Jon Allsop
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Contributing writer @NewYorker. Formerly @CJR newsletter guy. Author: What is Journalism For? @ArgyleLife1886 for fun.
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Articles by Jon Allsop
Who Won the Redistricting War?
In the midterm elections of 1922, voters in Missouri were invited to weigh in directly on a wide range of issues. Mostly, they were in a rejectionist frame of mind. An amendment to hike politicians’ pay was defeated. (Plus ça change.) So, too, was a law that redrew the state’s congressional districts. Two years earlier, Republicans had swept the state, then passed a blatantly gerrymandered map.
Who Won the Redistricting War?
1 hour ago For 150 years, Virginia had been violating a federal law barring broad disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions, a federal judge ruled. Before the conviction, Son Huynh said he was never one to miss an election. Like most American children, Huynh, a California native, was taught about the …
Is Trump’s Latest Press Attack Just Another Distraction?
In November, 2018, the day after midterm elections that went badly for the Republican Party, Jim Acosta, then a White House correspondent at CNN, questioned President Donald Trump about his messaging on immigration. Things quickly got heated. “I think you should let me run the country—you run CNN,” Trump interjected. “If you did it well, your ratings would be much better.” Trump tried to move on, but Acosta wouldn’t yield, even as an aide walked over to take away the microphone.
Sean Duffy in the Real World
On Wednesday, “The Great American Road Trip” finally landed on YouTube, in six episodes of a half hour or so each. (Technically, it should have been called “The Great American Road Trips”; as officials were keen to point out, it was filmed in installments over a period of months.) At long last, it was time to tune out the naysayers and joy haters, and judge the show on the only terms that matter for a product of the Trump Administration: whether or not it’s good TV.
The Show That’s Charting a Post-Trump Future
Ten years ago, the New York Times launched a podcast that would cover the final stretch of the 2016 Presidential election. It was titled, appropriately, “The Run-Up.” These were the early days of a big bet on audio at the paper—an article introducing the show advised readers who “have never listened to a podcast before” to locate “a pre-loaded app called ‘Podcasts’ with a purple icon”—and the host was Michael Barbaro, of future “Daily” mega-fame.
Democratic Infighting Won’t Stop Here
Photograph by Sarah Rice / Bloomberg / Getty Earlier this week, I wrote that, in the eyes of many pundits, the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan had become “the Platonic ideal” of a clash between the Party’s establishment moderates, who were backing Haley Stevens, and its populist progressives, who were lining up behind Abdul El-Sayed.
Battle of the Dans
Dan Sullivan doesn’t want Dan Sullivan to be the senator for Alaska. Dan Sullivan is already the senator for Alaska and wants to keep it that way. He thinks that Dan Sullivan is trying to trick voters into thinking that he is Dan Sullivan, as part of a plot to oust Dan Sullivan. To add some helpful initials: in May, Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher in Petersburg, Alaska, filed to run as a Republican against Dan S.
What Does It Even Mean to Be a Moderate?
I’ve long protested against the scourge of imprecision in American political shorthand, including when it comes to delineating ideological gradations on the left.
England’s Dynamic, Divergent, Deadly Duo
In England, one of the great joys of the World Cup—right up there with filling in sticker books, reviving old pop songs, and watching Germany lose—is the tournament wall chart. After every game this summer, I’ve documented the victor’s progression through the competition—the results converging, from either side of the bracket, on the grand final in the middle of the page—using a thick black Sharpie.
Graham Platner’s Point of No Return
A little over a month ago, the Times published a bombshell story about Graham Platner, a military veteran and an oysterman who was the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine. The paper shared the accounts of three women who had dated Platner within the past fifteen years and had found his behavior unsettling.
