Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton

“Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, American media was dominated by the Big Three television networks, and a few national magazines. ABC, NBC, and CBS are still with us. Most of the old national magazines are gone or bizarrely changed into odd parodies of their original incarnation …. All these magazines had a very profound impact on American culture, society, and politics in the quarter-century after World War Two. It is claimed that they influenced public opinion and policy, and that they ‘reflected the cultural and social changes’ of the era. The reality seems to be darker: yes, they influenced opinion and policy, but the publications actually created many (or most) of the changes in society and culture.” (008/06/25)

https://thepriceofliberty.org/2025/08/06/the-sickening-state-of-modern-media/

Source: Wired
by Jake Lahut

“Privately, some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies have come to a sobering conclusion. There’s simply nothing that can be done, they’ve come to believe, to salvage the ongoing catastrophe that is the MAGA base fraying over the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein. People aren’t jumping off the Trump train yet — at least not in significant numbers, though polling shows at least 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Epstein case in recent weeks — but the damage has been done with supporters. ‘Honestly, like, fuck Trump,’ a Trumpworld source who works in conservative media tells me. ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there’s obviously something nefarious that went on.’ … The Epstein story has been a viral content machine on the right for years, and it has too much momentum behind it to simply be shut down and stopped in its tracks.” (08/06/25)

https://archive.is/ECjse

Source: Law & Liberty
by James Andrews

“AI didn’t break higher ed. It revealed the cracks: falling standards, eroded norms, and a growing disconnect between degrees and the job market. These problems predate ChatGPT. Colleges had already begun relaxing expectations around attendance, participation, and performance, especially through online and hybrid formats designed for convenience, not rigor. But the shift wasn’t merely structural. In chasing enrollment and cutting instructional costs, many institutions de-emphasized disciplines with deep traditions of structure and rigor, expanding instead into programs that are easier to scale online — but often less grounded in formal methods or measurable outcomes. Online and hybrid courses haven’t just changed how students learn; they’ve reshaped what many now expect from faculty, coursework, and from college itself.” (08/06/25)

https://lawliberty.org/data-dishonesty-and-declining-rigor/