The Rise of Right-Wing Media in the Digital Age

Hello and welcome to a post-October Federal Holiday edition of Regulator.

Last week, I caught wind that House Speaker Mike Johnson, along with several top House Republican leaders, had held an exclusive press briefing about the government shutdown that was restricted to “new media.” The contents of the meeting were published as a “scoop” by the Washington Reporter — a Congress-focused publication founded by several GOP operatives that’d been established as a Punchbowl for conservatives — which described the call as “set[ting] the record straight” and “the latest way that House Republicans are taking their messaging directly to the American people.” Mainstream press did not appear to have been invited onto the call. (Speaker Johnson’s office did not return a request for comment.)

Perhaps a decade ago, “new media” would have been places like The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, even The Verge: media outlets that were publishing traditional news, but online. But these days among Republicans in power, “new media” is now a polite catch-all for “right-wing media.” That category is pretty broad, encompassing news outlets, creators, podcasters, streamers — even outlets broadcast over older mediums like television. But the best way I’d describe 2025 “new media” in Washington is that they’d have to be a MAGA-inclined reporter who’s willing to sign Pete Hegseth’s pledge to avoid reporting on the Pentagon.

Prior to the Capitol Hill incident, I’d only seen that term used within the Trump administration. From day one, the White House had designated a seat in the press briefing room for “new media,” accepting applications from tens of thousands of creators and conservative outlets for a chance to sit in on press briefings. In a Donald Trump-less vacuum, there would have been nothing too controversial about a White House doing something similar — in fact, it would have been a tacit acknowledgement of the digital era — but it was soon followed by Podcast Row, an opportunity for right-wing podcasters to have interviews and face time with Cabinet officials. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt deliberately framed it as a snub to the loathed MSM, saying in a video posted on X that the invited podcasters probably had “more views than CNN and legacy media.” I would bet that they’d never invite the Pod Save America boys to attend a future Podcast Row. (If there’s anyone from the White House reading this, though, I’m willing to be surprised.)

The concept popped up in other areas of the admin, too. During a visit to a Portland ICE facility, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem kept the press a block away from the building, but allowed MAGA streamer Benny Johnson to accompany her. (It may have backfired, however, after he claimed that she had faced down an “army of antifa” from the rooftop of the facility, but the video he posted showed perhaps a dozen protesters.) Hegseth began his tenure as Defense secretary by implementing a “rotation program” that uprooted defense reporters at legacy outlets from their dedicated workspaces at the Pentagon and replaced them with One America News, the New York Post, and Breitbart.

It soon led to restrictions on accredited journalists being able to walk through the Pentagon, and has now culminated in his demand that outlets at the Pentagon agree to a new set of rules that would prevent them from publishing information unauthorized by the Defense Department — or even asking about unauthorized material. So far, the vast majority of news outlets have protested this move, including major conservative outlets like Fox News, Hegseth’s former employer. But OAN has agreed to the rules, and there’s little doubt that it counts as “new media,” despite being a cable news channel. If the trend accelerates, we are very much looking at a future where the MAGA-preferred “new media” will have all the access in the world, and the legacy media (maybe even Fox News) will be perpetually iced out.

But we at The Verge have a tendency to think a few steps further into the future (it’s literally in our name) and can’t help but wonder: what happens when new media upstarts are actually in charge? Last week, Elizabeth Lopatto wrote a barn burner of a column about the latest “new media” media move — Bari Weiss, conservative darling and editor-in-chief of The Free Press, had sold her Substack-based publication to Paramount in exchange for $150 million and the position of running CBS News. I’ve read miles of columns about Bari Weiss, but I have never seen anyone make Liz’s point: Bari Weiss is just another female CEO on a glass cliff, steering the unprofitable CBS News into its inevitable death on behalf of her new corporate, Trump-loving overlords at Paramount. Except this time, there’s just a tiny bit of culture war window dressing involved.

I talk with her about her incredibly viral column below, but first:

• “Trump’s vague and confusing immigration policies are the point”, Felipe de la Hoz: The administration cited “anti-Americanism” as a way to deny visas. Legal experts are bewildered by what that means.
• “Brendan Carr wants to let internet providers charge hidden fees again”, Jess Weatherbed: Providers have argued that requirements to itemize every fee they charge are burdensome.
• “American politics has devolved into shitposting and aura farming”, Sarah Jeong: A theory of political speech under the second Trump presidency.
• “California enacts its own internet age-gating law”, Lauren Feiner and Dominic Preston: Gov.