Mediaite One Sheet: Bad Bunny Culture War, Epstein File Dump, WSJ Drama, and More!

The Big Picture

The chattering class spent Monday relitigating the Super Bowl halftime show along perfectly predictable battle lines, while the Epstein files continued to swallow every corner of media. Washington Post’s death spiral deepened with the revelation that actual staff cuts were far worse than initially reported. And Trump blessed a TV mega-merger that his own voters overwhelmingly oppose.

Today’s sources:  Status | Semafor | Politico Playbook | CJR | Poynter | Awful Announcing | Charlie Sykes | CNN’s Reliable Sources | Newsbusters | OutKick | Barrett Media | Nieman Lab | Feed Me | The Bulwark | The Desk | Tubefilter | Media Voices

Top Story

 

BAD BUNNY’S HALFTIME SHOW — CULTURE WAR BATTLEGROUND

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show drew an estimated 135 million viewers — shattering Kendrick Lamar’s record — and immediately became a media Rorschach test that split the chattering class down its most predictable seam.

CNN’s Ali Rosenbloom framed it as a reclamation: “For months, conservatives from the president on down have painted him as anti-American. Last night, Bad Bunny asked: What if I’m the real American?” Reliable Sources’ Andrew Kirell called it something deeper: “Joy alone feels like a political act in 2026.”

The Bulwark‘s Charlie Sykes noted Trump “complained that ‘nobody’ could understand what Bad Bunny was singing. Because it was in Spanish, a language that the Census Bureau estimates is spoken by nearly 42 million Americans as their first language at home.” Sykes cited Chris Cillizza’s assessment that the attack “should be yet one more nail in the coffin of the notion that Trump is always playing politics at a higher level than mere mortals can understand.”

Conservative media saw a completely different show. Newsbusters‘ Jorge Bonilla declared CBS News’s next-day explainer segment “outright propaganda,” writing: “I cannot recall any Super Bowl halftime show ever needing a next-day explainer.” Newsbusters‘ Craig Bannister framed the all-Spanish performance as “disenfranchising English-speaking fans” and pointed to a TMZ poll showing viewers preferred Turning Point USA’s alternative halftime show featuring Kid Rock. OutKick declared TPUSA’s counter-programming “a rousing success, pulling in over 5 million viewers” and called it proof that “there is a massive audience ready to trade mainstream spectacle for raw, red-blooded Americana.”

Status’s Oliver Darcy offered the most nuanced take on the TPUSA numbers: the show drew about 6 million live YouTube viewers and has since attracted nearly 25 million total views. Darcy argued those numbers “should not be casually dismissed,” noting they “underscore the growing reach of the right-wing media ecosystem, where once-marginal figures like Jack Posobiec have moved from the conspiratorial fringes into the mainstream of conservative media consumption.” But, Darcy added, the audience “pales in comparison to Bad Bunny’s much larger reach and is not remotely representative of the broader American public.”

The rage wasn’t limited to media critics. Status reported that Fox’s Jesse Watters said he was frightened “the left is teaming up with large corporations and foreign populations to take our culture away from us.” Laura Ingraham called Bad Bunny “anti-American,” a “radical,” and “phony,” while Kid Rock told Ingraham that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell selected Jay Z as a “D.E.I. hire.” Megyn Kelly, per Poynter’s Tom Jones, had a “meltdown” calling Bad Bunny singing in Spanish “a middle finger to the rest of America.” Even Meghan McCain breaking from MAGA ranks to defend the performance drew Kelly’s fire.

Jones also made a sharp observation: Trump posted about how bad the halftime show was — meaning he watched Bad Bunny, not the TPUSA show.

Barrett Media reported the 135 million figure for Bad Bunny — while OutKick touted TPUSA’s 5 million and Brian Stelter cited The Athletic’s count of 6 million concurrent YouTube views. But as Awful Announcing‘s Manny Soloway warned via Poynter, those numbers can’t be directly compared: Nielsen measures “average minute audience,” while YouTube counts a view after 30 seconds. Soloway’s bottom line: “No matter what the viewership for the Super Bowl ends up being, it will almost certainly be used incorrectly by those looking to push an agenda.”

TAKEAWAY: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance was, in itself, a 13-minute pop spectacle — not a referendum on culture or national identity. What mattered wasn’t the show, but how quickly it was weaponized by media and pundits on all sides, turning a bit of entertainment into proof of cultural decline or moral triumph. Conservatives treated Spanish lyrics as an affront; progressives hailed it as historic. Both reactions inflated a routine commercial moment into symbolic currency. The real story isn’t Bad Bunny — it’s how predictably millions volunteered outrage and praise alike.

Three Takes

THE EPSTEIN FILES: THE PRESS IS PROCESSING THE BIGGEST DOCUMENT DUMP IN MODERN HISTORY

Ten days into the DOJ’s mass release of Epstein documents, the files have swallowed every corner of the media — and the chattering class is processing them very differently depending on where they sit.

CJR’s Jem Bartholomew argued the chaos is the point. The DOJ shuffled files out of sequence, stripped them of context, and crammed them under folder names like “Data Set 6” with filenames like “EFTA00008716.pdf.” Bartholomew’s verdict: “The medium is the message, and the message, perhaps intentionally, is confusion — to the point of meaninglessness.” He noted the dump “rewarded the best-resourced outlets” — the Times grouped stories under thematic tabs while the Miami Herald, whose Julie Brown reignited the case in 2018, was reduced to relying on wire copy.

Semafor’s Max Tani reported that Epstein’s media connections served one goal: cleaning up his image. In 2013, a representative for Epstein’s foundation asked Business Insider founder Henry Blodget to swap out a mugshot from a story; BI complied and scrubbed it from Google search. Separately, Semafor’s Ben Smith traced a viral FBI document — claiming Trump was “compromised by Israel,” with 11 million impressions on X — back to its source: Charles C. Johnson, “a famous troll and occasional Holocaust denier recently found liable in a fraud scheme.” The files are generating virality faster than journalists can verify.

Politico Playbook‘s Jack Blanchard framed the dump as “an entirely new phenomenon — an internationally crowdsourced scandal, unfolding in real time across your social media feed.” In D.C., the raw data spawned a parlor game: “We are all searching the files: for colleagues, competitors, clients,” one PR operative told Politico’s Daniel Lippman. Playbook noted citizen journalists “have been nearly as capable as professional journalists” at surfacing documents. The real drama today: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testifies before the Senate this morning while documents suggest he planned a visit to Epstein’s island as late as 2012, despite claiming he’d cut ties in 2005. Rep. Ro Khanna told Playbook: “I think, based on the evidence, he should be out of the Cabinet.”

TAKEAWAY: The Epstein files have become a mirror for every problem in modern media. The best-resourced outlets thrive while the paper that broke the story relies on wire copy. Citizen journalists surface real documents alongside trolls laundering disinformation through FBI transcripts. And D.C. insiders treat a sex trafficking case like fantasy football for the politically connected. The chattering class is processing the biggest document dump in modern history — and it’s not going great.

 

📰 Top Reads 📰

Status / Oliver Darcy
🚨 SCOOP — THE WSJ’S FEATURES FRACAS: Status reported that WSJ editor Emma Tucker carried out another significant restructuring, ousting 42-year veteran features chief Mike Miller and elevating Sarah Ball, a Condé Nast vet who has steadily amassed power at the paper. But Darcy’s reporting revealed what Tucker’s memo left out: Ball has been a deeply polarizing manager. More than a half-dozen current and former staffers told Status that Ball fostered “a fraught workplace environment” in which loyalists were rewarded while others were pushed out. In 2025 alone, at least 10 employees who reported to Ball on the Style team resigned or were ousted. Staffers described Ball as skilled at “managing up” but said her demeanor “shifted quickly, particularly toward those who dissented.” A Journal spokesperson said no formal complaints had been filed against Ball and pointed to strong results: the magazine’s digital audience is up four-fold and the paper’s subscriber base has grown to 4.7 million. QUOTE (former WSJ staffer to Status): “People didn’t mind working for her, but then she turns on you and either fires you or pushes you out or retaliates against you.” … TAKEAWAY: Tucker has now razed the Washington bureau, the SF tech bureau, and features in succession. The subscriber numbers look great. The human wreckage is adding up.

