According to a recent article in The Washington Post [1], Fusion [2], Ozy.com [3], Mic [4], Vocativ [5] and Upworthy [6] are not your parents’ news sources. In other words, instead of pretending to be objective (like The Post sometimes does), they are blatantly biased and proud of it.
According to Mic’s editor in chief, young people “are hungry for a newer style of news,” seeing the world quite differently from older readers. So, in order to cater to the newsy needs of millennials, Mic and other rising digital media outlets focus on the environment, drugs, technology, romance and LGBT issues.
Fusion’s editor in chief, 33-year-old Alexis Madrigal, explained that “what ties our audience together … is an interest in equality, social justice and the idea of an America that isn’t dominated by old white me … Our audience doesn’t care if a bunch of old people want the world to go back to the 1950s. We’ll be happy living in a more free, more equal future.” So they’re vanity publications for young lefties.
The Post did not attempt to hide the left-leaning bias of these new sites, nor do the sites themselves. “While many stories are played in the just-the-facts style of conventional journalism, there’s plenty of slant, too,” read the article. “Marijuana legalization generally gets approving coverage [7], as do efforts to keep abortion legal and accessible [8]. Same with marriage equality and efforts to remove the Confederate flag.”
Mic talks presidential politics in the same biased light. Complimentary articles about the Democratic candidates [9] run routinely, while Republicans are predictably criticized [10]. In other words, no different from The Post.
Madrigal does not think Fusion’s subjectivity is problematic. His journalists, he said, “get to write and host with their own voices, bringing their own experiences and ideas and opinions to bear on the stories that they are covering. For us, transparency and authenticity are king.”
Apparently, “transparency and authenticity” mean more of the old liberal echo chamber. That’s some “newer style of news.”