jonathan friedman
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jonathanfriedman.com
jonathan friedman
@jonathanfriedman.com
1.6K followers 1.2K following 2.2K posts
Media, culture, and news strategist and nerd. Occasional producer. USC Marshall, Semafor, Bad Robot, CAA, Obama White House, The Verge, NYU Gallatin alum. Recovering tweeter @jonfriedman
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jonathanfriedman.com
The accuracy
January 8, 2026 at 6:43 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:57 PM
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Right-wing rage-bait “news coverage” account that is “powered by Polymarket” // Kalshi account itself doubles as a right-wing troll

🧐
January 5, 2026 at 9:32 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Political reporting is quite something (broken)

Really interesting what comments are kosher w/r/t remaining neutral/“objective”/unbiased and what aren’t
January 5, 2026 at 8:13 AM
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“…mobile shutdowns have been introduced across Russia… Authorities completely turn off mobile internet access. Only websites on 'whitelists' remain available…

Russia is being cut off from the world according to the Iranian model.“

via @meduza.io EIC to @semafor.com www.semafor.com/article/12/2...
Ivan Kolpakov "Russia has been building a sovereign internet for years; this has long been obvious. Meduza's entire strategy since its founding in 2014 was based on this assumption, which is why we have not yet been completely blocked. Meduza has a mobile app capable of bypassing restrictions by switching between several different technologies, and it still - so far - works in Russia. At the beginning of this year, we believed that a sovereign internet was still some way off, and that we had at least two more years. That assumption proved wrong. In 2025, we crossed the point of no return. Beginning in the spring, under the pretext of protection against Ukrainian drones, mobile shutdowns have been introduced across Russia at the level of individual cities and entire regions: Authorities completely turn off mobile internet access. Only websites on 'whitelists' remain available — propaganda outlets, government services, delivery platforms. At the same time, people are being pushed into the "national messenger" MAX: Telegram calls are blocked; WhatsApp, FaceTime, and virtually all services that enable international calls are banned; parliament is passing laws requiring apartment-building chat groups to exist only on MAX; and so on. Russia has also taken its first steps toward the criminalization of content, in which people are punished simply for reading independent sources. Initially, fines were introduced for searching for "extremist content" online. News of this alone triggered a panic-driven exodus from our Telegram channel; in a single day, we lost 20,000 subscribers. In other words, they are very effectively intimidating our readers, and once again, we didn't assume that level of fear (versus the demand on independent information in the war times). Russia is being cut off from the world according to the Iranian model. This is already happening before our eyes. For Meduza and other Russian-language independent media, this means slowly but inevitably losing our audience inside the country. The hardest thing to admit is that we can no longer stop it." — Ivan Kolpakov, editor-in-chief, Meduza
December 31, 2025 at 7:53 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
Don’t forget how they’re calling her one of the top 10 antisemites of the year
msrachelforlittles 1h One thing I'm going to ask Zohran about is if I can donate a book to every baby born in NYC when he does the baby boxes. I want to do nice things like give away books like the amazing @dollyparton I love my city, I love every neighbor!
December 27, 2025 at 8:34 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
what @davidehrlich.bsky.social said
the idea that movie theaters across the united states of america are PACKED on christmas night because people can't wait to see a josh safdie film about a twerpy jewish kid trying to ping-pong his way out of the lower east side tenements in 1952... the movies are so romantic to me
December 26, 2025 at 11:40 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Dream big, see Marty Supreme this weekend
Screenshot of Letterboxd review of Marty Supreme Uncut Gems if it was the 50s and more Jew-y and ping pong. Doesn't relent. Casting perfect. Looooooong. Stressful. Fun. Watched Oct 8, 2025
December 26, 2025 at 8:20 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
And more in the also unranked worth mentioning too section #goodtv…

*THE FOUR SEASONS (Netflix)
ETOILE (Amazon) … RIP
THE PAPER (Peacock)
*THE DIPLOMAT (Netflix)
PARADISE (Hulu)
RUNNING POINT (Netflix)
HACKS (Max)
THE STUDIO (Apple)
APPLE CIDER VINEGAR (Netflix)

*god bless Tina Fey & Keri Russell
Coleman Domingo, Tina Fey (The Four Seasons, Netflix) Etoile (Amazon) James Marsden, Sterling K Brown (Paradise, Hulu) Sabrina Impacciatore as Esmeralda, Ramona Young as Nicole (The Paper, Peacock)
December 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Plenty more in the unranked section #goodtv…

FOREVER (Netflix)
ADOLESCENCE (Netflix)
THE GILDED AGE (HBO)
SLOW HORSES (Apple)
DOWN CEMETERY ROAD (Apple)
COMMON SIDE EFFECTS (Adult Swim)
THE LOWDOWN (FX)
TASK (HBO)
SEVERANCE (Apple)
DEPT Q (Netflix)
Lovie Simone as Keisha Clark (Forever, Netflix) Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller (Adolescence, Netflix) Common Side Effects (Adult Swim) Louisa Jacobson, Morgan Spector, Taissa Farmiga (The Gilded Age, HBO)
December 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
6, REAL HOUSEWIVES OF SALT LAKE CITY (Bravo, Peacock)