CNN Reliable Sources / Brian Stelter
TRUMP BLESSES NEXSTAR-TEGNA, AND M&A GOES THROUGH THE OVAL OFFICE: Stelter framed Trump’s weekend endorsement of the Nexstar-Tegna merger as further proof that “M&A goes through the Oval Office right now.” But the deal created a schism in conservative media — Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, described as a personal friend of Trump’s, lobbied hard against it. Trump’s rhetoric flipped from echoing Ruddy’s anti-deal talking points in November to calling it a way to “knock out the Fake News.” Barrett Media added the kicker: 68% of Republican voters oppose the merger, with only 7% in support. Ruddy testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee today. QUOTE (media executive quoted in Reliable Sources): “M&A goes through the Oval Office right now.” … TAKEAWAY: Trump is picking winners and losers in media consolidation while his own voters oppose the deal. Expect fireworks at today’s hearing.

Poynter / Tom Jones + Awful Announcing / Manny Soloway
THE SUPER BOWL RATINGS NUMBERS EVERYONE WILL USE WRONG: Poynter’s Tom Jones warned that the coming Super Bowl viewership numbers will be weaponized by both sides — and Awful Announcing’s Manny Soloway explained why the comparisons are bogus. Nielsen measures “average minute audience”; YouTube counts a view after 30 seconds. His bottom line: “No matter what the viewership for the Super Bowl ends up being, it will almost certainly be used incorrectly by those looking to push an agenda.” Jones also noted the TPUSA show’s claims of triumph were undercut by Variety’s Chris Willman, who described the event as performances that “could have been mistaken for a vintage CMT or Nashville Network special,” while Awful Announcing‘s Sean Keeley flagged “un-family-friendly content” in the supposedly family-values broadcast. QUOTE (Manny Soloway, Awful Announcing): “No matter what the viewership for the Super Bowl ends up being, it will almost certainly be used incorrectly by those looking to push an agenda.” … TAKEAWAY: The chattering class is already building competing narratives out of numbers that can’t actually be compared. Awful Announcing saw it coming.

Politico Playbook / Paul Farhi via Washingtonian
WAPO CUTS WERE EVEN WORSE THAN REPORTED: The Washington Post newsroom guild told The Washingtonian’s Paul Farhi that the actual staff reductions were in the range of 44 to 48 percent — not the one-third figure previously reported. Playbook also noted that several laid-off Post journalists have already launched Substacks, and Tina Brown’s latest piece scorched Bezos as “a master of disaster,” taking down Lewis and former publisher Fred Ryan too. On the flip side, former WSJ editor-in-chief Gerard Baker blamed what he called “biased, incompetent reporting” at the Post for its travails. QUOTE (CBS’s Ed O’Keefe, a Post alum, on X, via Reliable Sources): “Don’t give up on The Post. Subscribe, engage, demand more.” … TAKEAWAY: When the actual cuts are 44-48% and the conservative counter-narrative is “you deserved it,” the Post isn’t just losing staff — it’s losing the benefit of the doubt.

CJR / Jem Bartholomew
NBC AIRED THE VANCE OLYMPICS MOMENT. JUST NOT THE BOOS: When Vice President JD Vance appeared on screens at Milan’s San Siro stadium during the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, the crowd’s reaction depended entirely on which broadcast you watched. Canada’s CBC commentator said plainly: “Uh, those are a lot of boos for him. Whistling, jeering, some applause.” NBC viewers heard none of it — the commentary team simply said “JD Vance” without remarking on the crowd’s reaction. NBC denied editing the coverage. The White House then shared NBC’s sanitized clip on X. QUOTE (CBC commentator during Olympics broadcast): “Uh, those are a lot of boos for him. Whistling, jeering, some applause.” … TAKEAWAY: Same stadium, same moment, two completely different broadcasts. The White House knew which version to amplify.

