I, like Richardson, am in the academy. I know her type well: the closed-minded ideologues whose idea of goodness and truth is what the New York Times told them to think today, and who launder such elite opinions (or should we call them assorted vanities, pieties, and fantasies?) through academic credentials and publishing. This practice is a stain on ostensibly evidence-based disciplines, but it is so common now as to make me wonder if my view of the field—skepticism of bold claims, following the evidence rather than my ideological priors, etc.—will ever predominate. But I refuse to give over the academy to these fanatics.
While the “studies” disciplines have been rightly criticized and exposed by Chris Rufo and others as designed and intended to proselytize “wokeness” at the expense of scientific rigor, it is previously more on the whole sober disciplines such as history, social sciences, and even life sciences (see trans/COVID debates) that have also ceded ground to the Richardsonian practice of “scholarship.”
My thoughts on solutions are too long to post here, but I will commend you, Leah, for doing your individual part of rebutting her thinly-disguised screed. The more this public, confident rejection of the “truth is today’s elite consensus” epistemology occurs, the more we have a chance of creating a freer marketplace of ideas.
"The more this public, confident rejection of the “truth is today’s elite consensus” epistemology occurs, the more we have a chance of creating a freer marketplace of ideas."
Yes! This is why I write. I'm learning to lean into that confidence, because the appearances of the legacy media consensus notwithstanding, they are not the deciders of truth. At this point, they aren't even the tellers of it.
Thank you for your dedicated service in the frontlines, that is the academy.
I have repeatedly said "people cannot be that stupid". I am sorry. I was wrong. Richardson knows the truth. Say it. Out loud. People will believe it. No matter how un factual, un supported, biased or knowingly false. She knows exactly what she is doing.
She's a smug manipulator. I wonder how open she is to her students challenging her in class and raising facts she does not like and refuses to rebut. We all know plenty of Heather's. Really nice piece Leah Rose.
Thank heavens! A critical look at HCRichardson. I stopped reading her years ago due to her bias and lack of objective facts or any intent to find them. Yes, I agree that she has done a lot of damage as a result. She is NOT a RELIABLE NARRATOR of our politics. Buyer Beware...
Thank you for this incredible affirmation of why I turned off reading of HCR. Initially her scholarship was seductive and, I thought, informative. Over time, especially the last couple years, I couldn’t stand reading her anymore, but I didn’t know exactly what was inflaming me. Your exploration, along with every single one of the comments here, helped me see the parallel of bias, that I also find distasteful in the reading of historical novels. How can someone who did not live during another era, write about how it was. Facts at some point, I realized, are a form of fiction as well. It is the appearance of truth, but unless it’s me standing on the battlefield bleeding and writing the account of how I feel, it can’t be anything else but another's opinion of what I’m experiencing. HCR writes her truth much like it’s an historical fiction novel. And I’ve had enough personal exploration experience to know that I can’t trust nor believe even, everything that I think. We live in fiction, and the sooner one understands that the mirror of “reality” only reflects a nanosecond of truth, if there is even such a thing, the better we will all get along.
You make some interesting observations. Not sure if I agree with everything you say, but if one is a discerning reader, one can easily pick out biases and intentions. I read Richardson’s posts and those of differing views, always keeping in mind that all writers, including you and Ms Richardson, infuse their own leanings, either consciously or un-, and use their own preferred references of information. It is their right and the readers’ responsibility to recognize that fact as they read… and to check/read the references cited and compare them with other sources, if they have concerns .
Everything you say here is supremely sensible. Discernment is the key to intelligent information gathering. I wish everyone followed your recipe.
I wrote about HCR specifically because my sense of many people I know who read her is that they trust her so implicitly that they don't employ the kind of critique you are advocating.
The way they praise and share her work has the energy of revivalists amplifying the gospel, not partisans enjoying a bit of confirmation bias. One gets the sense they rely primarily on her for their understanding of what is happening in our world and what it means. Which I see as a problem given her m.o. is basically to aggregate the worst news from the Left media and condense its anti-Trump bias into a daily black pill of outrage. Her calm contempt for "MAGA supporters," her confident disdain for their views and impugning of their intentions not only encourages her followers to presume the worst of their fellow citizens, but to identify them as enemies of civilized society. It's the concentrated, celebrated dark energy of her screeds, and the devoted trust they inspire, that strikes me as worthy of a spotlight because as a phenomenon, it stands out to me in the arena of partisan fear-porn commentary, both Left and Right.