God bless these women. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: put it in the time capsule of our time, put it in the Library of Congress. Strong case to be made it should be #1.
Lisa Barlow, Meredith Marks, Mary Cosby, Bronwyn Newport Whitney Rose, Meredith Marks, Heather Gay, and friend of the show, Britani Bateman
December 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
4, THE REHEARSAL (s2, HBO) - Aviation safety advocacy / therapy turned into high art only Nathan Fielder (mad man) could make

5, LONG STORY SHORT (Netflix) - Jewish family absurdity, examined across generations/time. Beautiful, emotional, funny. Thank you, Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Nathan Fielder… in costume as Captain Sully Still from Long Story Short, with Abbi Jacobson, Lisa Edelstein. Paul Reiser, Max Greenfield’s characters on screen
December 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
2, PLURIBUS (Apple) - Vince Gilligan is playing with TV in the best way. A strange, slow, intricate mystery, compelling from get-go. Shouldn’t work, but does

3, THE PITT (Max) - Well-executed medical dramas are broadcast TV at their best, could watch this forever (s/o Noah Wyle, GOATed TV doctor)
Rhea Seehorn as Carol Sturka Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby; Katherine LaNasa as Nurse Dana
December 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
2025 #GOODTV RANKINGS

1, ANDOR (s2, Disney)

Seemingly impossible feat to turn decades-old action-adventure sci-fi IP into a rich text of protest art, a spy/resistance thriller. But Tony Gilroy and co did it. All hail 🏆
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor Stellar Skarsgård as Luthen Rael Kyle Soller as Syril Karn; Denise Gough as Dedra Meero Genevieve O’Reilly as Senator Mon Mothma
December 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
News Team, Thank you for the notes and texts.! apologize for not reaching out earlier. I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity. Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones. We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight. Sharyn
December 22, 2025 at 3:48 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
Also good: @mattbelloni.bsky.social highlighting the wild amount of $ these WBD execs stand to make from a sale
The funniest Warner Discovery grift: I know, we all love to read about how much richer David Zaslav will get from the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery, a company from which he aggressively drained value during his three years as C.E.O. (and which he should never have created in the first place). But let's at least acknowledge his other C-suite collaborators, who aren't far behind in the outrageous golden parachute pecking order. Thanks to Paramount's S.E.C. filing this week, we can now see the total payouts in cash, equity, and benefits if the company were to sell: David Zaslav, C.E.O.: $567.7 million Gunnar Wiedenfels, C.F.O.: $144.9 million Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, $138.5 million JB Perrette, C.E.O. and president, global streaming and games: $167.4 million Gerhard Zeiler, president, international: $95.2 million That's more than a billion bucks to five executives, ghoulish money for all of them. But the funniest grifter of all might be Amy Girdwood, the chief people and culture officer, who stands to make $28.9 million in vested stock awards. A pittance compared to the others, but that's nearly $30 million to the H.R. person! Who has no involvement in the strategy and direction of the company! And that's before any further bidding!
December 19, 2025 at 8:25 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Joe Rogan pushing anti-vax insanity… “almost everyone that l've ever talked to claims they know someone who was irrevocably harmed by the vaccine."

What is this nonsense?
Joe Rogan: "I think everyone knows anecdotally somebody who was injured by the vaccine. Almost everyone that l've ever talked to claims they know someone who was irrevocably harmed by the vaccine."
December 19, 2025 at 1:57 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
“[CBS News] didn’t exist before Bari. Now it exists.”

These guys are good at what they do — but this, after the weird blunder of their very bad media landscape map, highlights 1) they don’t have a good understanding of the media biz and 2) the tech/VC/X echo chamber really distorts reality
"The reason you'd say Bari is doing an effective job managing CBS is because people are talking about CBS content in a way that I've never seen." "No shade to the people running it before, but - what content was on that network?" "It didn't exist before Bari. Now it exists."
December 18, 2025 at 6:19 PM
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AI fake stuff like this shouldn’t be allowed in general, but definitely shouldn’t be legal in political ads

