All News Outlets Are Political Echo Chambers

They Are That Way By Choice. They Can Do Better. You Deserve Better.

Fox News alum and now independent commentator Bill O’Reilly has a fresh lament on the terminal decline of corporate media.

My young adult children never watch network news. Not in the evening, not in the morning. In addition, they don’t watch cable news even if I’m on. It’s boring to them. They can thumb through information on the internet anytime they want. Television news is not even considered a “thing” anymore.

That’s happening all over the country as the lava flow heading towards electronic news and newspapers has almost arrived.

Traditional journalism is NOT gathering the attention of younger Americans mainly because it is not practiced very much.

As he makes clear with examples of declining viewership even on Fox News, corporate media is in a downward death spiral towards extinction.

Ironically, O’Reilly glosses over an equally grim reality: the alternative and “independent” media outlets and resources are hardly in a much stronger position. Conservative and pro-Trump news outlet Breitbart gets only a sliver of the Internet traffic of the New York Times, CNN, or Fox News. ZeroHedge and The Epoch Times similarly languish in a sea of competing alternative news outlets.

O’Reilly also hits on a major reason, if not the primary reason, all media outlets are far from thriving: Virtually all of them function as little more than echo chambers for a particular audience demographic.

Apparently, the people at USC live in a dense bubble. And that is exactly why younger Americans, as well as the mass audience, have left the TV news building. Folks know the fix is in. It’s all about ideology now. The objective news coverage ruse has evaporated.

While Bill O’Reilly is focused on TV news, that virtually all media outlets are almost entirely isolated silos feeding people a predetermined narrative is depressingly obvious.

Nor is this merely an opinion. If we look at how various media outlets frame the same event, we immediately see that they are tilting even their notionally “objective” coverage towards the political ideologies of their favored audience.

Case in point: President Trump’s prime-time address from the White House the week before Christmas.

Gateway Pundit focused on summarizing President Trump’s talking points, accentuating the positive even in the headline.

Meanwhile, the staff at progressive mainstay The Atlantic did a panel post-mortem on the speech, generally looking down their collective nose.

In particular, they panned Trump’s assessment of the US economy.

Although “Donald Trump is actually great at willing his own reality,” Atlantic staff writer Ashley Parker argued last night, the president is realizing “that you cannot will an economic reality into existence.”

Across the pond, the United Kingdom’s Independent portrayed Donald Trump’s speech as “angry”.

The internet has reacted to President Donald Trump’s frustrated national address — which came off more like a campaign rally speech — with many expressing concern over his sanity.

ZeroHedge piggy-backed on Just The News’ coverage of the speech to highlight President Trump’s talking points of economic rejuvenation, border security, immigration enforcement, and the “warrior dividend” he promised to America’s military men and women.

For my part, my assessment of Trump’s speech was short and simple: President Trump effectively announced the start of the 2026 mid-term election campaign.

Trump Gave A Speech To Start The Mid-Term Elections

Aside from that singular observation, I had very little to say about the speech. Rather, I opted to include a transcription of the speech (courtesy of Substack’s video transcription tools) and encouraged people to read and watch for themselves.

I encourage everyone to read Trump’s words for themselves. Listen to what he had to say. Gauge whether he spoke fairly or no, whether he was honest or duplicitous.

Mark what he said. President Trump laid down several markers about what will come next in his Administration. I for one shall be very interested to see how many he is able to deliver.

Do any of these various headlines and article quotes sound as if they are describing the same speech? Not really.

For those who watched Trump’s address, did he come across as “frustrated” or “angry”?

Was he trying mightily to “will” a particular economic reality into being?

Was he right to claim dramatic improvement in the economy?

Was he simply telegraphing his intent to be the major campaign issue of the 2026 mid-term elections, as I surmised?

Those who watched Trump’s address, and those who read the transcript (either here or elsewhere), will of course have their own answers to these questions. That is as it should be. There are no monolithic “right” answers regarding how one reacts to a political address.