I don’t happen to agree with you on Richardson or her motives or her knowledge within her particular educational specialty. I am one of those who highly regards her, but, like you, I read other points of view. My father always told me that when one is reading/learning about any historical period, one should try to do it from all points of view. Only then will one find common threads from which to form an opinion.
True, when the readers have bias to begin with, they can easily fall in to the dark hole of refusing to believe whatever is contrary to their biases and, hence, lose out on an opportunity to find those common threads.
I never liked personalization or nastiness in discourse. It is counterproductive to whatever message the writer is trying to relay.
In writing this piece of criticism I was trying to speak from my observations of Richardson's content, style, and impact, taking conscious care not to stray into speculation about her motives. It seems you heard me do that. If you're willing to indulge me, I'd be very interested to know specifically where I crossed that line. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I would like to know in order to better understand how I'm being heard/miscommunicating.
It might be helpful to consider that BOTH parties, red AND blue, are now being controlled by The Christian Vatican in Rome. 😲 With pagan roots it also began Christianity (Third Century A.D.), Islam (Sixth Century A.D.), Communism, and the Nazis (Twentieth Century).☹ Christianity will be "The Mark of the Beast" in Revelation 13:18 first enforced by the government of "the two-horned beast: U.S. Government.😡 Under Trump??? I post publicly and freely on MeWe. 😊
ETERNAL LIFE BLESSINGS FOR YAHWEH'S SAINTS! 👨👩👧👦 HalleluYah! Hebrew: "Praise ye Yah!" 🙏
To summarize, Leah, your criticism of Richardson is that she imputes bad intent on others and she simplifes and obfuscates complex issues to tell the story that supports her biased perspective. That description applies quite readily to the vast majority of sources on both sides of today's polarized dialogue, including the sources you prefer and the political figures you energetically defend.
I share your dismay that partisans oversimplify. Sure, there are some who believe there is a valid economic goal being pursued with Trump's tariff regime and there was, in fact, a method applied. It's a shame that a Richardson takes the easy path of suggesting there is no thought behind it, because the many folks who spend more time looking into it are, indeed, getting underneath it and (similar to the market's early judgment) concluding that the method is invalid and reckless. You reference one alternative view which is decidely the outlier view among those knowledgeable on the subject.
More generally, there are folks trying to carefully investigate the underlying facts among the tidal wave of accusations and recriminations thrown around. One source I've come to respect is Tangle, a website started by Isaac Saul (https://www.readtangle.com/). Tangle takes a hot topic every day and shares the opposing views being presented by all sides before sharing their assessment. I don't always agree with their view, but I always learn something.
Finally, with respect to your footnote on Richardson's statement about a measles death, I'll just share the following long quote from NewsGuard's Reality Check (who apply the same methods to misinformation from all sources, left and right).
What happened: Anti-vaccine activists are claiming that the first reported U.S. measles death in a decade was caused by “medical error,” not measles. The narrative, which has attracted millions of views on X, was launched by a group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Context: In late February, an unvaccinated six-year-old girl in Texas died from measles, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, amid an outbreak in the state that grew to 327 cases as of March 21.
A closer look: On March 19, Children’s Health Defense (Trust Score: 17.5/100), the anti-vaccine group founded by RFK Jr., posted a video on X saying that measles was not the girl’s cause of death.
• In the video, Dr. Pierre Kory, a frequent proponent of the false claim that the drug ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment, said that he had reviewed the child’s medical records and determined the child “did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination.”
• Kory claimed that the child died due to a “medical error” caused by the hospital not properly treating her pneumonia. “You see the media’s going nuts about how everyone needs to get vaccinated,” Kory stated. “We’ve been treating pneumonia for decades with antibiotics, and this was just a tragic error.”