England’s World Cup Team Tries Sticking to Sports
Except, sometimes, it was. The vibes of the 2018 semifinal campaign were joyous, but England didn’t always play well, and the team’s ultimate defeat, to a Croatia side it perhaps should have beaten, was born of excessive caution; much the same thing happened in the 2021 Euros final, when England scored early against Italy, then sat back, labored, and eventually lost on penalty kicks.
The Changing Face of “Authenticity” in Politics
In 1968, Janet Malcolm visited a new showroom for high-end furniture that was, she wrote, among “the most beautiful and interesting” in New York. The venue was designed by Warren Platner, an architect who himself designed furniture; Donald Trump would later acquire a set of his chairs, and sounded gratified when, during an interview in 2010, a reporter from the Times recognized them.
What Thomas Massie’s Race Says About Trump’s Influence
Trump also called for Massie to be kicked out of the Republican Party. That suggestion went nowhere, and during the Trump interregnum tensions seemed to thaw, despite Massie initially endorsing Ron DeSantis for President in 2024. When Massie’s wife died, Trump reportedly left him a kind voice mail. After Trump regained the Presidency, there was even some talk of Massie becoming Agriculture Secretary—cow money, on a much grander scale.
The Rise of the Epstein Democrat
In demanding the release of the Epstein files, the Party has embraced a radically new way of fighting Donald Trump. Is it a good idea? In February, 2019, the Democrat-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform organized a hearing with a star witness they thought would shine a light on the sprawling nexus of scandal engulfing Donald Trump’s first Administration.
The Rise of the Epstein Democrat
In February, 2019, the Democrat-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform organized a hearing with a star witness they thought would shine a light on the sprawling nexus of scandal engulfing Donald Trump’s first Administration.
Eric Swalwell and the Modern-Media Reckoning
Photograph by Annabelle Gordon / Reuters On Tuesday, Eric Swalwell, the California Democrat, officially resigned from the House of Representatives. His downfall was swift: just five days earlier, the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN reported on claims of sexual misconduct made against him by four women, one of whom accused him of rape.
What Brought Down Eric Swalwell
According to a detailed time line published by Politico, that story began when Arielle Fodor, an education content creator known as Mrs. Frazzled, posted positively about Swalwell’s nascent gubernatorial bid, only for several people to reach out, alleging, among other things, that he had slept with an intern. Fodor and another prominent online personality, Cheyenne Hunt, a former Democratic congressional candidate, took the lead in posting about the rumors that Swalwell eventually responded to.
The Strange (Partial) End to the (Partial) Government Shutdown
Republicans, thanks to their recent intercameral sniping, have already succeeded in making the slow dénouement of the D.H.S. shutdown squarely about them, at least in the élite media.
With a Warner Bros. Deal, the Ellison Media Empire Grows Again
Shortly before the Presidential election of 2016, the telecommunications behemoth A.T. & T. announced a deal to acquire Time Warner, a merger that would bring together the former's distribution network with the latter's vast library of film and TV properties. After Donald Trump won, the deal hit a snag: namely, CNN, which Time Warner owned and Trump hated.
The Media Merger You Should Actually Care About
During the first Trump Administration, Sinclair, a company that owns almost two hundred local TV stations across the United States, and is known for its conservative bent, instructed its news anchors to recite a near-identical script on air. "The sharing of bias and false news has become all too common on social media, and more alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories without checking facts first," the script went.
Dan Bongino's Podcast Homecoming
In January, 2025, , then a Secret Service agent turned serial congressional candidate turned right-wing podcaster, spoke on his show about "the biggest political scandal of our time." The F.B.I. had just released footage of a suspect in an unsolved case: a pair of pipe bombs had been left outside the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Democratic and the Republican National Committees on the eve of the insurrection at the Capitol, four years prior.
Are Democrats Right to Cut an Immigration Deal with Trump?
In October, Senate Democrats plunged the country into a shutdown. As I wrote at the time, the Party's leaders primarily needed their base to see them pushing back on Donald Trump's authoritarianism, especially after ducking out of a funding fight earlier in the year, though, in the end, they oriented their crusade around the extension of expiring health-care subsidies, a relatively conventional policy dispute.
