Commentary Culture Investigations

Nicholas Giordano, Federalist

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Stu Smith, City Journal At its inception, the Sunrise Movement was a youth-led climate advocacy organization. The group made a major splash during the first Trump administration, with…

Jim Carlton, WSJ

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American ThinkerThe Democrats’ hostility to the free market led to Spirit Airlines’ collapse, but it’s important to appreciate how the Trump team helped customers and employees.

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Cs35029All it takes to obtain artistic dominance is the right support system — one the current administration could provide.

With our fifth annual Bulldog Awards in eight categories announced today, the Media Research Center is honoring conservatives in the media who truly deserve accolades yet will never receive them from the elitist news media establishment.

The winners of the MRC’s 2026 Bulldog Awards: Patrick J. Buchanan, Dana Loesch, Douglas Murray, Stephen L. Miller, Nick Minock, Shermichael Singleton, Jennie Taer and the Morning Wire podcast. 

The biggest journalism awards, the Pulitzer Prizes, were announced on Monday, May 4. As usual, they honored journalists who pushed liberal agenda topics. (See the bottom of this post for some examples.)

“This year’s Media Research Center Bulldog Award winners stand in stark contrast to the elitist media’s herd mentality,” said MRC President David Bozell. “These courageous journalists refuse to follow the pack, choosing instead to deliver truth over narrative, facts over favoritism, and accountability over activism. They represent the best of American journalism — independent, fearless, and committed to informing the public rather than manipulating it.”

Previous: 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 Bulldog winners.

Recipients of the MRC Bulldog Awards are recognized for their commitment to truth in journalism, often elevating stories and perspectives that establishment outlets overlook or suppress.

Details on the eight winners of the MRC’s 2026 Bulldog Awards were announced on Tuesday, May 5:

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Lifetime Achievement: Patrick J. Buchanan

There would likely be no successful Make America Great movement, no victory by a two-term President Trump over the “fake news media,” without Patrick J. Buchanan, a pugilist for the conservative movement, an outspoken warrior for social conservative values, and a leader in the battle against the leftist elite media since the 1960s.

Over his six-decade career, Buchanan assumed a multiplicity of high-profile roles in politics and the media, from serving President Richard Nixon as a speechwriter, to battling with liberals on television five nights a week, to running for president himself.

As a Special Assistant to President Richard Nixon, he helped craft many of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s challenges to the out-of-touch left-wing media. Soon after, he started writing what would become a must-read nationally syndicated column which ran for nearly 50 years.

Through his writing and television roles, Buchanan became the voice for conservative cultural values, earning the respect and admiration of conservatives and the working class who felt under assault by the liberal elites. In 1982 he became a star panelist on the widely popular McLaughlin Group weekly TV show, where he was the most prominent conservative voice in the TV landscape, a decade and a half before the Fox News Channel was launched. A few years later, he assumed the conservative chair on CNN’s Crossfire, taking on liberals nightly for nearly two decades.

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Radio Talk Show Host: Dana Loesch

The number one female talk radio host, Dana Loesch delivers a bold, no-nonsense style paired with sharp insight that has earned a loyal national following. She consistently challenges liberal orthodoxy by exposing hypocrisy and contradiction. Her Christian perspective and strong advocacy for the Second Amendment resonate with Americans across the country.

She produces her afternoon award-winning radio program, The Dana Show, from Dallas, Texas. Heard on some of the biggest talk outlets around the country, airing on over 150 stations, it’s also distributed as a podcast and a video version of the show is simulcast live on The First streaming channel. She began her career as a newspaper columnist in her hometown of St. Louis before moving to radio in 2008.

Loesch appears regularly on television news and has provided election analysis/commentary for Fox, ABC and CNN. Most memorably, she faced fierce opposition to her gun-rights stance at an infamous CNN “town hall” program hosted by Jake Tapper after the Parkland High School mass shooting in 2019.

Loesch is also a book author, having written Hands Off My Gun: Defending the Plot to Disarm America, Flyover Nation: You Can’t Run a Country You’ve Never Been To, and Grace Canceled: How Outrage is Destroying Lives, Ending Debate, and Endangering Democracy.

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Columnist: Douglas Murray

Born in London, but now based in New York, Douglas Murray uses his familiarity with both sides of the Atlantic to inform his sharp perspectives about the challenges facing not only the United States, but Western Civilization as a whole.

Murray’s columns in the United States for the New York Post, and in Britain for The Spectator, have examined how self-styled “tolerant” voices on the left can embrace extremist causes, the role of Big Tech in suppressing conservative viewpoints and the risks of unassimilated immigration. His work reflects the kind of bold, clear-eyed commentary too often absent from today’s media landscape. 

Amongst his outstanding 2025 columns: “How did young people go so wrong they cheer killers and rapists of Hamas?”; “Probe the foreign influence behind these terror-loving, anti-Jew college agitators”; “Violent, lawless Antifa forces deserve to be labeled terrorists” and “Afghan terror and Somalia fraud shows why Trump is right on migrants.”

Murray is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He has written eight books. His latest, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, became an instant New York Times bestseller in 2025 and was praised by President Trump as a “really great and impactful book” amid rising anti-Semitism on America’s college campuses after October 7.

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Social Media Personality: Stephen L. Miller

Stephen L. Miller is best known as @RedSteeze on X where he’s one of the right’s most prolific posters of media criticism and unflinching takes, building a following of more than 500,000 who value his sharp takes which hold all sides to scrutiny.

A re-post or like from Miller carries weight among others covering the media. His steady stream of 20 or more posts each day often drives just as many pieces on Twitchy and keeps his audience engaged. 

Whether it’s using ongoing bits about Sen. John Fetterman, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan and Brian Stelter, or The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, Miller’s biting posts leave followers wanting more. A re-post or like by Miller is coveted by others critiquing the news media since his favorable take on them substantially increase their reach and impact.

As host of the Versus Media podcast on Substack, his analysis is reinforced by comedic takes. As his podcast description accurately notes, he complements his analysis with “a dash of sardonic and irreverent humor.” 

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalist: Nick Minock

Nick Minock is one of the country’s most impactful and recognizable local news reporters for his unflinching reporting, especially inside Northern Virginia, documenting how local government “sanctuary” and soft on crime policies led to more becoming crime victims. 

He’s been a reporter with WJLA – the ABC affiliate in the Washington D.C. market – for over five years following stops in Minneapolis, Duluth, Charleston, and Lansing. At WJLA, he highlighted how local government “sanctuary” localities were soft on crime, resulting in an increase in crime and victims. In December, Minock was first to reveal a Reston, Virginia murder was allegedly committed by an illegal alien from El Salvador who had been released from prison a day earlier by the sheriff following the county’s “sanctuary’ policy.

Minock increased awareness of transgender policies pursued by Northern Virginia school districts, even pressing Abigail Spanberger, before she won the governorship, on her education and immigration policies, including whether she would support boys being allowed in girls’ locker rooms. Minock brought to the forefront the case of an aging, white male who repeatedly terrorized women in fitness locker rooms by pretending to be a woman while facing minimal resistance from the Soros-backed district attorney.

Minock embodies the type of old-school journalism that is sorely missed in today’s world. 

 

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Achievement Behind Enemy Lines: Shermichael Singleton

The conservative tag team partner of Scott Jennings (last year’s winner of this award) at CNN, Shermichael Singleton undermines the opposition with kindness and the facts. 

He brings a strong, principled conservative perspective to CNN broadcasts, often in settings where he is outnumbered. In those moments, he challenges assumptions directly and exposes inconsistencies with confidence. Singleton fearlessly puts a mirror in front of the liberal panelists and throws their hypocrisy in their faces. He also doesn’t have an issue with pressing back on the liberal hosts when they push falsehoods or try to falsely “correct” him.

A Media Research Center analysis found that he was the second most interrupted conservative on CNN NewsNight, a distinction that reflects how effectively he presses his points and pushes back in real time. 

Following CNN’s decision to cut loose previous Bulldog winner Stephen Gutowski (our 2022 Outstanding Blogger), Singleton is the most pro-Second Amendment voice at the network. Co-owner of GunsOut TV and We The Free, a quickly expanding platform and home for firearms and conservative political content, Singleton works tirelessly to support the Second Amendment. (Photo: MRC President David Bozell presents the Bulldog Award to Shermichael Singleton)

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Reporter: Jennie Taer

Jennie Taer excels at delivering unique, fresh reporting on illegal immigration and related issues. Her reporting on President Donald Trump’s immigration raids has been both immediate and substantive, blending firsthand coverage with clear analysis.

She joined the Daily Wire as an immigration reporter in September 2025 after a year and a half at the New York Post and three years at the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Houston-based Taer began 2025 with an exclusive inside the home of the New Orleans Islamist terrorist that was left open after a law enforcement raid. From there, she was a leading journalist covering President Trump’s immigration deportation raids from both a boots-on-the-ground view and covering the numerical surge. On the former, she engaged in multiple ride-alongs and visited both borders to describe the effect of the change in presidencies. On the latter, she penned near weekly stories about the number of deportations in comparison to President Biden.

She broke stories on ICE and DEA moving in to break up a Tren de Aragua-run apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado and multiple exclusives on the administration’s efforts to combat lax vetting for migrant children leaving them susceptible to sex trafficking and human exploitation.

For her first story in November with the Daily Wire, she conducted a series of exclusives with ICE agents assaulted in the line of duty. 

♦ 2026 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Podcast: Morning Wire

Daily Wire’s Morning Wire podcast lives up to its promise of delivering “15 minutes of what matters, nothing that doesn’t—the common-sense approach to morning news.” For those who wish to avoid the left-wing prism through which traditional media elite morning broadcast TV and cable news skews the world, the Morning Wire podcast provides an informative, professionally-produced, alternative in a concise package.
    
The weekday morning podcast, available in video form on the Daily Wire’s site and via audio elsewhere, presents a rundown of the top news of the day, with an emphasis on Washington, DC political news, illuminated with soundbites and clips.

The Morning Wire is informed by the Daily Wire’s staff of reporters who appear on-camera to provide first-hand and insightful reporting from the White House, Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Many episodes are enhanced by bringing on expert guests, interviewed by one of the podcast’s hosts, Georgia Howe or Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley.

2026 Pulitzer Prizes. As noted above, the biggest journalism awards were announced on May 4. As expected, they honored journalists who pushed liberal agenda topics, but not any conservative outlet or agenda topic. Examples of winners awarded for advancing anti-Trump narratives:

> Investigative Reporting: “Staff of the New York Times for deeply reported stories that exposed how President Trump has shattered constraints on conflicts of interest and exploited the moneymaking opportunities that come with power, enriching his family and allies.”

> Local Reporting: “Staff of Chicago Tribune for its powerful coverage of the Trump administration’s militarized immigration sweep of the city that described, in vivid muscular prose, how the siege-like incursion of ICE agents unified Chicagoans in resistance.”

> National Reporting: “Staff of Reuters…for documenting how the President used the U.S. government and the influence of his supporters to expand executive power and exact vengeance on his foes.”

> Public Service: “The Washington Post for piercing the veil of secrecy around the Trump administration’s chaotic overhaul of federal agencies and chronicling in rich detail the human impacts of the cuts and the consequences for the country.”

> PDF of all past Bulldog Award winners

> 2025 MRC Bulldog Award winners

> 2024 MRC Bulldog Award winners

> 2023 MRC Bulldog Award winners

> 2023 MRC Bulldog Award for Lifetime Achievement: Brit Hume

> 2022 MRC Bulldog Award winners

> 2022 MRC Bulldog Award for Lifetime Achievement: Cal Thomas

 

Comedy Central’s Monday host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, welcomed lawyer and professor Sherrilyn Ifill to the program to react to the Supreme Court’s latest ruling regarding the Voting Rights Act. However, Stewart also invited Ifill to give a larger history lesson, which led him to laugh at the Court’s 2013 ruling that got rid of the need for DOJ preclearance for southern states because racism in 2026 is not the same as it was in 1965.

Stewart began by asserting, “What are the metrics for how we decided things have changed? Because I would assume that those metrics are the result of Section Five.”

Cracking himself up, he continued, “Is this—is it literally as bad as ‘Section Five has worked so well, let’s remove Section Five?’”

 

Jon Stewart thinks the idea that the country isn’t as racist as it was in the 60s is haliarious, “Is this—is it literally as bad as Section Five has worked so well, let’s remove Section Five?” Prof. Sherrilyn Ifill goes on to echo the left’s favorite Ruth Bader Ginsburg-umbrella… pic.twitter.com/DsX7BbTRKu
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) May 5, 2026
 

Ifill responded by citing the left’s favorite Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote, “That is what the late, great Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. She said that eliminating Section Five now is like using an umbrella, and it keeps you dry, and then you say, ‘Well, let me throw away the umbrella because I am dry even though it is raining outside.’”

Her proof that it is still raining was quite underwhelming, “So, that’s what happened. That was now gone. Now we didn’t have preclearance, and you all may have noticed in the last ten years, the explosion of voter ID laws and voter suppression laws, that came as a result of 2013.”

Stewart then scoffed, “Right, because they don’t have to get preclearance. Although, to be fair, if you were trying to get preclearance from this administration, I would imagine they would just go, ‘You’re precleared.’”

It is considered common sense that someone would be legally required to obtain a driver’s license before they drive a car, but requiring that same driver’s license as a form of ID at a polling station is considered 1965-style racism, according to The Daily Show. That is why Stewart’s question is backward. The question should not be what the metrics are to show whether things have changed, but how do Stewart and Ifill decide that things haven’t changed?

Here is a transcript for the May 4 show:

Comedy Central The Daily Show

5/4/2026

11:35 PM ET

JON STEWART: What are the metrics for how we decided things have changed? Because I would assume that those metrics are the result of Section Five.

SHERRILYN IFILL: Yeah, it’s so interesting.

STEWART: Is this—is it literally as bad as—

IFILL: Yeah.

STEWART: — “Section Five has worked so well, let’s remove Section Five?”

IFILL: That is what the late, great Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. She said that eliminating Section Five now is like using an umbrella, and it keeps you dry, and then you say, “Well, let me throw away the umbrella because I am dry even though it is raining outside.”

So, that’s what happened. That was now gone. Now we didn’t have preclearance, and you all may have noticed in the last ten years, the explosion of voter ID laws and voter suppression laws, that came as a result of 2013.

STEWART: Right, because they don’t have to get preclearance. Although, to be fair, if you were trying to get preclearance from this administration, I would imagine they would just go, “You’re precleared.”

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Gage SkidmoreThe slope becomes slippery when people trade freedom for promises of greater safety and security — promises that fall short while shrinking our rights. 

Photo Credit:Free image, Pixabay license.

PixabayIt needs to be recognized that wannabe assassins are either on the edge of mental illness or already there, fantasizing about performing acts of violence; all that they need is a greenlight of encouragement to act upon their fantasy.