Make the news great again
I fear for the youth.
I’ve started implementing a process in my personal life that my therapist has coined “information filtering”.
I deleted TikTok back in November because it was contributing badly to my OCD and I felt like I was spending way too much time on it. I do believe it was integral to how great I feel now, nine months later, and I honestly do not care at all that I didn’t know that Alix Earle is throwing shade at Alex Cooper until like, four hours later, or that Hotel Lobby Candle was doing a brand trip in the Hamptons until after it was done. If you can believe it, I survived the incredibly unimaginable lack of knowledge to those two crucial things.
The 24-hour news cycle is something that everyone loves to talk about these days to the point of running the well dry tenfold. I do agree that it’s crazy we know everything as soon as it happens around the world, getting alerts about tsunamis in Russia as if they’re happening on Rockaway Beach, or finding out Dua Lipa got engaged faster than you found out your high school classmate did. I also think this topic is exhausted to the point where Gen-Z doesn’t want to hear about it anymore, which I think is a bad indication of generations to come.
Last Monday, the evening for those of us who live in New York City was spent following along the devastating active shooter situation in Midtown. I had friends of friends who had to shelter in place, the first text about it arriving to my phone at 6:33, earlier than the media is reporting the gunman even entered the building. I rushed to CNN, where I found Jake Tapper’s weekly program talking about the oldest woman in the world’s recent birthday. I stayed on the channel for ten more minutes, certain that it would cut away to the breaking news desk where coverage would commence, but it didn’t.
I went from channel to channel searching for national news outlets to tell me what was going on, but I couldn’t find anything. I was tracking on X, which was a terrible hotbed of misinformation to turn to, along with the live feed on the Citizen App, which was keeping up with the police scanner, making me even more terrified when they discussed the possibility of multiple perpetrators, not being able to neutralize the situation, or just covering all potential bases.
I don’t remember a time I was so recently afraid while living in New York City. Even from 60 blocks south I was scared for my friends, scared for the people who simply just went to work that day like I did. Finally, like a saving grace, Jonathan Dienst (shoutout to his daughter Nicole who is a dear friend of this letter) dominated the 7 o’clock cable news spot on Channel 4 and brought the city real-time updates in a professional, controlled manner that I was desperately searching for. He would not comment on speculation without sources, he reiterated information as the minutes passed, and he was the type of anchor that I was used to seeing growing up—someone in control.
At the risk of sounding like someone’s Conservative dad, I was really frustrated with people like Jake Tapper that night. I’m very happy for the woman whose triple-digit birthday we were celebrating on international news that night, but America’s biggest city was having their deadliest mass shooting in 25 years, just a few blocks east of the CNN offices, and it took them almost a half hour to get it going. I didn’t even receive an emergency alert. What if I worked nearby or was getting dinner in that neighborhood? My phone tells me every time it rains, why can’t it tell me that?
Turning to X was something I swiftly regretted. It turned into a hub of racist, antisemitic, xenophobic, [insert every other form of discrimination] fodder, spreading nothing but Fake News (shocker) and AI-generated articles that were proven to be false. I began feeling hopeless, these times we’re living in not only constantly emotionally draining me, but the fact that reliable information in one of the greatest cities in the world being hard to come by.
I watch Instagram Reels every morning while I get ready for work. Coincidentally on Tuesday, as I did my hair through some residual anxiety from a slightly sleepless night, I discovered the account klgh_nocontext. Kathie Lee and Hoda No Context.
I’m a huge fan of Hoda Kotb. I think she’s a joyous energy that will be thoroughly missed on the news. She’s a journalistic legend, and I love the life she’s built for herself with her adorable daughters and the surprisingly touching relationship with Jenna Bush Hager. I grew up watching her and Katie Lee, but they were on after I went to school, so I only caught glimpses. I knew they drank wine during the morning and interviewed celebrities, and that was enough for me to like them.
klgh_nocontext is one of the best Instagram accounts you could possibly follow. It brought me back to a time where the news was so fun. Those gals were truly goofy every morning, not caring about being seen as unserious or juvenile. They were class acts through and through, but brought some serious laughs and genuinely authentic takes to the table. I’m going to link some of my favorite posts below:
We need people like Kathie Lee and Hoda back on the air, but I don’t even know who that could possibly be. Does Jenna Bush Hager have any besties she could bring on? These celebrity guest host spots are not doing it for me. America needs consistency. It is unnatural to see Dwayne Wade interview the Property Brothers.
In the happier part of my week. I attended Emily Sundberg’s party with TBPN at the San Vicente Bungalows in the West Village. It was a great crowd, and I met some guys who worked at X. I asked them what they thought about working there today, especially since my experience on Monday. They were professional in their answers, understandably so since I’m sure the benefits are awesome and they’re getting paid like, 3x what I do, but they did concur when I expressed how disappointing it was. I had many mini hashbrowns topped with caviar and spicy margaritas, and clung to interns out of social anxiety like it was my job—in all, a fantastic evening. One of the parties of the summer, may I say. The drawing room of SVB feels like you’ve been teleported to an episode of Succession, and it definitely had influence on my behavior. I’ve been wanting one of these keychains for like, a year and a half.
Emily rose a very interesting point in Feed Me last week, discussing how the Alex Jones / Nick Fuentes debate got more views (500,000) in a single night than CNN had last month, which was then corrected by CNN, but the sentiment is not lost to me. So many people are turning to streaming, shows like TBPN, reading online, things like Feed Me or other Substack’s, getting their news from TikTok “political influencers”, it’s truly a different time and only further proves my point of the actual news losing credibility. An F-bomb-filled 3-hour long interview with Hunter Biden has been the most talked about interview for the last two weeks. The Nelk Boys, who got famous for crude pranks and throwing parties full of hot 18 year olds, interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu. Does this not make anyone else feel some type of way?
Suffering from TV fatigue and fatigue of the world in general, I’ve turned to YouTube like a 25-year-old Hinge guy would. A program I’ve been watching a lot recently is The Adam Friedland Show, something I didn’t anticipate loving but truly do. Because Adam’s show is satirical, I’m not sure I can categorize it under something that should be considered “news”, but when he has people like Chris Cuomo or Anthony Weiner on it, the lines blur. I love his intense approach and comedic combativeness, making Alpha-adjacent “political” figures like Cuomo and Weiner squirm in their seats, acting like they’re in on the joke or trying to get one step ahead of Friedland. People like Adam make me believe in the future of journalism when podcasts like Call Her Daddy exist, crushing my spirit with every new hot influencer gets their own show under that network for just—being rich?
I feel like I need to wrap this up before I get too offensive. I guess I just lost any chance of working for Unwell in the future, which again, I will survive. I worry about Gen Alpha and who will guide their generation in breaking news. Kaitlan Collins is someone who I hope sticks around for a while. Feed Me should be paid for by colleges to be offered as a resource to business students, or students who just need to know what’s happening in general. Which is all of them. Harvard, you could use a good move in times like these.
Next week this newsletter will be dedicated to the Gwyneth Paltrow biography. I have ten chapters left, and it’s beyond any expectation I had. Just incredible. Watch the local news this week.
And this is how I find out that Dua Lipa is engaged!
this is how *I* found out NYC had their deadliest mass shooting in 25 years last week, so thank you. I think?