 2024," the ranks of those who continue to subscribe "are some of the same conservative members of Congress who were vocal champions of DOGE’s cost-cutting mission."
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Entertainment notes and quotes |
>> Film Workers for Palestine "issued a statement Sunday refuting Paramount's condemnation" of its effort. (TheWrap)
>> "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – the Movie Infinity Castle" shattered the record "for biggest opening weekend domestic gross for an anime movie, hauling in an estimated $70 million," Auzinea Bacon writes. (CNN)
>> "The Conjuring: Last Rites" was #2 for the weekend, followed by "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale" and "The Long Walk."
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