Caught in the “Ceasefire” Original
More recently, the format has met something of a reappraisal. In 2015, Begala reflected that, with hindsight, America could have used more noisy dissent in the buildup to the war in Iraq.
Did Democrats Win the Shutdown After All?
The shutdown is not yet over: once the bill is through the Senate, it must pass the House—where Democratic leaders appear in no mood to compromise and the G.O.P. majority is slim—before Trump can sign off. But Senate Democrats’ resistance is over, and so this is an opportune moment to evaluate where the shutdown has left the Party.
California Strikes Back in the Redistricting War
As the midterms approach, Republicans are trying to gerrymander new seats, and Democrats are responding in kind. Can either side win? In July, as Republicans in Texas were pushing, at President Donald Trump’s behest, to change the state’s maps to net themselves as many as five more U.S. House seats in next year’s midterms, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, warned that his state might feel compelled to respond in kind. “This is not a bluff,” he said.
California Strikes Back in the Redistricting War
In July, as Republicans in Texas were pushing, at President Donald Trump’s behest, to change the state’s maps to net themselves as many as five more U.S. House seats in next year’s midterms, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, warned that his state might feel compelled to respond in kind. “This is not a bluff,” he said. In fact, it was—or, at least, it had been at first.
Does Trump’s Popularity Even Matter?
The indictment of Letitia James is the next step on Donald Trump’s revenge tour. But, first, his most controversial domestic policies, including military deployments to American cities, are unpopular with the public—as is the President himself. Does it matter? Plus: • Susan B. Glasser on the war games of the “President of Peace” • Zohran Mamdani prepares to take on Trump Yesterday, April M.
What Will Bari Weiss Do to CBS News?
In 2018, Bari Weiss, then an opinion columnist at the Times, wrote about the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, a loose “alliance of heretics” who were “making an end run around the mainstream conversation.” Adherents were photographed for the article in literally dark settings: glowering out from under an umbrella, perched amid mossy branches, standing half-obscured by bushes.
Why Democrats Shut Down the Government
A few weeks ago, Ezra Klein, the influential liberal columnist at the Times, effectively called on Democrats to shut down the government, in an op-ed headlined “Stop Acting Like This Is Normal.” He looked back to March, when Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, rallied enough votes to help keep the government open ahead of a previous funding deadline; the Democratic base howled with rage, but Schumer argued that a shutdown risked weakening checks on President Donald Trump and further...
Goodbye
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. I announced in yesterdayâs newsletter that todayâs edition will be my last, after nearly seven years at the helm. Iâve been at CJR even longerâI arrived as a(n extremely green) twenty-four-year-old Delacorte fellow in September 2017 (and took part in a CJR-led seminar at the Columbia Journalism School even prior to that), and never really left (bar a few months reporting from South Africa in the summer of 2018).
The Line - Columbia Journalism Review
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Where Should the Democrats Go from Here?
On Sunday, MAGA’s great and good travelled to Arizona to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who was assassinated this month. Much was remarkable about the event—the huge turnout, the alternating notes of forgiveness and retribution, the generally messianic atmosphere—but something that Pete Hegseth, the Fox host turned Pentagon chief, said onstage stood out to me. Hegseth recalled meeting Kirk more than a decade ago, when Kirk was building his youth movement, Turning Point USA.
The New Yorker Daily Newsletter
Back in January, during his Inaugural Address, Donald Trump declared that “after years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression,” he would issue an executive order “to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.” There was, as always, reason to be skeptical.
Double Vision: What dueling song contests in Europe and Russia have to say about public broadcasting and geopolitics.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. In 1956, the Eurovision Song Contestâa televised European, well, song contestâdebuted in Switzerland. The event grew out of a similar competition in Italy as well as an emerging unionâand content-sharing pushâamong Europeâs public service broadcasters as the continent healed following the ravages of the Second World War.
