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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Robert Putnam: The Man Who Counted What America Lost
- W. Bradford Wilcox: The Sociologist Who Tells America to Get Married
- Peter Moskos: The Cop Who Talks to People
- Julius Krein
- Ryan Burge: The Numbers Man in the Empty Church
- Emily Oster: The Economist in the Delivery Room
- The Most Ridiculous Story Ever Told
- Tanner Greer
- Economist Tyler Cowen
- Richard Reeves: A Life in Institutions
- Jake Adelstein: The Reporter Who Became His Story
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
- Moira Greyland
- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Journalism
The Fred Barnes Trajectory
Fred Barnes retired from his role as a regular columnist for the Washington Examiner in 2021. He spent decades in political journalism and moved to the Examiner after the Weekly Standard, which he co-founded in 1995, folded in late 2018. … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
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The Michael Lewis Trajectory
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory reads Michael Lewis as someone who learned to criticize elites without ever threatening elite legitimacy. Early Lewis exposed incompetence inside the priesthood while affirming the priesthood’s moral authority. Liar’s Poker mocked Wall Street traders as childish … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism, Michael Lewis
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The Seymour Hersh Trajectory
Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre in November 1969. At the time, he worked as a freelance journalist and followed a vague tip about a soldier at Fort Benning who faced charges for killing civilians. This … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
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The Maria Bartiromo Trajectory
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory explains Maria Bartiromo cleanly. It is not about performance or truth. It is about alliance indispensability. Bartiromo’s original role was translator between elites. At CNBC and early Fox Business she served capital, CEOs, markets, and institutional … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
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The Bill Kristol Trajectory
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory says Bill Kristol’s career is a textbook case of alliance role cycling from insurgent to priest. Early Kristol was a sanctioned bomb thrower. In the 1990s he played the outsider enforcer role inside conservatism. He attacked … Continue reading
Posted in Bill Kristol, Journalism
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The Matt Labash Trajectory
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory explains Matt Labash as a high-status non-aligned talent who refused durable coalition capture and therefore plateaued rather than converted influence into power. A few core points. He maximized insider access without insider loyalty. Labash embedded with … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism, Matt Labash
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Broadcast News (1987)
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory reads Broadcast News as a movie about coalition sorting inside elite institutions, not a love triangle. A few clean points. First, the newsroom is a status guild. It pretends to reward truth and merit, but it … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
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Oy Vey! They’re Assaulting Our Norms! (1-27-26)
01:00 NYT: Employment Commission Chair Recasts Workplace Discrimination in Trump’s Image, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/us/politics/eocc-dei-employment-discrimination.html02:00 Trump targets anti-white discrimination, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=16721510:00 WP: Philip Glass pulls world premiere from Kennedy Center, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=16721315:00 How Do You Survive A Racist Text Published In The New Yorker?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=16720822:00 … Continue reading
Posted in America, Journalism, Tucker Carlson
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The New Path For Journalism
ChatGPT says: “Post-2016, mainstream media outlets moved from a referee model to a norm-enforcement alliance. Journalists were no longer just explaining politics. They were expected to signal which actors were legitimate and which were beyond the pale.” Gemini says: This … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
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The Long Slide
Steve Hayes writes: Bannon brought something darker to the Breitbart empire. If Andrew Breitbart’s ambitions centered on disruption of the left-leaning media establishment, Bannon wanted to replace it by creating a home for the kind of race-baiting, anti-immigrant conspiracies and … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism, Tucker Carlson
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