Newsbusters / Jorge Bonilla
CBS RUNS BAD BUNNY “EXPLAINER” — CONSERVATIVES CRY PROPAGANDA Newsbusters’ Bonilla ripped CBS News for airing a next-day explainer segment on Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, handled by the network’s self-styled “Bad Bunny correspondent” Lilia Luciano. Bonilla called it “outright propaganda.” Separately, Newsbusters‘ Curtis Houck accused CBS’s immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez of “putting illegal immigrants first” for reporting that fewer than 14% of ICE arrestees had violent criminal records — the same statistic the Bulwark’s Sykes flagged approvingly as proof the “worst of the worst” framing was false. QUOTE (Bonilla): “I cannot recall any Super Bowl halftime show ever needing a next-day explainer.” … TAKEAWAY: Same CBS data, opposite conclusions. The chattering class isn’t just spinning stories differently — they’re living in parallel information universes.

Semafor / Max Tani
WAPO‘S “WE THE PEOPLE” SLOGAN KILLED BY MS NOW: Before the layoffs and the CEO ouster, The Washington Post had one more indignity waiting in the wings. Semafor’s Tani reports the paper had prepared a brand campaign with the tagline “We the People” — only to have MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) launch a $20 million campaign with the identical slogan. The Post was forced to shelve its second marketing campaign in about a year, after the previous “Switch On” tagline. Neither was meant to replace “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” but that slogan “hadn’t been testing as well.” QUOTE: “MS NOW’s campaign and its massive budget forced the Post to put its campaign on ice.” … TAKEAWAY: When even your slogan gets scooped, the universe might be trying to tell you something.

CNN Reliable Sources / Brian Stelter
FCC’S “SHAM” PROBE OF THE VIEW: The FCC says it’s probing whether ABC’s The View violated equal time rules by booking Democratic congressional candidate James Talarico — even though his primary rival Jasmine Crockett had already appeared on the show. Reliable Sources reported the FCC’s lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, called it a “sham”: “This is government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation.” The probe follows through on FCC chair Brendan Carr’s earlier threats to target the show. QUOTE (FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez): “This is government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation.” … TAKEAWAY: The same FCC chair rubber-stamping Trump’s media merger picks is now probing a daytime talk show for booking a Democrat.

CJR / Jem Bartholomew
JIMMY LAI SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS — PRESS FREEDOM’S DARKEST DAY IN HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced media tycoon and democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison on charges of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” tied to his shuttered newspaper, Apple Daily. Reporters Without Borders called it “the day the curtain fell on press freedom in Hong Kong.” Six former Apple Daily employees were also sentenced. QUOTE (Thibaut Bruttin, Director General, Reporters Without Borders): “From Lai’s arrest to his trial and conviction, this legal process has been nothing more than a sham.” … TAKEAWAY: The chattering class noted it. Now watch how quickly they move on.

TheDesk + Status / NYT’s Lauren Hirsch
COURT TV SOLD TO DAN ABRAMS’ LAW&CRIME NETWORK: TheDesk first reported that E.W. Scripps agreed to sell Court TV to Jellysmack, putting the channel under common ownership with the Law&Crime Network. Status added the quote from Mediaite Founder and Publisher Dan Abrams, telling the NYT‘s Lauren Hirsch: “The goal is going to be to try to transform what is a legacy media company into a YouTube and digital-media-first business.” The sale is part of Scripps’ ongoing effort to shed assets and pay down debt from its Ion Networks and Katz Networks acquisitions. QUOTE (Abrams to NYT): “The goal is going to be to try to transform what is a legacy media company into a YouTube and digital-media-first business.” … TAKEAWAY: Legacy media gets acquired; new media promises to digitize it. We’ve seen this movie before — but Abrams has a track record of making it work.

🎬 SHOWBIZ 🎬

Semafor, Max Tani
DON LEMON’S ARREST IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO HIS YOUTUBE CAREER: Semafor reports Don Lemon has gained over 100,000 YouTube subscribers since his arrest and moved up the booking ladder — from guests like Semafor’s own Max Tani to AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Mark Kelly. CJR noted he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to describe agents being dispatched to his apartment to “grab me and put me in handcuffs.” TAKEAWAY: Getting arrested for journalism in 2026 is apparently a better growth strategy than any YouTube algorithm hack.

CNN Reliable Sources / THR‘s Pamela McClintock/Status
MELANIA DOC CRATERS IN SECOND WEEKEND: Melania fell 67% in its second weekend, heading for a likely 10th-place finish with $2.4 million, per THR’s Pamela McClintock via Reliable Sources. Total domestic gross sits at about $13.3 million. Amazon put out a defensive statement “stressing” the film “is already a win for cinemas.” No overseas numbers have been shared. TAKEAWAY: Amazon spent a reported fortune producing and marketing a presidential documentary that’s about to be outgrossed by a YouTuber’s indie horror film.

Feed Me / Emily Sundberg + The Bulwark / Will Sommer
THE LOOKSMAXXER TAKING OVER YOUR FEED — AND RIGHT-WING MEDIA: Emily Sundberg flagged that a profile of “Clavicular,” the 20-year-old looksmaxxing streamer, is coming to the New York Times Styles section. The Bulwark’s Will Sommer published a deep dive asking why outlets like the Daily Wire are platforming him at all, concluding: “Right-wing media is fully entering the spectacle-driven nihilism phase of the internet.” Clavicular’s spokesman declined the interview with a statement for the ages: “Giving comment to The Bulwark is not moggable.” TAKEAWAY: When the NYT Styles section and the Daily Wire are chasing the same 20-year-old steroid enthusiast, something has shifted in the culture.

Editor’s note — Yesterday’s newsletter incorrectly attributed reporting to Status. The observation about Fox News viewers complaining about Bret Baier’s coverage was from CNN’s Reliable Sources. A quote attributed to Oliver Darcy and Status did not appear in Status’s reporting. We regret the error.

👀 What Got Missed? 👀

The newsletter class spent Monday debating whether Bad Bunny’s halftime show was a political statement, a cultural reclamation, or propaganda. Almost nobody pointed out the obvious: the NFL picked him because it was good business. The league is chasing two growth priorities — younger viewers who are drifting away from traditional broadcast and the massive, largely untapped Latin American and Hispanic fan base. Bad Bunny, the most-streamed artist on the planet with a global audience skewing young and bilingual, was the perfect ambassador to accomplish both. This wasn’t a woke gesture — it was free-market capitalism, plain and simple. Roger Goodell hugged the guy on camera because 135 million people watched. If the selection exposed some white nationalist fragility along the way, that’s a byproduct, not the business plan. And it generated more conversation than the forgettable blowout it interrupted.

 

🏆 Newsletter of the Day 🏆

Status / Oliver Darcy.  Darcy delivered on two fronts today. His WSJ Features Fracas was a genuine scoop — more than a half-dozen sources revealing the human cost of Emma Tucker’s latest restructuring and the polarizing management style of the editor she elevated to run it. But Darcy also offered the most clear-eyed take on the TPUSA halftime numbers, refusing to either dismiss them or inflate them: 6 million live viewers “should not be casually dismissed,” he wrote, but the audience “pales in comparison” and “is not remotely representative of the broader American public.” On a day where every other outlet picked a side, Darcy found the middle.

The Bottom Line

Here’s what the newsletters collectively revealed today without quite saying it out loud: the American media ecosystem is now so fractured that a single 15-minute halftime show can generate two entirely separate realities — each complete with its own ratings narrative, its own moral framework, and its own definition of what “winning” looks like. Newsbusters cites a TMZ poll. Stelter cites Nielsen. OutKick says 5 million viewers proves a massive appetite for Americana. Barrett Media notes that 135 million watched the other thing. Nobody is lying, exactly. They’re just building different houses from different bricks, and the chattering class has gotten so good at construction that the buildings look solid from the inside. Step outside, though, and you notice they’re on completely different streets. The question the newsletter class should be asking—and isn’t—is whether the audience they’re building is learning to see more clearly, or just to see more selectively.

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