The girl’s family shared the medical records with Children’s Health Defense, according to a March 19 article on the group’s website. The records have not been made public. Kory and Children’s Health Defense did not respond to NewsGuard’s emails asking whether the group would release the records and seeking comment on the claims made in the video.
Where it spread: The Children’s Health Defense video generated 1.2 million views and 19,000 likes on X in five days.
• The video was cited in articles in the Natural News network (Trust Score: 5/100) of health misinformation websites and the AI-generated CountyLocalNews.com. A March 23 post of the video by X user @VigilantFox amassed 1.5 million views in one day.
• Kory repeated the claim in a March 20 episode of former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast “Bannon’s War Room,” which has 1 million followers on Rumble, as well as in the March 21 episode of “The Jimmy Dore Show” podcast, whose YouTube account has 1.4 million subscribers.
Actually: The child died of measles, according to state and federal health officials, and confirmed by the hospital that treated her.
• Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, where the 6-year-old was treated, said during a February 2025 press conference that the child died due to measles complications.
• Asked about the Children’s Health Defense video, the hospital told NewsGuard in a March 20 emailed statement that the video “contains misleading and inaccurate claims regarding care provided at Covenant Children’s. Patient confidentiality laws preclude us from providing information directly related to this case.”
The hospital’s statement also noted that pneumonia is a “well-known complication” of measles. In fact, the CDC’s website states, “As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.”
I subscribe to Tangle, though tbh I don't always get to reading it because it is one of many subscriptions. I paid for a year, though, because I want to support that kind of effort towards balance.
I think we would agree bias is inescapable in the sense that all people have it, and yet the important thing is to cultivate an open mind and resist attaching to narratives. We need to stay willing to follow facts and modify our views based on new information.
So in my view, reliable sources are those who challenge consensus and investigate narratives, letting facts lead to conclusions, even unpopular ones. People like Matt Taibbi are an example: he's an old school journalist, lifelong politically Left and a Democrat who suddenly found himself decried as "Rightwing" because he dug into the Russia Collusion story, the facts of which exposed the hoax. His betrayal of anti-Trump orthodoxy got him smeared by the Left as a tool of the Right. This, btw, is why I reject NewsGuard as a reliable vetting organization. In fact, Taibbi investigated their roots and their funding (always follow the money!) and discovered they are hardly an "independent" service protecting the search for truth; they are paid guardians of the Left Narrative, protectors of the elite consensus. It's actually kind of obvious since somehow every journalist who reports against the Narrative gets tagged by NewsGuard as unreliable. (Here's info on their reliability: https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-interview-with-glenn-greenwald)
All of which is to say, their "reality check" of the Texas measles case is completely predictable. The only way they can combat the truth is by implying that CHD lied about the family giving them the medical records (which, given the CHD interview I saw of the parents, they more than likely did share the records) or implying Dr. Pierre Kory—who was highly respected in the critical care field until he dared challenge COVID orthodoxy—is lying about what those medical records show. It's just a transparent hatchet job. Throwing a lot of mud to obscure the basic facts of the story. Very typical of the so-called "fact-checkers" who are deployed to protect the consensus. Very unconvincing for anyone who cares to dig into the actual story instead of their relying on their pretense of a "reality check."
Oren Cass may be an "outlier" perspective relative to the chorus of economists forwarded by mainstream media, but he's in good company with plenty of other economists who I've seen making the case for Trump's tariffs and/or critiquing the pros and cons of his policy with nuance.
Lastly, in pondering your reply and trying to pinpoint what specifically it is about Heather Cox Richardson that unsettles me, sets her apart IMO from the broad field of commentators across the spectrum, I realized that what I see in her and her following is something I've witnessed before. Participated in.
Through much of the 90s I was a daily devoted listener of Rush Limbaugh. A True Believer in the morality and righteousness of his worldview. I see in HCR the same kind of genius I eventually came to recognize in him: the gift of narrative spinning that appears so comprehensively true and feels so ideologically compelling it inspires unquestioning faith in its accuracy and its messenger, a belief in its oracular vision. The medium is different—radio vs writing—and the scale is different—20 million weekly listeners vs 20K subscribers. But it's the same devoted worshipful energy, the same construction a cult-like mindset of ungenerous certainty that does nothing to facilitate curiosity and dialogue across the divide, which is a tad more concerning now, given how deep and wide the political chasm has grown.
