Kayla Gogarty

The Sweeney Spectacle Sydney Sweeney’s cheeky American Eagle ad became the week’s biggest culture-war flashpoint—distracting from far weightier stories.

"The Sweeney uproar wasn’t a meaningful controversy, but it became a major media story because that’s how today’s information ecosystem functions," @passantino.bsky.social writes in his Saturday column for @status.news. www.status.news/p/sydney-swe...

On money for progressive influencers Welcome to Number Two Pencil

My latest: I started a Substack and wrote about Dems raising money to build up progressive influencers. If they attach too many strings to the money, they're doomed.

Please subscribe to Number Two Pencil! I'll be writing there for free once a week

numbertwopencil.substack.com/p/on-money-f...

Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics "They straight up tried to get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently"

“The reason they’re doing [this] is to try to create an environment of fear, to try to get people like myself... to shut the fuck up,” Piker said on a stream recounting the details of the incident.

www.usermag.co/p/hasan-pike...

YouTube video by Media Matters How billionaires created the DEI panic

Not to be dramatic but I spent months and months working on this video deep diving into the history of attacks on DEI.

It is my baby and I’d love for y’all to check it out! 🙏🏻
youtu.be/nD1nJ7g8j94?...

When we saw @mmfa.bsky.social & @ohhkaygo.bsky.social analysis of the political leanings of the top streams, podcasts, & other online shows, we wondered how many were sharing false info about climate change. Turns out it's most of them!

yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/04/eigh...

The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this conte...

Big thanks to @ohhkaygo.bsky.social for providing the data that informed this journey into the world of MAGA media www.mediamatters.org/google/right...

So glad my pop culture knowledge finally came in handy @onthemedia.bsky.social. Never guessed it would be in the context of a explaining a Candace Owens video.

Make sure to listen to last week's episode, it's a bit of a format-breaker and a weird time! www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

Study: Most Pro-Trump podcasters support Trump's tariffs but some fractures emerge In a new study of top pro-Trump online shows in the days after President Donald Trump launched his formal tariff plan, Media Matters has found some dissension as his economic policy disrupts the globa...

Even as President Trump’s destructive tariffs disrupted the global economy and tanked the stock market, we found that among right-leaning online shows that self-categorize as nonpolitical, a full quarter of discussions still embraced the president’s deeply unpopular economic policy.

Trump saying that he’s going to send US citizens to be imprisoned in another country, while the admin says that fed courts can’t mandate an “act of diplomacy or incursion upon” that country’s sovereignty after it illegally sent someone there seems like a 5 alarm fire everyone should pay attention to

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe."

But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment.

1/

I wrote a piece for MSNBC that underscores the extent to which the right is dominating the online media ecosystem — with right-wing narratives seeping into supposedly nonpolitical shows and right-wing media figures branching into pop culture.

It was great speaking with @andylevy.net about @mmfa.bsky.social's new study! Listen to hear about our findings on the state of the online media ecosystem

The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this conte...

NEW: As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, our analysis found that this expanding media ecosystem is overwhelmingly right-leaning.

The study also shows how right-wing content is seeping into comedy, sports, entertainment, and other supposedly nonpolitical shows. We found that 72% of the shows in our analysis that described themselves in these categories actually pushed right-wing content/guests.

Total following of top right-leaning and left-leaning online shows; shows are represented by circles with sizes proportional to total following across platforms. Circles of right-leaning shows are larger and more prevalent, with the largest circles for Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, etc.

As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows, this media ecosystem becomes more influential. A new Media Matters’ study shows how overwhelmingly right-leaning this ecosystem is -- with nearly five times the following of left-leaning online shows. www.mediamatters.org/google/right...

to put it simply: the right has an outrage machine. built over years and years, tinkered to perfection, running on all cylinders. the left has nothing comparable.

screenshot of transcript of a youtube interview with andrew tate: TATE: No, you can't. But this is actually interesting, so let's analyze this. Free speech. This is a interesting conversation because America believes it has free speech. It doesn't. But every single country in the world has things you cannot talk about. Every single country in the world has off topics -- off-limit topics. In Russia, it's Putin, in the Middle East, it's Islam, in Turkey, it's Erdogan. If you talk against them, you're going to get in a lot trouble. Do you know what the American one is? FORGEARD: What, speaking out against the Dems? TATE: Speaking out against the Jews. If you speak out — FORGEARD: Oh, the Jews.

the thing about the manosphere is that these people have no idea what they're dealing with www.mediamatters.org/manosphere/y...

Maybe the most illustrative sentence about what’s going on that I’ve read in weeks.

Fox News, which treated Joe Biden's son selling his paintings as a major White House ethics scandal, just put Donald Trump's daughter-in-law on the payroll.

Congrats. You played yourself.

Image of Cecile Richards speaking to a crowd. Text overlay reads: We are deeply saddened by Cecile Richards’ passing. Cecile was an extraordinary and indefatiguable leader whose efforts touched the lives of millions of Americans. Even with her illness, Cecile continued pouring herself into fights for justice, women’s rights and reproductive health. We were so privileged and grateful to have had her as a part of the Media Matters team these past few years. The world is losing a fighter at a time when we need them the most. We will strive to honor her work and memory.

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Cecile Richards.

Cecile Richards, former Planned Parenthood president and feminist activist, has died Richards died Monday of an aggressive brain cancer. She was 67.

1/ Sad news here.

Cecile Richards passed away this morning.

I’ve known Cecile for many years. So appreciative of all of her work and efforts.

I’m also grateful that she agreed to serve as a Media Matters board member these past few years.

19thnews.org/2025/01/ceci...

They are just topping each other with the suck uppery. Congress passed a law that was started with Donald Trump. Now he’s going to “save” it.

This is the GOP’s long con on full display.

Meta has reportedly been blocking LGBTQ content. Meanwhile, last summer we reported that we found at least 100 posts across Meta's platforms with an anti-trans slur

www.mediamatters.org/facebook/med...

Fox News continues to tie New Orleans attack to border security despite no apparent link After a truck-ramming attack killed at least 14 people at a New Year's celebration in New Orleans, Fox News misreported that the vehicle used came across the southern border two days earlier, implying...

Although the network has seemingly attempted to quietly walk back the false information, Fox personalities have continued to baselessly connect he New Orleans truck attack to the southern border www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox...

We’ve reached the Anderson giggling and Andy talking about the mayor parts of the night

those screenshots showing the huge bump in post-election google searches that are like “what is a tariff” is such a huge condemnation of what has happened to political media and there’s just no introspection or self reflection at all within the industry

Turns out all I needed to be interested in engaging on social media again was a little break from work