Freedom and/or speech.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. A few months ago, Ross Douthat, a columnist and podcaster at the New York Times, interviewed Tony Gilroy, the creator of Andor, the outstanding Disney+ series—set in the Star Wars universe and portraying, in tense, often granular detail, the tightening chokehold of the fascistic Galactic Empire and coalescence of the rebellion against it—that had just wrapped its second and final season.
The Illusion of Joe Manchin’s “Common Sense”
Joe Manchin is as plainspoken as the day is long. He is a serious guy who does not like to waste time playing games. He has spent his entire career in defense of common sense. We know this because Manchin tells us as much on the first page of “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense,” a new book that is part memoir, part manifesto (Manchinfesto?), part compendium of folksy and occasionally tautological aphorisms.
Discord in Nepal
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. Late last month, the government of Nepal issued an ultimatum to major foreign-owned social media platforms: comply with registration requirements in the country within a week, or wind up banned.
Alan Berg and Charlie Kirk: The long string of anti-media violence in America.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. In June 1984, Alan Berg, a talk radio host, was gunned down while getting out of his car outside the building where he lived in Denver. He was fifty.
The Intertwined Legacies of Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump
On Monday, the House Oversight Committee released a letter that depicted a line drawing of a naked woman, with what appeared to be Donald Trump’s signature in place of her pubic hair. The letter, which also included an imaginary dialogue between Trump and the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, had been included in a book compiled for Epstein’s fiftieth birthday, in 2003, and was handed over by Epstein’s estate following a congressional request.
War Games
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Last week, in international waters, the US military blew up a boat that officials alleged was a drug-running vessel from Venezuela, killing all eleven people on board.
Crisis Actors
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What “The Paper” Has to Say About Journalism
For this week’s Fault Lines column, Jon Allsop is filling in for Jay Caspian Kang. Early on in “The Paper,” a new Peacock mockumentary series that follows the staff of the Truth Teller, a fictional newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, viewers are shown a grainy flashback to the institution’s heyday, in 1971: the newsroom is bustling, and the publisher is boasting about its foreign bureaus and a recent story that got a third of the city council indicted on bribery charges.
What’s to be done about Israel’s killing of media workers—and other civilians—in Gaza?
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Trump’s anti-press tactics are bad enough in the US. Now Reform is importing them to the Midlands
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Trump’s anti-press tactics are bad enough in the US. Now Reform is importing them to the Midlands
The Nottingham Post Group offices. Photograph: Craig Yates/Alamy On the day that he returned to office in January, Donald Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”. A few days later, the Associated Press, a leading global news agency that is also a linguistic bible for newsrooms across the US, said that while it would acknowledge Trump’s order, it would mostly continue to use the original name.
The Long History of Life on Mars
For this week’s Fault Lines column, Jon Allsop is filling in for Jay Caspian Kang. In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer (and uncle of the fashion icon Elsa), started making a map of the surface of Mars, which was then at one of the closest points to Earth in its orbit.
La Mort en Direct
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Recently, Jean Pormanove, a Frenchman whose real name was Raphaël Graven, was streaming live on Kick, an Australian-based live video platform. There was nothing abnormal in this—Pormanove was a regular streamer—and sometimes, he would be shown doing normal things, like playing video games.
Katrina and the Press, Twenty Years On
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Twenty years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast and caused devastation in New Orleans and beyond. The rest, as they say, is history. Recently, an inevitable slew of anniversary coverage has mined it in all sorts of areas, from the impact of the storm on New Orleans schools to the role of restaurants in rebuilding life in the city.
Why Moomin Mania Is Finally Hitting the U.S.
For this week’s Fault Lines column, Jon Allsop is filling in for Jay Caspian Kang. If you were to drop by my apartment, you’d see a lot of Moomins.
Following the Threads
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