Thanks for the response, Leah. Much we can agree on. Particularly appreciate the comments on Rush Limbaugh as his show was what set me out on the path to rethinking the Conservative Narrative (precisely because it was so clear that he was twisting, exaggerating, and entirely about revving up his listeners for his own benefit). I don't think NewsGuard was suggesting the family didn't share the records with CHD. I think they were saying they should share the records with everyone if they are going to make the claims they are making. I would just caution that more often than not the consensus narrative exists because that is a reasonable interpretation of events. Not saying there aren't frauds and self-interested folks trying to pull the wool over. Just saying that it's easy to create "alternative" narratives applying the very same errors or self-interest.
I think this is where our key disagreement is, in terms of our how we process information: "more often than not the consensus narrative exists because that is a reasonable interpretation of events. Not saying there aren't frauds and self-interested folks trying to pull the wool over. Just saying that it's easy to create "alternative" narratives applying the very same errors or self-interest."
Consensus narratives do provide a reasonable interpretation of events, but "reasonable" is not the same thing as *true.* Consensus narratives are easy to manufacture and promote from within institutions (especially in the absence of a skeptical press), which is why I think it is not a coincidence that so-called "consensus" narratives are nearly always the officially recognized narrative of the powers that be. Think of all the recent government advanced, media-defended narratives about COVID: wet market origin; efficacy of masking, of social distancing, of lockdowns; "safe & effective" shots to stop viral spread and end the pandemic (until they clearly did not and the "consensus" was switched on a dime to "prevent hospitalization"). The consensus narrative back in Galileo's day was that the earth was the center of the universe—and I'm sure it looked that way to most people. Thus it was easy to protect and difficult to challenge.
IMO, consensus narratives are a strategic tool of the powerful, especially in a free society. They are an obvious means of advancing an end-run around the legal barriers protecting liberty by manipulating the populace towards preferred outcomes (which usually involve protecting power and the powerful). The real value of our ability to think critically and speak freely as citizens is in our willingness to question and investigate consensus narratives rather than trust they are true simply because they sound "reasonable" and/or are widely believed and/or are the officially accepted explanations. Hence, my skepticism.
I am reminded of a very insightful piece I saw on the Bulwark a couple of months ago that made the point that the skeptical approach had reached a point where if someone arguinig against a "mainstream" point of view got one thing right, their followers decided that everything that followed was right; whereas, if a mainstream commentator got one thing wrong (and of course we all do), the skeptic felt justified to conclude that everything they said was wrong (and probably with bad intent). I'm just working to avoid this excess.
One could say the exact same about the shift in content/tone by elite legacy media. (Which makes sense, because as I said elsewhere, Richardson and her ilk just dress up those narratives in academic credentials.) I stopped reading WaPo (2016) and NYT (2018) for informational purposes because of the growing feeling the news articles were editorially selected and constructed to manipulate me rather than report.
The more disturbing question is whether this is truly a philosophical shift, or whether Trump exposed their ulterior motives—requiring them to take more transparent (to critical news consumers) measures to achieve their aim of promoting the liberal internationalist elite consensus from their platforms.
Thank you for saying that as I feel the same way. I'm more afraid of the things that are described in this article and others by Leah (the manipulation of the idealogues and their elite and the people who allow themselves to be manipulated) as well as the intense emotion and outrage in our current culture than I am of anything Trump and his team are currently doing. I can manage an economic crisis - but could do so even better if there wasn't so much division, anger, and close-mindedness. Perhaps Trump's methods will ultimately bring us all together as Americans, if that is even possible anymore.
I, like Richardson, am in the academy. I know her type well: the closed-minded ideologues whose idea of goodness and truth is what the New York Times told them to think today, and who launder such elite opinions (or should we call them assorted vanities, pieties, and fantasies?) through academic credentials and publishing. This practice is a stain on ostensibly evidence-based disciplines, but it is so common now as to make me wonder if my view of the field—skepticism of bold claims, following the evidence rather than my ideological priors, etc.—will ever predominate. But I refuse to give over the academy to these fanatics.
