EP20: Opinions Go Viral (w/ Joshua Darr)

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Greetings from the Media Jungle! This week we have:

• Joshua Darr (@joshuadarr), an Assistant Dean for Political Communications at Louisiana State University and author of Home Style Opinion: How Local News Can Slow Polarization. Joshua is also a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

On today’s episode, we cover:

• The virality of opinionated journalism

• The New York Times doubling their opinion staff, and Gannett scaling back on national columnists

• His research on how decline in local news creates political polarization

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Watch the full episode on our Youtube channel here:

Here’s some links to some of the articles cited in the latest episode:

1. “The Media Bubble is Real: Study Shows Massive Disconnect Between Journalists, Public" (The Hill)

2. “Gannett is Scuttling Daily Editorial Pages at its Regional Papers" (Poynter)

3. “NYT Opinion Section Doubles in Size" (Axios)

4. “Fox News Tops May Cable News Ratings As ‘The Five’ Ranks No. 1 In Total Viewers" (Deadline)

Here’s what happening in the news this week:

• “Elon Musk Sued by Twitter After Terminating Acquisition” (WaPo)

• “WWE’s Vince McMahon Agreed to Pay $12 Million in Hush Money to Four Women” (Wall Street Journal)

• “SAG-AFTRA Members Ratify New Non-Primetime Network Television Code Overwhelmingly" (The Wrap)

• “Prince Harry wins legal battle against British newspaper with court ruling article was defamatory" (NBC News)

• “Russia Blocks German Newspaper Die Welt Website” (Barrons)

Missed last week’s show? Here are some clips from my chat with Sarabeth Berman: