#media-polarization

#media-polarization

Previously, the routine would be we express our shock; we express our sadness; we offer our thoughts and prayers; we spend a day, maybe two, arguing about the appropriateness of bringing up guns at all; and then we do nothing until the next time. But as our politics becomes more polarized, even that learned cycle of helplessness has been replaced by a new, post-shooting pastime. That new pastime is, Was this one of yours?'

The recent recommendation from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s advisory panel to restrict the combined MMRV vaccine for children under 4 is troubling. While the panel cites concerns about rare fever-related seizures, the broader implications risk undermining confidence in vaccines that have protected generations from measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox. Parents already face challenges navigating vaccine schedules. Replacing a single shot with multiple appointments complicates the process and may lower vaccination rates at a time when preventable disease outbreaks are resurging.

In response to the June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, mainstream media outlets - both Persian-language and international - largely fell into predictable camps, either backing their preferred state actor or maintaining strategic silence about favored governments' actions. Yet this binary framing has systematically erased the perspectives of Iranian leftist feminists who, even while facing brutal repression from their own government, refuse to be co-opted into supporting external military intervention.