via @semafor.com Americana www.semafor.com/newsletter/1...
Senate Republican campaign arm runs latest AI-driven ad against Mills Screenshot/NRSC /YouTube The National Republican Senatorial Committee continues to experiment with an occasionally odd Al-driven ad strategy this cycle, this time in Maine.
December 18, 2025 at 7:39 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
The FT explainer on the WBD process is very good, and includes a nice reminder that bankers are always the quiet winners www.ft.com/content/aa52...
WBD bankers to make $225mn in fees Media-specialised investment boutique Allen & Co, bulge bracket JPMorgan and independent adviser Evercore are going to make $225mn in fees for their work for WBD on its sale. Allen & Co and JPMorgan will make $85mn each, with the majority being paid upon the closure of the deal, while Evercore will make $55mn. The fees for Allen & Co and JPMorgan would rank among the biggest investment banking fees of the year. The biggest so far is the $130mn fee due to Bank of America for its work on the tie-up of railroad companies Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.
December 17, 2025 at 8:38 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Sorry but SF tech culture is very busted
OpenAI X post An image of Sam Altman in multiple collared short sleeve shirts, styled like a yearbook superlative “most likely to launch a new image model”
December 17, 2025 at 12:40 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
“Dis/OpenAl is not a ‘future of content’ play… like all other media publishers, this is a long play to make Google pay.”

@loudmouthjulia.bsky.social on Google / Disney / OpenAI

(yes it is frustrating that smart ppl are still adding value to Elon’s toxic hell)
Disney accuses YouTube of using Al to infringe on copyright, EU accuses Google of using content from publishers and creators to train its models in an anticompetitive way, Netflix argues it needs to spend $83B to compete against YouTube. Sure feels like the clouds are blackening The thing I've heard from every publisher in the digital media world re: deals with OpenAl was always a long play to force Google to then also pay. I am no legal expert (unfortunately), so I don't know the ins and outs of how arguments would go, but...IDK, I see some similarities Dis/OpenAl is not a "future of content" play. At best it's like AOL taking a 3% share in Google as schmuck insurance (and then sold, like actual schmucks). "Maybe this house of cards doesn't collapse." But, like all other media publishers, this is a long play to make Google pay. If Disney, like smaller publishers, can prove the value of their content as seen through payments via licensing deals + impact on that product's growth, then Google has to match in some official capacity. There's a big moment coming for Google and YouTube.
December 12, 2025 at 6:24 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
The campaign fundraising text system needs to change

Enough is enough

What feels like 100s of campaign texts every week, almost all from candidates/orgs I’ve never given my # to

The sale of emails and phone numbers is just garbage practice
Full page of unknown sender political texts
December 12, 2025 at 6:17 AM
jonathanfriedman.com
Cool anecdote on multi-pronged marketing…
We used to call this transmedia planning (shout out to Henry Jenkins and MIT Media Lab). When I worked on HBO we'd activate more than a dozen supplemental niche touch points for some campaigns to supplement the main media buy and PR push. Didn't matter if these elements didn't scale. It was all in service of the narrative promoting the premiere. Gave super fans a treasure hunt spread across the entire internet. We had a True Blood audio upload on a random platform that got ~1000 unique streamers (same day we did a $200K IGN roadblock). Those 1000 true fans mattered just as much as the 1M impressions we got on the HPTO. This was before everyone got obsessed with performance metrics. Before algorithmic feeds. Media planning was storytelling and craft. The most special fan service things didn't scale bc that wasn't the point. Ara @lefilmara • 1d Did A24 actually placed an engagement announcement in The Boston Globe as part of the film's marketing? [image of Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as couple, engaged, in the Boston Globe engagement section]
December 10, 2025 at 9:03 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States:
Can you imagine??? The Democrats, under the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, who always use extreme force and jail-time to destroy their political opponent, wanted to put Congressman Henry Cuellar, and his wife, Imelda, in PRISON, for 15 years, which I predicted these Radical Left Lunatics would do - And they never stopped wanting to fulfill this evil quest! The Dems mercilessly went after Henry with everything they had! They were looking to destroy him, his lovely wife, his two young daughters, and anyone close to them. When the Democrats overwhelmingly lost the 2024 Presidential Election, and power with it, they, regardless, did everything they could to keep going after the Cellar family. The Dems were vicious, and all because Henry strongly wanted, correctly, BORDER SECURITY! He was against illegals pouring into our Country, totally unchecked and unvetted. The Congressman didn't want gang members, drug dealers, violent prisoners, people from mental institutions and yes, even murderers, in the good of USA. It was all very unfair what they were doing to him and his family, so much so that his daughters wrote me a beautiful letter about their parents (Just posted on TRUTH!). After reading it I decided, in the interest of justice, and based on the daughter's loving request, that I would give Henry and Imelda a Full and Complete Pardon. I never spoke to the Congressman, his wife, or his daughters, but felt very good about fighting for a family that was tormented by very sick and deranged people - They were treated SoOBADLY! I signed the papers, and said to people in the Oval Office that just did a very good, perhaps life saving, thing. God was very happy with me that day! THEN IT HAPPENED!!! Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cellar announced that he will be "running" for Congress again, in the Great State of Texas (a State where I received the highest number of votes ever recorded!), as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same Radical …
December 8, 2025 at 10:04 PM