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Video: News media and the politics of truth

News Media and the Politics of Truth with Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman speaks to the role of media with an increasing campaign of misinformation.

Eric Alterman is Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. From 1995 to 2020, he was The Nation’s “Liberal Media” columnist and is now a contributing writer to the magazine and also to The American Prospect, where he writes the weekly “Altercation” newsletter. In the past, he has been a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress, the World Policy Institute and The Nation Institute, a columnist for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Forward, Moment, and the Sunday Express (London) and a contributed to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Le Monde Diplomatique, among other publications.


He has also been named a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a Schusterman Foundation Fellow at Brandeis University, a Fellow of the Society of American Historians, and a member of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

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The Voting Rights Act Turns 60 — but Its Promise Is Still Under Threat

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6 of that year, effectively prohibited racial discrimination in voting and required federal oversight to ensure its implementation. But the promise of the now seminal Voting Rights Act is at risk as Americans mark this milestone anniversary.

LOC; The 19th

The Voting Rights Act Turns 60 — but Its Promise Is Still Under Threat

Sixty years ago, a landmark piece of voting rights legislation was signed into law — a policy that has aimed to course-correct America’s wobbled experiment of representative democracy.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6 of that year, effectively prohibited racial discrimination in voting and required federal oversight to ensure its implementation.

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Time to Toughen Up: Democrats Face a Crossroads

Democrats Donkey lifts weights

Time to Toughen Up: Democrats Face a Crossroads

As the 2026 midterms loom, a simmering debate within Democratic circles has reached a boiling point: Should the party abandon the moral high ground and play political hardball?

In recent years, Democrats have leaned heavily on the ethos of civility and hope—famously embodied by Michelle Obama’s 2016 rallying cry, “When they go low, we go high.” But with the GOP embracing increasingly combative rhetoric and tactics, some strategists argue it’s time for Democrats to recalibrate their messaging—and their muscle.

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Trump’s Drug Price Ultimatum and the Rise of Enemy Politics
shallow focus photography of prescription bottle with capsules

Trump’s Drug Price Ultimatum and the Rise of Enemy Politics

In an era increasingly defined by transactional politics, the rhetoric of ultimatum has become one of President Donald Trump's favorite tools. When he declared to pharmaceutical giants on August 1st, "We will deploy every tool in our arsenal" should they fail to lower drug prices, it echoed a familiar pattern of the use of "demand" to shift from negotiation to confrontation. Trump's all-too-familiar pattern of prescribing with deadlines, threats of tariffs or sanctions, and appeals to fairness or national pride.

In his letter to 17 major drug manufacturers, Trump demanded that drug manufacturers slash prices to match "most favored nation" levels—the lowest rates offered in other developed countries. He emphasized that Americans are "demanding lower drug prices and they need them today." His language, though cloaked in populist concern, carried a veiled threat:

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