Disney’s role in fueling middle-class resentment was Media Nation’s top post of 2025

1. How two-tier Disney is helping to fuel the rise of middle-class anger and resentment (Sept. 2). Taking your family to a Disney resort has always been an expensive proposition — but at least you had the sense that everyone was in it together. Not anymore. As The New York Times reported, Disney in recent years has embraced a two-tier system that shuts out middle-class and working-class families. You have to pay massive fees to avoid standing in line for top attractions. You have to stay at an expensive Disney hotel or other Disney-owned accommodations even to get access to the best deals. Our once-common culture has split in two, one for the shrinking middle class, the other for the rich.

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2. The Associated Press tells its book critics that it’s ending weekly reviews (Aug. 8). It’s always humbling when I republish a memo and attract more traffic than my own deathless prose is able to generate. Anyway, a Media Nation correspondent passed along a depressing note from Anthony McCartney, the AP’s global entertainment and lifestyle editor, that began:

I am writing to share that the AP is ending its weekly book reviews, beginning Sept. 1. This was a difficult decision but one made after a thorough review of AP’s story offerings and what is being most read on our website and mobile apps as well as what customers are using. Unfortunately, the audience for book reviews is relatively low and we can no longer sustain the time it takes to plan, coordinate, write and edit reviews. AP will continue covering books as stories, but at the moment those will handled exclusively by staffers.

3. Renée Graham quits Globe editorial board over Charlie Kirk editorial but will remain as a columnist (Sept. 18). The shocking public murder of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk prompted some disingenuous commentary from observers who should have known better — including The Boston Globe’s editorial board, which ran a piece whose headline initially read “We need more Charlie Kirks.” The editorial intoned that “his weapon of choice was always words,” making no reference to his doxxing of left-wing academics, leading to harassment and death threats. That prompted Renée Graham to quit the editorial board in protest. Fortunately for those of us who value her voice, she has continued writing her column and her newsletter.

4. Rumbles on the right: David Brooks calls for an “uprising,” while Bill Kristol and Lisa Murkowski speak out (April 18). OK, I took some liberties with the headline. Brooks and Kristol are moderate conservatives of the Never Trump variety, while Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska, has been willing at least occasionally to deviate from the MAGA line. Still, it was notable that the mild-mannered Brooks would call for a “national civic uprising,” that Kristol would urge the abolition of ICE, and that Murkowski would speak frankly about the fear that she and her fellow Republicans experience over standing up to Donald Trump. Sadly, the authoritarianism thuggishness continues.

5. Boston.com, the Globe’s free site since its launch 30 years ago, is adding a metered paywall (Oct. 23). Boston.com, launched in the mid-1990s as a hub comprising several different media organizations with free access to The Boston Globe at its center, has continued as a free service since 2011, when the Globe was split off as a paid subscription site. The new Boston.com subscription fee of $5 a month will kick in only after you access a certain number of stories. That raises hopes that Globe executives will use it to experiment with a metered paywall for the Globe itself, which currently does not offer any gift links.

6. Have the Red Sox gone MAGA? Here’s what we know about that meet-and-greet with Trump (July 5). Say it ain’t so! During an off-day before a series with the Washington Nationals, a number of Red Sox players decided to visit the White House — and they were greeted in the Oval Office by none other than Donald Trump. Neither Alex Cora nor any coaches were present, and Red Sox owners John and Linda Henry are generally regarded as politically liberal. Probably the most amusing aspect of the visit was that ace pitcher Garrett Crochet, who skipped the MAGA encounter, took to social media and posted a photo of a panda he’d taken while visiting the Washington National Zoo.

7. A trio of veteran journalists prepares to launch a for-profit local news outlet in Medford, Mass. (Jan. 21). Several years after Gannett merged the weekly Medford Transcript with the Somerville Journal and began publishing the Transcript & Journal with no local news from either community, three former Gannett journalists began their own media organization in Medford. Gotta Know Medford is digital-only and for-profit, and has gradually been ramping up its cover even though the three women behind it — editor Nell Escobar Coakley, Chris Stevens and Wendall Waters — all have other jobs. Here’s hoping that they continue to move toward sustainability in 2026.

8. Globe editor Nancy Barnes addresses security following an assault on two of her journalists (July 24). Two Globe journalists and two South End residents were attacked in July by alleged drug dealers near the notorious interaction of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, known as Mass and Cass. The incident was initially reported by Jules Roscoe in The Boston Guardian and by Scott Van Voorhis, who writes the newsletter Contrarian Boston, with the Globe trailing several days later. Globe editor Barnes sent an email to the staff offering support and training, writing, “The work of a journalist, serving as a witness, is a challenging job on many days. We never want our journalists to put themselves in danger, or to lack the security and training they need to stay safe.”

9. Little People of America calls out Trump for his wildly offensive rant about people with disabilities (Jan. 31). Following a deadly crash in Washington between a jet and an Army helicopter, Donald Trump ranted about people with disabilities — including dwarfism — being hired by the Federal Aviation Administration. It’s an issue I take special interest in because our adult daughter, Becky, has dwarfism. LPA, a national organization for people with dwarfism and their families, said in a statement: “Little People of America, along with other disability advocacy organizations, are concerned and disgusted by the recent remarks that President Trump and Pete Hegseth made after a deadly mid-air collision yesterday evening — blaming DEI as the reason.”

10. The Washington Post suffers another self-inflicted blow as Ann Telnaes quits over a killed cartoon (Jan. 4). For 10 years, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos was a model owner of The Washington Post. It started falling apart in late 2023, when he hired the ethically challenged Will Lewis as his publisher. But the downward spiral accelerated just before the November 2024 election, when Bezos killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris that was queued up and ready to go. It got worse. Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize winner, quit after editorial-page editor David Shipley killed a cartoon showing several billionaires, including Bezos, groveling before Donald Trump. Shipley himself quit several months later when Bezos decreed that the editorial pages would henceforth be dedicated to “personal liberties and free markets.” The news pages have remained solid. But the Post has lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and at some point you have to wonder whether Bezos will just walk away.

As always, thank you for reading. In the days ahead, I’ll be announcing some changes here at Media Nation. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.