Brian Creech

Gullible, Cynical America The trouble with believing anything and nothing at the same time

The data economy has made us dumber in ways that also make us vulnerable to authoritarian takover. We are have become both cynical and gullible in the sense we think we are too jaded be fooled and as a result are tricked more easily www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Thrilled to share this piece by my colleague Madhavi Reddi, which looks at how comedians Aziz Ansari and Hassan Minaj have created a uniquely second-generation Desi male identity. Very sharp stuff here.

csalateral.org/issue/14-2/g...

When the media covers war, every other topic fades Trump will do anything to distract from the political damage of the Epstein files

'Subjects that were dominating the news last week are brushed aside. Instead, it’s all war, all the time.'

@sulliview.bsky.social reminds readers not to lose sight of the (many, many) topics that Trump doesn't want you to pay attention to

margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/when-the-m...

Check out the latest #bookreview at @jmcquarterly.bsky.social — a good review of a good book! @briancreech.bsky.social @ajbauer.bsky.social

the whole 'monitoring the situation' meme is poking fun at this & also partly people just giving into the fact that our information systems push us to consume and converse in totalizing ways. of course the effect is that everything just becomes entertainment or raw data in a pretty dehumanizing way

GOP “Antitrust Concerns” Magically Disappear Now That Larry Ellison Is Buying Warner Brothers You might have noticed that when Netflix was attempting to acquire Warner Brothers, Republicans were suddenly and uncharacteristically interested in media consolidation and antitrust reform. Republ…

funny how that works, huh?

Personal news update: I'm delighted to announce that as of today, I am an actual Bluesky employee! I'll be working to welcome indie media and local govt to Bsky—and supporting those already here.

I'll always want to hear your thoughts on how we can make Bsky the sort of social media we all want!

Oligarchs Are Building The World's Biggest Propaganda Machine. Their Success Isn't Guaranteed. America's wealthiest, shittiest people are trying to hoover up the entirety of new and old media companies in a bid to pummel the plebs with propaganda. But what they want, and what they actually get,...

Over at the newsletter I wrote about the Paramount/Warner deal, how it's best viewed as a well-funded attack on informed consensus, and how we still have collective agency to determine whether or not it actually succeeds.

I get why/that people say this, but dont' underestimate this:

all other social networks are invested in making sure that posts that link to journalism remain buried, or at least never go viral.

BlueSky doesn't do that. That makes it very valuable to a ton of newsrooms righ tnow.

This is a bombshell: "the Pentagon wanted the company to allow for the collection and analysis of unclassified, commercial bulk data on Americans, such as geolocation and web browsing data"

This kind of agenda echoes the defunded Total Information Awareness effort, post-9/11

A list of news outlets and social media sites whose billionaire owners, investors or parent companies also have U.S. government defense contracts:

Axios
CBS
NBC
The Washington Post
TikTok
YouTube
X
Soon: CNN

A lot of masks are about to come off in U.S. news media. “When the Press Fails” is going to need a sequel. #journalism

The Tampa Bay Times starts a monthly “book club” for news stories The idea is not just to discuss a story's substance, but to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the reporting process and decision-making that shape the published article.

“The business is packed, and people across all demographics are sitting there in conversation,” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘wow, wouldn’t it be great if we could apply this model to news?'” www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/the-...

imo the threat posed by CBS News and CNN getting absorbed by pro-regime billionaires isn't that they're going to produce right-wing slop that convinces people to be right-wing, it's the dismantling of newsrooms capable of doing investigative reporting on the administration. Fewer eyes on the street.

Netflix Backs Out of Warner Bros. Bidding, Paramount Set to Win In a stunning twist, the streaming giant's co-CEOs say the major studio was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.

Wow. Say goodbye to independent journalism at CNN. The two Davids, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Paramount CEO David Ellison will together likely drive a stake through the heart of one of the best global news operations on TV. https://loom.ly/cbDtaPA

How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account Our national project of elite impunity

After the arrests of powerful men across the world, you might be asking why the US has so much trouble holding its leaders accountable for lawbreaking. Since Nixon, all three branches of government have worked hard to ensure they can break the law with impunity www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

I did not realize this was now out. So much good in this book, and I hope mid-career folks in newsrooms really read this book and wrestle with what it shows about the way accusations of bias were a specific strategy "to make [conservatives'] ideological worldview seem like empirical reality.”

BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide.

This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.

"The Crime of Witness" by Fintan O’Toole in @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social

"The videos that expose the administration’s mendacity about its own use of extreme violence against peaceful dissent are themselves products of the courage to show up [and] see for yourself."

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

They hate humanities because they hate critiques of the brutal power they wield:

“The abolition of gender studies is a way of further guaranteeing impunity to the elite men whose contempt for and exploitation of women and girls apparently knows no bounds.”

Will Lewis steps down as Washington Post publisher and CEO after job cuts British journalist’s tenure was controversial after being appointed by Jeff Bezos to turn around the newspaper

In my 30 years in journalism, I don't believe I've seen anyone beclown himself as thoroughly and as profoundly as Will Lewis has. Good riddance.

www.ft.com/content/5fa6...

High-quality journalism is not a viable market product. If you want consistent high-quality journalism, you need some kind of subsidy.

ANY billionaire could set up the WaPo as a high-quality journalism outlet, accept that it's not going to make money, & simply subsidize it. Nothing stopping them.

Order your Faves on my Digital Cookie Site Today That's right! You can order your favorite Girl Scout Cookies from me online, all while helping my troop and I do great things in our community and beyond! Check it out.

Had a banner year selling Girl Scout cookies IRL last year, but posting this here in case folks anywhere else need a hookup digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/hollan...

Tbf, “annoyed by liberals and leftists they see socially” probably explains a lot of elite media behavior

For the past 3 months, David Remnick has been notably deferential to conservatives and infers at time he is mildly annoyed by the liberals he sees socially in these interviews. What is going on?

Criticism Is Literature. Why Is It Vanishing?, by Adam Morgan What do the best book reviews do? What is the current state of the critical ecosystem? Chicago Review of Books founder Adam Morgan takes stock of book reviewing in the US.

With Ron Charles and Becca Rothfeld laid off from WaPo, there are now only 5 full-time book critics working in the United States.

That's down from 7 when this pubbed last year, though you may find my definition of a "full-time book critic" arbitrary.

worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...

As Washington Post downsizes, media experts react with concern about future of news coverage - WTOP News Following the Washington Post’s announcement of more than 300 layoffs, media experts raise concerns about corporate ownership, political pressure, and the long-term impact on investigative and local j...

“What you’re seeing here is an absolute destruction of one of America’s most important news organizations in order for Bezos to curry favor with the Trump administration because he has billions of dollars in contracts with them.” @margotsusca.bsky.social said.

wtop.com/local/2026/0...

This is the thing. Freelancing happens to work very well for some people as individuals (me, for instance) but society needs real newsrooms and real teams. We gig writers are just part of the ecosystem.