Judd Legum | |
|---|---|
 Legum at South by Southwest 2018 | |
| Born | December 8, 1978 Annapolis, Maryland, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Pomona College (BA) Georgetown University (JD) |
| Political party | Democratic [1] |
Judd Legum (born December 8, 1978) is an American journalist, lawyer, and political staffer.
Judd Legum was born in Annapolis, Maryland. [2] [3] Legum earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy analysis from Pomona College and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 2003. [4] After graduating from law school, Legum became a member of the Maryland State Bar Association. [5]
Legum founded ThinkProgress in 2005, [6] running it for two years before leaving in 2007 to join Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign as research director. [7] Following the 2008 campaign, he practiced law in Maryland before returning to ThinkProgress in 2011, and became the site's editor-in-chief in May 2012. [8] Under his supervision, the site grew up to a 40-person newsroom that earned 10 million unique visitors a month. [9]
In 2010, Legum unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates. [10] [11]
Legum has drawn notice for reporting and commentary on a range of political topics, including the 2016 presidential campaign, [12] campaign finance, [13] the legacy of Martin Luther King in contemporary politics, [14] and the media's role in politics. [15]
In 2018, Legum announced he was leaving ThinkProgress to develop an independent newsletter, to be published through Substack. [9] Legum joined Matt Taibbi and Daniel Lavery as early participants in the company's publishing model. [9] Legum's newsletter, called "Popular Information", was Substack's first politically focused publication. It launched July 23, 2018. [9] [16]
| Type | Four times a week [17] |
|---|---|
| Format | Online |
| Owner(s) | Popular Information LLC |
| Founder(s) | Judd Legum |
| Launched | 2018 [18] |
| Political alignment | Progressive [19] |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
| Circulation | 138,000 subscribers (January 2021) [18] |
| Website | popular |
Popular Information is an American online newsletter launched in 2018 by Legum. As of January 2021 [update] it had 138,000 subscribers with around 5%–10% paid subscriptions. The name of the newsletter, "Popular Information", comes from a letter James Madison wrote in 1822. [17]
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." — James Madison, 1822 [20]
Legum authors the newsletter which is delivered through Substack, a company which provides services to support subscription newsletters. He says his newsletter is about politics and power, though he has covered many topics including corporate donations to politicians and Facebook's struggles with its advertising guidelines. He seeks out stories he thinks media outlets won't be covering and does a deep analysis, focusing on national issues. Legum's business model is to attract paying subscribers through delivering in-depth reporting while eschewing ad dollars, and the newsletter contains no advertising. In 2020, Popular Information was expanded by hiring a full-time research assistant. [18] [17]
In 2020 the Online News Association gave Popular Information an award for excellence in journalism, saying the newsletter had reported extensively on online misinformation, particularly focusing on Facebook, and that its reports on several nationwide companies created positive changes in working conditions for their employees. Its investigative reporting exposed a pro-Trump network of Facebook pages operating out of Ukraine, which were promptly shut down by Facebook, and the newsletter's reports have been cited in numerous national and local news outlets. According to Online News Association, "Popular Information demonstrates that newsletters can do far more than summarize the news. They can be a powerful vehicle to create change." [21]
Matthew Colin Taibbi is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, he is the author of several books, former co-host of the Useful Idiots podcast, and publisher of the Racket News on Substack.
The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television. The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.
Christopher Michael Cillizza is an American political commentator, who worked for the television news channel CNN from 2017 to 2022. Prior to joining CNN, he wrote for The Fix, the daily political blog of The Washington Post, and was a regular contributor to the Post on political issues, a frequent panelist on Meet the Press, and an MSNBC political analyst. Cillizza is also a co-host of The Tony Kornheiser Show sports podcast. In April 2017, Cillizza began working for CNN, including writing and onscreen appearances. He was terminated by CNN in December 2022. Currently, he maintains a political blog on Substack.
Alex Pareene is an American journalist, writer, and editor. He was the editor-in-chief of the online news magazine Gawker. Pareene later served as a senior editor at Deadspin and editor-in-chief of Splinter News, before becoming a staff writer at The New Republic. As of 2022, he published a newsletter on Substack called "The AP Newsletter".