While the “studies” disciplines have been rightly criticized and exposed by Chris Rufo and others as designed and intended to proselytize “wokeness” at the expense of scientific rigor, it is previously more on the whole sober disciplines such as history, social sciences, and even life sciences (see trans/COVID debates) that have also ceded ground to the Richardsonian practice of “scholarship.”
My thoughts on solutions are too long to post here, but I will commend you, Leah, for doing your individual part of rebutting her thinly-disguised screed. The more this public, confident rejection of the “truth is today’s elite consensus” epistemology occurs, the more we have a chance of creating a freer marketplace of ideas.
"The more this public, confident rejection of the “truth is today’s elite consensus” epistemology occurs, the more we have a chance of creating a freer marketplace of ideas."
Yes! This is why I write. I'm learning to lean into that confidence, because the appearances of the legacy media consensus notwithstanding, they are not the deciders of truth. At this point, they aren't even the tellers of it.
Thank you for your dedicated service in the frontlines, that is the academy.
"Thinly disguised" indeed. Heather probably has "lying eyes" too.
I have repeatedly said "people cannot be that stupid". I am sorry. I was wrong. Richardson knows the truth. Say it. Out loud. People will believe it. No matter how un factual, un supported, biased or knowingly false. She knows exactly what she is doing.
One does get the sense that she is not merely confused, much less easily led. Perhaps just a True Believer.
She's a smug manipulator. I wonder how open she is to her students challenging her in class and raising facts she does not like and refuses to rebut. We all know plenty of Heather's. Really nice piece Leah Rose.
Thanks, Clarity. I've wondered about her classroom culture, too.
Thank heavens! A critical look at HCRichardson. I stopped reading her years ago due to her bias and lack of objective facts or any intent to find them. Yes, I agree that she has done a lot of damage as a result. She is NOT a RELIABLE NARRATOR of our politics. Buyer Beware...
You described another “expert” or “scientist” making facts fit their opinions.
Thank you for this. She is a prominent face of the misinformation my friends and family read as well. So frustrating.
Thank you for this incredible affirmation of why I turned off reading of HCR. Initially her scholarship was seductive and, I thought, informative. Over time, especially the last couple years, I couldn’t stand reading her anymore, but I didn’t know exactly what was inflaming me. Your exploration, along with every single one of the comments here, helped me see the parallel of bias, that I also find distasteful in the reading of historical novels. How can someone who did not live during another era, write about how it was. Facts at some point, I realized, are a form of fiction as well. It is the appearance of truth, but unless it’s me standing on the battlefield bleeding and writing the account of how I feel, it can’t be anything else but another's opinion of what I’m experiencing. HCR writes her truth much like it’s an historical fiction novel. And I’ve had enough personal exploration experience to know that I can’t trust nor believe even, everything that I think. We live in fiction, and the sooner one understands that the mirror of “reality” only reflects a nanosecond of truth, if there is even such a thing, the better we will all get along.
Honestly, I love historical fiction. But not the kind that pretends to be non-fiction, aka the HCR brand.
I’m so glad you concur!
I pay the Heather Richardsons of academia no mind, Leah. Blah, blah, blah. Duck 🦆 quacking.
You make some interesting observations. Not sure if I agree with everything you say, but if one is a discerning reader, one can easily pick out biases and intentions. I read Richardson’s posts and those of differing views, always keeping in mind that all writers, including you and Ms Richardson, infuse their own leanings, either consciously or un-, and use their own preferred references of information. It is their right and the readers’ responsibility to recognize that fact as they read… and to check/read the references cited and compare them with other sources, if they have concerns .
Everything you say here is supremely sensible. Discernment is the key to intelligent information gathering. I wish everyone followed your recipe.
I wrote about HCR specifically because my sense of many people I know who read her is that they trust her so implicitly that they don't employ the kind of critique you are advocating.
The way they praise and share her work has the energy of revivalists amplifying the gospel, not partisans enjoying a bit of confirmation bias. One gets the sense they rely primarily on her for their understanding of what is happening in our world and what it means. Which I see as a problem given her m.o. is basically to aggregate the worst news from the Left media and condense its anti-Trump bias into a daily black pill of outrage. Her calm contempt for "MAGA supporters," her confident disdain for their views and impugning of their intentions not only encourages her followers to presume the worst of their fellow citizens, but to identify them as enemies of civilized society. It's the concentrated, celebrated dark energy of her screeds, and the devoted trust they inspire, that strikes me as worthy of a spotlight because as a phenomenon, it stands out to me in the arena of partisan fear-porn commentary, both Left and Right.
I don’t happen to agree with you on Richardson or her motives or her knowledge within her particular educational specialty. I am one of those who highly regards her, but, like you, I read other points of view. My father always told me that when one is reading/learning about any historical period, one should try to do it from all points of view. Only then will one find common threads from which to form an opinion.
True, when the readers have bias to begin with, they can easily fall in to the dark hole of refusing to believe whatever is contrary to their biases and, hence, lose out on an opportunity to find those common threads.
I never liked personalization or nastiness in discourse. It is counterproductive to whatever message the writer is trying to relay.
In writing this piece of criticism I was trying to speak from my observations of Richardson's content, style, and impact, taking conscious care not to stray into speculation about her motives. It seems you heard me do that. If you're willing to indulge me, I'd be very interested to know specifically where I crossed that line. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I would like to know in order to better understand how I'm being heard/miscommunicating.
It might be helpful to consider that BOTH parties, red AND blue, are now being controlled by The Christian Vatican in Rome. 😲 With pagan roots it also began Christianity (Third Century A.D.), Islam (Sixth Century A.D.), Communism, and the Nazis (Twentieth Century).☹ Christianity will be "The Mark of the Beast" in Revelation 13:18 first enforced by the government of "the two-horned beast: U.S. Government.😡 Under Trump??? I post publicly and freely on MeWe. 😊
ETERNAL LIFE BLESSINGS FOR YAHWEH'S SAINTS! 👨👩👧👦 HalleluYah! Hebrew: "Praise ye Yah!" 🙏
To summarize, Leah, your criticism of Richardson is that she imputes bad intent on others and she simplifes and obfuscates complex issues to tell the story that supports her biased perspective. That description applies quite readily to the vast majority of sources on both sides of today's polarized dialogue, including the sources you prefer and the political figures you energetically defend.
I share your dismay that partisans oversimplify. Sure, there are some who believe there is a valid economic goal being pursued with Trump's tariff regime and there was, in fact, a method applied. It's a shame that a Richardson takes the easy path of suggesting there is no thought behind it, because the many folks who spend more time looking into it are, indeed, getting underneath it and (similar to the market's early judgment) concluding that the method is invalid and reckless. You reference one alternative view which is decidely the outlier view among those knowledgeable on the subject.
More generally, there are folks trying to carefully investigate the underlying facts among the tidal wave of accusations and recriminations thrown around. One source I've come to respect is Tangle, a website started by Isaac Saul (https://www.readtangle.com/). Tangle takes a hot topic every day and shares the opposing views being presented by all sides before sharing their assessment. I don't always agree with their view, but I always learn something.
Finally, with respect to your footnote on Richardson's statement about a measles death, I'll just share the following long quote from NewsGuard's Reality Check (who apply the same methods to misinformation from all sources, left and right).
What happened: Anti-vaccine activists are claiming that the first reported U.S. measles death in a decade was caused by “medical error,” not measles. The narrative, which has attracted millions of views on X, was launched by a group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Context: In late February, an unvaccinated six-year-old girl in Texas died from measles, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, amid an outbreak in the state that grew to 327 cases as of March 21.
A closer look: On March 19, Children’s Health Defense (Trust Score: 17.5/100), the anti-vaccine group founded by RFK Jr., posted a video on X saying that measles was not the girl’s cause of death.
• In the video, Dr. Pierre Kory, a frequent proponent of the false claim that the drug ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment, said that he had reviewed the child’s medical records and determined the child “did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination.”
• Kory claimed that the child died due to a “medical error” caused by the hospital not properly treating her pneumonia. “You see the media’s going nuts about how everyone needs to get vaccinated,” Kory stated. “We’ve been treating pneumonia for decades with antibiotics, and this was just a tragic error.”
The girl’s family shared the medical records with Children’s Health Defense, according to a March 19 article on the group’s website. The records have not been made public. Kory and Children’s Health Defense did not respond to NewsGuard’s emails asking whether the group would release the records and seeking comment on the claims made in the video.
Where it spread: The Children’s Health Defense video generated 1.2 million views and 19,000 likes on X in five days.
• The video was cited in articles in the Natural News network (Trust Score: 5/100) of health misinformation websites and the AI-generated CountyLocalNews.com. A March 23 post of the video by X user @VigilantFox amassed 1.5 million views in one day.
• Kory repeated the claim in a March 20 episode of former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast “Bannon’s War Room,” which has 1 million followers on Rumble, as well as in the March 21 episode of “The Jimmy Dore Show” podcast, whose YouTube account has 1.4 million subscribers.
Actually: The child died of measles, according to state and federal health officials, and confirmed by the hospital that treated her.
• Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, where the 6-year-old was treated, said during a February 2025 press conference that the child died due to measles complications.
• Asked about the Children’s Health Defense video, the hospital told NewsGuard in a March 20 emailed statement that the video “contains misleading and inaccurate claims regarding care provided at Covenant Children’s. Patient confidentiality laws preclude us from providing information directly related to this case.”
The hospital’s statement also noted that pneumonia is a “well-known complication” of measles. In fact, the CDC’s website states, “As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.”
I subscribe to Tangle, though tbh I don't always get to reading it because it is one of many subscriptions. I paid for a year, though, because I want to support that kind of effort towards balance.
I think we would agree bias is inescapable in the sense that all people have it, and yet the important thing is to cultivate an open mind and resist attaching to narratives. We need to stay willing to follow facts and modify our views based on new information.
So in my view, reliable sources are those who challenge consensus and investigate narratives, letting facts lead to conclusions, even unpopular ones. People like Matt Taibbi are an example: he's an old school journalist, lifelong politically Left and a Democrat who suddenly found himself decried as "Rightwing" because he dug into the Russia Collusion story, the facts of which exposed the hoax. His betrayal of anti-Trump orthodoxy got him smeared by the Left as a tool of the Right. This, btw, is why I reject NewsGuard as a reliable vetting organization. In fact, Taibbi investigated their roots and their funding (always follow the money!) and discovered they are hardly an "independent" service protecting the search for truth; they are paid guardians of the Left Narrative, protectors of the elite consensus. It's actually kind of obvious since somehow every journalist who reports against the Narrative gets tagged by NewsGuard as unreliable. (Here's info on their reliability: https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-interview-with-glenn-greenwald)
All of which is to say, their "reality check" of the Texas measles case is completely predictable. The only way they can combat the truth is by implying that CHD lied about the family giving them the medical records (which, given the CHD interview I saw of the parents, they more than likely did share the records) or implying Dr. Pierre Kory—who was highly respected in the critical care field until he dared challenge COVID orthodoxy—is lying about what those medical records show. It's just a transparent hatchet job. Throwing a lot of mud to obscure the basic facts of the story. Very typical of the so-called "fact-checkers" who are deployed to protect the consensus. Very unconvincing for anyone who cares to dig into the actual story instead of their relying on their pretense of a "reality check."
Oren Cass may be an "outlier" perspective relative to the chorus of economists forwarded by mainstream media, but he's in good company with plenty of other economists who I've seen making the case for Trump's tariffs and/or critiquing the pros and cons of his policy with nuance.
Lastly, in pondering your reply and trying to pinpoint what specifically it is about Heather Cox Richardson that unsettles me, sets her apart IMO from the broad field of commentators across the spectrum, I realized that what I see in her and her following is something I've witnessed before. Participated in.
