The Common Ills: How we fight -- or don't

Sunday, March 23, 2025

How we fight -- or don't

Let's start with this from MEDIA MATTERS, Kayla Gogarty discussing a new MM study about the online world.

From the March 18, 2025, edition of The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal

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From the March 18, 2025, edition of The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal

ANDY LEVY (HOST): The pods have not saved America. An interesting new study from Media Matters says that the world of online streaming and podcast is dominated by the right, and it's not even particularly close. Here to dive into the numbers is Media Matters research director Kayla Gogarty. Kayla, thanks so much for being here.

KAYLA GOGARTY (MEDIA MATTERS RESEARCH DIRECTOR): Thank you so much for having me.

LEVY: So, before we get into those results, tell us what you did here. How was this study conducted? What exactly did you do?

GOGARTY: So, as online shows have become popular and trusted news sources, their role in shaping the public discourse is pretty undeniable. And we know that people have been talking about podcasts, especially after the election, and talking about their role. So we really wanted to show people just how fragmented this landscape is and how much the right is dominating this landscape.

So we gathered a list of popular online shows and whittled it down to shows that are often political and have a clear left-leaning or right-leaning ideological bent. So we then assessed two major aspects. We compared how they self-described. So, did they describe as a comedy podcast or show? Did they describe as an entertainment show? Or is it that they said that they were focused on news and politics?

And we compared that to whether they actually discussed news and politics or not. And then we wanted to assess the audience size to really show the asymmetry in the right and the left landscape. So we gathered public data on the number of followers and subscribers of these shows across a variety of streaming platforms and social media platforms as well, because they often use social media like Facebook and Instagram and TikTok to clip or repost these shows on other platforms and to gain audience there. And then we also assessed YouTube and Rumble channel views as another way to assess audience size.

LEVY: OK, and to be clear, you didn't just look at explicitly political shows like The New Abnormal or Pod Save America. You looked at, for example, popular comedy podcasts that might have an ideological bent, sports streamers, video game streamers, etc. So things all across podcasts, YouTube, Twitch, etc.

GOGARTY: Yes, exactly. We wanted to see just how much shows are advertising as one thing, but actually getting into politics and maybe to unwitting audiences.

LEVY: OK, so let's dig into what you found, because you describe it as substantial asymmetry. So explain what that means.

GOGARTY: Yeah, so I'd say we have two major findings in this study. First is that asymmetry that you just mentioned. So we found that right-leaning online shows had nearly 5 times the total following on a variety of platforms compared to left-leaning online shows.

And then secondary, we found that shows self-categorize as comedy, entertainment, sports, and other supposedly nonpolitical categories, while actually discussing news and politics. And of that subset, nearly three-quarters are right-leaning.

LEVY: So there was a stat that was just astounding in the study. And you said that across streaming platforms, left-leaning online shows had roughly 60 million total followers and subscribers, and the right-leaning shows had around 255 million?

GOGARTY: Yeah. The number is pretty staggering.

If I did that right -- and I'm not sure I did -- you're able to stream the above. If so, that's by going through the page source and finding the HTML code and putting it on this page.

Which is way too much work.

MM has an important study but its meaningless if others can't share the discussion of it. Why even do a discussion if you can't put it up on YOUTUBE? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose and undermine the whole point of the study?

You can read the study here.

Can and should.

2026 mid-terms must see us (Democrats) grab one house of Congress at least. I want both. But we need at least one house of Congress.

That means we need to know what we're up against. MEDIA MATTERS' study goes to that. But, again, fail is the grade when you're not putting it up on YOUTUBE for people to hear. Not everyone's going to click on a link. Let me try one more attempt at embedding via HTML. Nope, that didn't work.

If you've got a message, great. But you have to get the message out.

Joe Rogan' nonsense can be streamed on AMAZON, SPOTIFY, APPLE and YOUTUBE.

Is there a reason MEDIA MATTERS can't even post to YOUTUBE?

You're whining. That's all it is. If you're not acting, you're just whining.

Oh, the online world is so unfair!!!! The fright wing is all over!!!

Well you're not doing much of anything with your study that you discuss on a platform that's not on YOUTUBE.

This is an important study. In a functioning online world for the left, the study would have been amplified by various outlets. That hasn't happened.

What are our useless YOUTUBERS doing instead? Oh, doing segments promoting Bill Maher's show. Hey, ethics aren't important, right?

Pretend you care about the Palestinians in Gaza in one broadcast and then, in another, go ahead and promote the anti-Muslim Bill Maher who has done nothing but attack Arabs for over 20 years now.

But, hey, a Bill Maher segment made you chuckle!!!!

The MM study talks about how the right is sneaking things in?

I get it, everyone's scared to call out the left -- they might be expelled from The Circle Jerk, after all.

This is nonsense.

MEDIA MATTERS did a great study and then they fail it by refusing to put in YOUTUBE -- which is the biggest platform and it's also a platform that people with hearing issues are comfortable using. (APPLE has a squeal for some listeners. Oh, I'm sorry, are we breaking news here by daring to stick with the majority -- a group that ignores those with challenges and disabilities?)

MEDIA MATTERS failed. (And it's been over four moths since they posted anything to YOUTUBE.)

But they're not the only ones failing.

If the fright-wing is intentionally letting right-wing talking points seep into their programs, the left isn't much better when they go around reposting clips from Bill Maher's Islama-phobic program. They're promoting the program.

I've called out Jane Fonda for that nonsense as well and I like Jane and she's been a friend for years. Oh, look, Jane told him off!

Did it change anything?

No. But it says it's good for leftist to go on that program and watch that program because, look, Jane went on.

We are the reason we suck. We need to be able to do some self-examination. And we need to stop being scared to criticize others on the left -- especially the ones who are harming us.

We should be working on promoting candidates and concepts, covering the news.

We shouldn't be whoring what ever is left of our reputations to promote Bill Maher.

A good speech was given by Democrat and US Senator Jon Ossoff today in Atlanta.

But?

Rebecca asked me about him last month. She thinks he makes important points and he's got donation commercial about re-election. She asked if she was counting it wrong because he's not up for election this year. No, he's not. But type his name into GOOGLE and you'll find that many people are confused by his commercials because you'll see suggestions of questions about is he running in 2025? Why are you doing campaign commercials in 2025 and leading people to believe that you're running for re-election this year?

Basic messaging seems to be escaping the party as a whole.

And the notion that Bernie did something great?

It wasn't great. It was a risk. His trying to walk out on the interview?

You know what we can talk about that tomorrow. I'm just not in the mood tonight. We'll do heavy lifting tomorrow including on deportations -- and how we're messing up on that topic. Bernie's actions pleased Bernie's base. That's all they did. And if we want to stop the deportations, we're going to need more than we-are-right about this or that political position.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Breaking News -- Who's Really Running HHS!" went up yesterday. The following sites updated: