If you consume news and information digitally — and 86% of voting-age Americans do — then you’re thinking about media bias completely, totally wrong.

Forget about the liberal gatekeepers and journalists. They used to matter, but so did Radio Shack.

Because, as late as 2005(ish), there really were layers of liberal gatekeepers. And if they said no, your mouth was muted. Which would’ve been fine if the media had lived up to their “all the news that’s fit to print” journalistic standard, but as we all know, their cup of bias runneth over.

Before the ubiquity of the internet, the mainstream media had a near-total monopoly on public discourse, and they used their monopoly to champion liberal causes. 

That’s just the reality of it.

On a personal level, it helped boost the income of PR pros and media experts (hi!), because you needed the right rolodex and a certain level of institutional knowledge to make sure your story — or your company’s story — landed in the lap of the right person. 

Most conservatives still think the mainstream media runs this way. But it doesn’t.

In traditional media, the journalist would write the story and an editor would write the headline, which was often limited by spacing and placement in the paper. (One of our sneaky PR tricks was to accompany a story pitch with a gorgeous photo, because stories with stunning images tended to be placed more prominently.) But the individual importance of each separate headline was minimal.

If the customer’s reading it, it means he already bought the whole paper! Nobody made any more money if he read it from cover to cover, halfway through, or if he used it to line his birdcage.

Other than the front covers in a handful of markets — New York City, I’m lookin’ at you — the purpose of headlines wasn’t to make money. They were just descriptive content.

And back then, the liberal bias was just liberal bias.

Something very different is going on today, because journalism is operating under a radically different profit model: Journalists (and media outlets) make money when people click on headlines.

Which makes the headline an advertisement for the content.

It’s all about views and impressions, baby. That’s what keeps the advertisers’ wallets open! Journalists who get clicks are gonna make more money than the ones who don’t.

Think about how you consume digital media: You probably scan through a half a dozen apps, websites, or platforms, and if something catches your interest, you click on it.

But for every headline you see, what percentage do you actually click?

It’s probably pretty low. And that’s EXACTLY why journalists are so desperate to catch your attention!

Clickbait titles (like this one—but hey, my motives are pure; I’m merely illustrating a point, for “educational purposes,” you see) are only half of it. Clickbait explains the “why,” but what’s far more important is the “how”:

Q: How do liberal journalists make money in 2025?

A: They make money by writing liberal articles that a liberal audience wants to read.

It’s exponentially more likely that a journalist will lean left than right. In 2002, 18% of journalists were Republican; by 2013, that number fell to 7.1%; today it’s just 3.4%. By some metrics, 96% of political donations from journalists go to Democrats.

Which is why today’s journalism is primarily liberal journalists writing liberal content for liberal people. 

They don’t understand conservatives well enough to write for us… and so, they don’t even bother. Instead, they’ve doubled down on writing for liberals, ramping up the hyperbole and Michael Bay-ing the heck out of everything.

Before, it was just media bias. Now, it’s media bias — plus clickbait, plus echo chamber, plus audience participation.

And that last component is the biggest, most important change that most conservatives have missed: Yesterday’s journalism was 90% about the journalist. Today’s journalism is 90% about the audience.

The heart wants what the heart wants; people are gonna click on what they wanna click on. Not unlike Gail Wynand in Ayn Rand’s eerily prescient 1943 novel The Fountainhead, the job of today’s media owners is to give their audience whatever they desire.

Because if you don’t, they’ll go somewhere else and find someone who will. With smartphones, they’re scrolling by the digital newsstand multiple times a day!

But weirdly enough, you can actually learn more about our country this way. After all, when people lie, they’re telling you the truth about what they wish was real.

If you want to know what liberals are thinking, just scan through the headlines. It’ll tell you exactly how they crave, fear, hate, and love.

You just gotta know what you’re looking for.

PRedictions: I’m writing this a few hours before Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. Already, nerves are frazzled, especially after an armed man was charged with posing as a law enforcement officer at the venue. And with the president, vice president, and the biggest names in the MAGA movement all in attendance, security better be 100% airtight.