Through much of the 90s I was a daily devoted listener of Rush Limbaugh. A True Believer in the morality and righteousness of his worldview. I see in HCR the same kind of genius I eventually came to recognize in him: the gift of narrative spinning that appears so comprehensively true and feels so ideologically compelling it inspires unquestioning faith in its accuracy and its messenger, a belief in its oracular vision. The medium is different—radio vs writing—and the scale is different—20 million weekly listeners vs 20K subscribers. But it's the same devoted worshipful energy, the same construction a cult-like mindset of ungenerous certainty that does nothing to facilitate curiosity and dialogue across the divide, which is a tad more concerning now, given how deep and wide the political chasm has grown.
Thanks for the response, Leah. Much we can agree on. Particularly appreciate the comments on Rush Limbaugh as his show was what set me out on the path to rethinking the Conservative Narrative (precisely because it was so clear that he was twisting, exaggerating, and entirely about revving up his listeners for his own benefit). I don't think NewsGuard was suggesting the family didn't share the records with CHD. I think they were saying they should share the records with everyone if they are going to make the claims they are making. I would just caution that more often than not the consensus narrative exists because that is a reasonable interpretation of events. Not saying there aren't frauds and self-interested folks trying to pull the wool over. Just saying that it's easy to create "alternative" narratives applying the very same errors or self-interest.
I think this is where our key disagreement is, in terms of our how we process information: "more often than not the consensus narrative exists because that is a reasonable interpretation of events. Not saying there aren't frauds and self-interested folks trying to pull the wool over. Just saying that it's easy to create "alternative" narratives applying the very same errors or self-interest."
Consensus narratives do provide a reasonable interpretation of events, but "reasonable" is not the same thing as *true.* Consensus narratives are easy to manufacture and promote from within institutions (especially in the absence of a skeptical press), which is why I think it is not a coincidence that so-called "consensus" narratives are nearly always the officially recognized narrative of the powers that be. Think of all the recent government advanced, media-defended narratives about COVID: wet market origin; efficacy of masking, of social distancing, of lockdowns; "safe & effective" shots to stop viral spread and end the pandemic (until they clearly did not and the "consensus" was switched on a dime to "prevent hospitalization"). The consensus narrative back in Galileo's day was that the earth was the center of the universe—and I'm sure it looked that way to most people. Thus it was easy to protect and difficult to challenge.
IMO, consensus narratives are a strategic tool of the powerful, especially in a free society. They are an obvious means of advancing an end-run around the legal barriers protecting liberty by manipulating the populace towards preferred outcomes (which usually involve protecting power and the powerful). The real value of our ability to think critically and speak freely as citizens is in our willingness to question and investigate consensus narratives rather than trust they are true simply because they sound "reasonable" and/or are widely believed and/or are the officially accepted explanations. Hence, my skepticism.
We can agree on skepticism. I'm just saying one must also apply it to the echo chamber of the skeptics.
Agreed.
I am reminded of a very insightful piece I saw on the Bulwark a couple of months ago that made the point that the skeptical approach had reached a point where if someone arguinig against a "mainstream" point of view got one thing right, their followers decided that everything that followed was right; whereas, if a mainstream commentator got one thing wrong (and of course we all do), the skeptic felt justified to conclude that everything they said was wrong (and probably with bad intent). I'm just working to avoid this excess.
One could say the exact same about the shift in content/tone by elite legacy media. (Which makes sense, because as I said elsewhere, Richardson and her ilk just dress up those narratives in academic credentials.) I stopped reading WaPo (2016) and NYT (2018) for informational purposes because of the growing feeling the news articles were editorially selected and constructed to manipulate me rather than report.
The more disturbing question is whether this is truly a philosophical shift, or whether Trump exposed their ulterior motives—requiring them to take more transparent (to critical news consumers) measures to achieve their aim of promoting the liberal internationalist elite consensus from their platforms.
Thank you for saying that as I feel the same way. I'm more afraid of the things that are described in this article and others by Leah (the manipulation of the idealogues and their elite and the people who allow themselves to be manipulated) as well as the intense emotion and outrage in our current culture than I am of anything Trump and his team are currently doing. I can manage an economic crisis - but could do so even better if there wasn't so much division, anger, and close-mindedness. Perhaps Trump's methods will ultimately bring us all together as Americans, if that is even possible anymore.
Right there with you, exactly! Thank you.