Yet there is an additional question which must be asked here: how many people who read the Independent’s “angry” assessment also read the Gateway Pundit’s positive recitation of Trump Administration accomplishments? How many who read the Atlantic’s arrogant and effete dismissal of Trump’s speech also read my conclusion that Trump used the address to kick-start the mid-term election cycle?

My guess is that the answer lies somewhere between “none” and “damn few”.

I will go even further and speculate that most who read the Gateway Pundit’s reporting on the speech did not read either Just The News or ZeroHedge’s coverage of that same speech.

Bill O’Reilly is right to call out corporate media as being in a bubble where political ideology reigns supreme. That is exactly what it is.

However, the same thing can be said of ZeroHedge, the Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, and most every other news media source out there. Each of these news sources reports from a particular—and fairly blatant—political bias. Each of these news sources exists in its own particular bubble.

Even All Facts Matter proceeds from a certain bias. I rarely refer to corporate media in kind terms. While I would not count myself as part of the MAGA coalition, I make no secret that I voted for Donald Trump and that I support his Presidency. I do not disguise my disapproval of his predecessor Joe Biden, generally referring to his period in the Oval Office as some variation on “the Biden Reign of Error.”

However, with All Facts Matter, I strive to stay out of the bubble.

Where I strive to be different is that, while I disapprove of corporate media, I make a point to quote them completely and honestly when I reference their reporting. Whether I agree with what they say or not, if their reporting is relevant to one of my articles, I want my readers to see exactly what they had to say.

I approach alternative media outlets in the same fashion. I strive to quote liberally, to ensure that full context is maintained, whether the source be corporate or alternative media.

Whether I am criticizing the Trump Administration or defending the Trump Administration, I make every effort to ground my commentary is the facts of the matter. If there is a law I cite the statute. If the Supreme Court has had something to say I cite the particular opinion.

If I am going to stake a political claim, I am going to anchor that claim to such facts as I can bring to bear.

My readers deserve that much respect from me.

My editorial objective is simple: I want my work to be as accessible to readers of ZeroHedge as readers of The Atlantic or the Independent. Whether people agree with me or not, I want them to have the factual basis for my arguments, that they may rebut with factual arguments of their own if they are so inclined.

Can the writers at ZeroHedge or The Atlantic claim the same objective? Can the New York Times hold the interest of Breitbart’s readership?

I do not see how they can—not when even the “objective” news reporting is presented through an ideological lens, regardless of the outlet.

If I can do these things then so can Breitbart, so can The Atlantic, so can ZeroHedge, so can the Independent, so can any media outlet. They have no excuse for not doing these things. They simply do not want to do them.

You deserve honest and objective reporting, but most media outlets do not want to give you honest and objective reporting.

Honest and objective reporting is not a question of skill, but rather of choice.

Those who aspire to present the news can make the choice to present the facts as honestly and as completely as they can—or they can slant and spin the news into propaganda.

Those who aspire to present the news can make the choice to approach a topic with a certain humility—or they can deploy the arrogance of the ideologue.

This much is certain: We have to make deliberate choices about what to present and we have to own that presentation should we get it wrong—which we will at least now and again.

In my time writing All Facts Matter I have learned that much about what constitutes good journalism.

The goal of any journalist—whether the straight news reporter or the analyst and commentator such as myself—must always be to give people plenty about which to think, without ever telling them what to think.

That is the goal to which I aspire with every article. My readers get to decide how well I succeed—which is exactly as it should be.

That is the goal to which every journalist should aspire with every article.

I do not see many journalists today from any outlet aspiring to that goal. They could—they should—but they choose not to.

To those who do: all due respect, honor, and admiration.

To those who do not: Do better, because you know you can. Do better, because your readers deserve that much respect from you.

To those who read and watch the news: recognize the ideology and the politics at play. Look for news which presents verifiable facts from primary sources. Put aside journalistic opinions while you form your own. Be skeptical. Be curious.

Demand honesty and integrity in journalism. It’s the least you deserve.