Kevin Lerner

I guess we can finally write the last chapter of David Halberstam's great book 'The Powers that Be.'

Time Magazine
CBS News
The Washington Post
The LA Times

It's hard to imagine a bigger change in what those brands mean than what has happened to them between 1979 and 2026.

Amazon spent $75 million for MELANIA, a hagiomentary that will likely incur $60 million in losses even after a robust box office.

Jeff Bezos is willing to lose money on media, just a certain kind of media

Here's the tragedy: Timothy Crouse made exactly the same argument, for similar reasons, in 1972.

There are eight full-time faculty in my department. Four of us have birthdays within five days of each other.

Everyone who participates in public, civic conversation needs to learn to be a press critic at some level. It is a vital skill for media literacy—and Jay Rosen's summary of the distinctions he uses in his own criticism is a great place to start thinking about refining your own thinking.

Before Minneapolis, there was the Boston Massacre. My 1983 thesis on how the press covered it. All of a sudden, the Boston Massacre is in the news. Journalists and historians such as Josh Marshall, Radley Balko and Ted Widmer have all written essays in recent days arguing that the uprising a…

New at Media Nation. Before Minneapolis there was the Boston Massacre. In 1983, I wrote my master's thesis on how the press of Colonial Boston covered it. dankennedy.net/2026/02/02/b...

Registration for this year's Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference at Columbia University is open! Registration is free for all graduate students. The conference will be held March 27 from 9-5 a.m.

To sign up, visit ajha.wildapricot.org/event-6518450

Same as it ever was.

Disaggregation of news and the fall of communal mass media and the rise of algorithmic feeds—all makes that ambient awareness of news so much harder to achieve. Knowing what's going on, even if you didn't pay close attention.

I don't know what you're talking about! My students all think my Talking Heads references are on point!

I avoid politics in phone conversations with my dad, but at least in our last call, he complained that he didn't know who Bad Bunny was—not that Bad Bunny was too woke for the Super Bowl.

We're once again in a fragmented world where it's very hard to accidentally consume challenging journalism about important but boring or uncomfortable topics.

True— I don't think CBS is reeling in viewers. But I also worry about reams of infotainment that ignores the world, pretends everything is fine. From sports broadcasts to celeb chat shows to all of the other ways that people can avoid reality right now. It's just sad to see CBS news succumb to that.

It's easy to call out the Orwellian don't-believe-your-eyes propaganda, and we absolutely should. But the happy-talk, infantilizing, no-need-to-pay-attention-to-difficult-things propaganda of Huxley can be just as dangerous. #amusingourselvestodeath

We’re just not a free country.

Any American watching this play out between regime forces and journalists overseas would recognize it for what it is.

One of the old saws of journalism—intended to make reporters appropriately skeptical of their sources—is "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." I do hope Dokoupil follows through on that advice.

The Discovery That Changed How I Think About Local News How early library work and one archival spark shaped the Library Newsroom Project.

"It took me a few years, one pandemic and a library science degree to realize I didn’t need to rebuild trust in journalism. I just needed to move the newsroom to where that trust already lives: the public library."

Kudos to the NYT editor who took “Appears to” out of the lead headline (finally)

Journalists in Minneapolis are working nonstop to inform us about the horrific violence being inflicted in upon their city, their state and our country — all while living through it in their communities. @mprnews.org has been invaluable.

It’s a good day to support their work

support.mpr.org

A gallery of newspaper front pages from Jan. 12, 2026

TIL that the gallery of newspaper front pages that used to be a part of the Newseum website still exists, under the banner of FreedomForum.org. You can look at the front pages of nearly 500 newspapers from all over the U.S. every day.

frontpages.freedomforum.org/gallery

“CBS News. The place to see BS news.” — Nikki Glaser in her opening monologue at the Golden Globes airing on CBS.

If you're a film and media scholar, or work around the discipline, now is the time to research and write about "noncommercial" media industries and the role of media in democracy. It's not enough to merely describe successful business models anymore.

I curate the history series at public media's trade journal Current. We're looking for pieces on the history of NPR, PBS and its affiliates, with some space to imagine public media's future. We accept academic articles repurposed for wide readership. Plus, we pay. Please circulate!

When you Google "shame of Minneapolis" right now, Lincoln Steffens isn't what comes up first. But his reporting and writing hold up well, and the story is worth reading if you would prefer your Minneapolis govt corruption stories to be quaint, old-timey, and not gut-wrenchingly sad and scary.

How an influencer’s unverified report on Minnesota fraud sparked White House action Spurred by a citizen reporter’s video alleging fraud in Minnesota, the White House launched big federal penalties despite doubts about the report’s validity.

Patrik Jonsson at the @csmonitor.bsky.social also wrote a nice analysis of it—with some contributions from me and fellow scholar Seth Lewis. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics...

What a Viral YouTube Video Says About the Future of Journalism A streamer’s investigation of fraud in Minnesota garnered millions of views. His content was questionable, but his methods will likely inspire scores of imitators.

Jay Caspian Kang has a terrific analysis of the Shirley video and what it means for the future of news at @newyorker.com www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...

It's tempting to find parallels between Steffens and conservative influencer Nick Shirley, who went viral for his "investigation" of day cares run by Somali immigrants in Minneapolis. For one thing, Shirley didn't report much that was new, and he did reach a large audience. But they're not the same.

123 years ago this month, muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens reported on "The Shame of Minneapolis" for McClure's Magazine. The story wasn't new—but he did bring it to a new audience.

Here's a link to a pdf with a nice contextual intro: www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/assets/steff...

An Expert's Analysis of Tony Dokoupil's First Week Anchoring "CBS Evening News" It's the last nail in the coffin of CBS News as respected journalism.

.@katiecouric.bsky.social asked me to write about the state of CBS News after Weiss and Dokoupil. I'm honored she asked.
An Expert's Analysis of Tony Dokoupil's First Week Anchoring katiecouric.com/news/opinion...