ThinkProgress was an American progressive news website that was active from 2005 to 2019. It was a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Founded by Judd Legum in 2005, the site's reports were regularly discussed by mainstream news outlets and peer-reviewed academic journals. ThinkProgress also hosted a climate section called Climate Progress, which was founded by Joe Romm.
Seth Abramson is an American professor, attorney, author, political columnist, and poet. He is the editor of the Best American Experimental Writing series and wrote a bestselling trilogy of nonfiction works detailing the foreign policy agenda and political scandals of former president Donald Trump.
Lee Hu Fang is an American journalist. He was previously an investigative reporter at The Intercept, a contributing writer at The Nation, and a writer at progressive outlet the Republic Report. He began his career as an investigative blogger for ThinkProgress. Fang shared the 2018 Izzy Award of the Park Center for Independent Media with fellow Intercept reporter Sharon Lerner, investigative reporter Dahr Jamail, and author Todd Miller.
The Internet Research Agency, also known as Glavset, and known in Russian Internet slang as the Trolls from Olgino or Kremlinbots, was a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests. It was linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Russian oligarch who was leader of the Wagner Group, and based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Cambridge Analytica Ltd. (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelligence company and self-described "global election management agency" SCL Group by long-time SCL executives Nigel Oakes, Alexander Nix and Alexander Oakes, with Nix as CEO. The well-connected founders had contact with, among others, the British Conservative Party, royal family, and military. The firm maintained offices in London, New York City, and Washington, D.C. The company closed operations in 2018 in the course of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, although firms related to both Cambridge Analytica and its parent firm SCL still exist.
Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election. It facilitated greater voter interaction with the political climate; unlike traditional media, social media gave people the ability to create, comment on, and share content related to the election.
Heather Cox Richardson is an American academic historian, author, and educator. She is a professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Fake news websites are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news—hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news—often using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect. Unlike news satire, fake news websites deliberately seek to be perceived as legitimate and taken at face value, often for financial or political gain. Such sites have promoted political falsehoods in India, Germany, Indonesia and the Philippines, Sweden, Mexico, Myanmar, and the United States. Many sites originate in, or are promoted by, Russia, or North Macedonia among others. Some media analysts have seen them as a threat to democracy. In 2016, the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution warning that the Russian government was using "pseudo-news agencies" and Internet trolls as disinformation propaganda to weaken confidence in democratic values.
Axios is an American news website based in Arlington, Virginia. It was founded in 2016 and launched the following year by former Politico journalists Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz. The site's name is based on the Greek: ἄξιος, meaning "worthy".
Fake news websites target United States audiences by using disinformation to create or inflame controversial topics such as the 2016 election. Most fake news websites target readers by impersonating or pretending to be real news organizations, which can lead to legitimate news organizations further spreading their message. Most notable in the media are the many websites that made completely false claims about political candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, as part of a larger campaign to gain viewers and ad revenue or spread disinformation. Additionally, satire websites have received criticism for not properly notifying readers that they are publishing false or satirical content, since many readers have been duped by seemingly legitimate articles.
False information in the United States has been a subject of discussion and debate, especially since the increased reliance on the Internet and social media for information.
Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue. Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term fake news was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common. Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information presented as news. It has also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavorable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news includes satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text. Because of this diversity of types of false news, researchers are beginning to favour information disorder as a more neutral and informative term.
Ashley Feinberg is an American journalist, covering politics, media, and technology. She is known for her internet sleuthing, through which she has uncovered information about the online activity of public figures.
Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values. The media's primary duty is to present us with information and alert us when events occur. This information may affect what we think and the actions we take. The media can also place pressure on the government to act by signaling a need for intervention or showing that citizens want change
The Dispatch is an American conservative subscription-based and advertisement-free online magazine founded by Jonah Goldberg, Stephen F. Hayes, and Toby Stock. Several of The Dispatch's staff are alumni of The Weekly Standard, which is now defunct.
Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.
A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.