If you’re a deranged leftist psycho who truly believes “democracy dies in darkness” and Donald Trump is “literally Hitler,” here’s your chance to excise this “national cancer” once and for all.

I’m gonna be an optimist and hope/pray that all goes well. I don’t have any inside knowledge; all I have is hope… and faith.

I also expect Erika Kirk to give the speech of her life, because it’ll come from her heart: It’ll be passionate, beautiful, brave, and spiritual.

Just like Charlie’s widow.

But it’ll also be a fierce, uncompromising call to arms.

With an abundance of male influencers like Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Matt Walsh, and others, a generation of young men voted Republican in record numbers. It was one of the 2024 trend lines that pushed Trump over the top.

Erika Kirk just might have a similar impact on young women in 2028. Don’t you dare bet against her.

PRojections: As a tie-in to our preamble on modern media bias, it’s worth exploring how the mainstream media outlets chose to advertise their stories about the armed man at the Charlie Kirk memorial. 

You can tell right away which outlets wanted you to click ASAP — and which one paid someone to write about it… and then tried to bury the story.

In the former category was most of ‘em — the 90% I was talking about:

NBC News: Armed man charged with posing as law enforcement after being detained at site

ABC News: Armed man arrested at stadium ahead of Charlie Kirk memorial in Arizona

CBS News: Armed man arrested outside site of Charlie Kirk memorial in Arizona

MSNBC: Armed man posing as law enforcement detained at Arizona stadium hosting Charlie Kirk memorial

Fox News: Man detained at Kirk memorial site was allegedly found with gun, knife and expired credential inside stadium

Washington Post: Armed Man detained at site of planned memorial service for Charlie Kirk

USA Today: Armed man detained at stadium where Charlie Kirk’s memorial service will be held

The Guardian: Man armed with gun and knife arrested at Charlie Kirk memorial service venue

Sky News: Armed man charged with impersonating police officer at Charlie Kirk memorial stadium

Newsweek: Armed Man Detained At Charlie Kirk Memorial Service Site

The Hill: Armed man claiming to be law enforcement detained outside Charlie Kirk Memorial site

And in the latter category, representing the stubborn, traditional, old school 10%, was the Old Gray Lady, a.k.a. the New York Times:

The New York Times: Arrest in Arizona Before Charlie Kirk Memorial Heightens Security Concerns

It’s the only one with no mention of an armed gunman in the headline. Guess that wasn’t “all the news that’s fit to print”… in a story about the memorial service for a man who was just shot to death!

PRaise: To conservative commentator Matt Walsh. At a time when certain voices in the conservative movement were trying to coopt Charlie Kirk’s voice to advance their own agenda — including issues and causes he directly opposed — Walsh was exactly right to call for unity:

During times of profound emotional upheaval, one of two things usually happens: Either it drives us apart, or it brings us closer together.

We all know which one Charlie would want. 

PRedators: Sadly, there’s not much conservatives can do to influence leftwing extremists. (We’re “Nazis,” after all.) Instead, it’s the responsibility of liberals to police their own.

Getting condemned by conservative influencers? Ha! Liberals would wear that as a badge of courage. 

If anything, it would further validate their hateful opinions.

But if liberal influencers loudly and forcefully condemned ‘em, the impact would be monumental. That’s who liberals care about, and I’m not just talking about political leaders like AOC — but cultural leaders as well.

Like Jimmy Kimmel.

Charlie Kirk was the most shocking U.S. political assassination of this generation. Jimmy Kimmel could’ve used his ABC/Disney platform to plead for peace, condemn violence, and urge the anti-MAGA voices to channel their frustrations somewhere appropriate.

But he didn’t. Instead, he used his platform to spread misinformation, blaming MAGA for Charlie’s death.

Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet posted the following:

By the way, if you’re feeling bad about Jimmy Kimmel being suspended from his platform, well, he sure didn’t seem too broken-hearted about conservatives being suspended from theirs:

But the good news is, FINALLY, Jimmy Fallon is #1!

(Well. Other than Greg Gutfeld, I mean.)