Welcome to another installment of the Media Miss newsletter, where I take readers into the mechanics of the media ecosystem — and highlight the articles that partisan hacks hope will never reach your newsfeed.
Media Mechanics
If you’re reading this newsletter, either in your inbox or on the Straight Arrow site, thank you. Straight Arrow recently began offering subscriptions, and this is a premium article that people must pay to read.
But what if I told you there was another way? That you could have all of this glorious internet content and more — for free.
This week, I dig into the economics of news paywalls, and all the ways people now use to sidestep them. First up, a sobering statistic: Just 0.21% of people subscribe to a news site after hitting a paywall. That’s 21 out of every 10,000.
This was the finding of a forthcoming report by researchers from Notre Dame and Georgia Tech, who analyzed a year of data from an unidentified, but I’m told large, daily newspaper.
As the media industry as a whole struggles to keep its lights on, the research highlights the challenges publishers face when few people are willing to open their wallets and pay for the news they consume. Instead, many people turn to workarounds such as archival websites they know little about — and whose operators may leverage their web traffic in ways they never expected. Like cybercrime.
Vamsi Kanuri, a Notre Dame marketing professor and report author, tells me that I should take the piracy of my articles as a compliment — and to realize there’s little I can do to stop it. So go ahead, make my day (OK, but actually, please subscribe here).
“There’s a reason why people are trying very hard to get around your paywall,” Kanuri told me. “They love your coverage.”
Thanks?
Miss Spotlights
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Left Media Miss
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky US sanctions 10 people who are allegedly part of network transferring money to Hezbollah
25% left coverage55% right coverage
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The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against 10 people who it said are part of a network transferring money to Hezbollah. This network, the Treasury Department alleged, uses “couriers traveling on commercial flights to and from Lebanon, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran to move up to hundreds of millions of dollars between jurisdictions,” giving Hezbollah the opportunity to get foreign currency and evade sanctions. In addition, the Treasury Department “redesignated Hezbollah for service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force.”
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Right Media Miss
Kevin Carter/Getty Images Federal judge blocks Trump admin’s changes to Teen Pregnancy Prevention program
83% left coverage9% right coverage
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U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper halted the Trump administration’s changes to the federal Teen Pregnancy Program in a preliminary injunction. These changes include cutting funding for dozens of grants to groups that taught teenagers about contraception, how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. New guidance for grantees required that they teach about abstinence, “body literacy” and fertility. Now, the Department of Health and Human Services cannot use the new guidance when giving out grants.
Last week’s headline, “Vance warns GOP to help improve young Americans’ lives or accept their embracement of socialism,” was a Left Miss, and 60% of you guessed correctly.
Unbalanced Headlines
What happened:
A federal judge on Friday vacated the Trump administration’s policy of suspending the issuance of visas to immigrants from 75 countries, saying it goes against the Immigration and Nationality Act.
🟦 LEFT HEADLINE:
Judge to Trump’s Visa Freeze: ‘Not Your Call to Make’ — 75 Countries Just Got Their Shot Back — Reported by Latin Times on Aug. 22, 2026
🟥 RIGHT HEADLINE:
Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump’s 75-Country Visa Ban Designed to Stop Welfare Abuse — Reported by RedState on Aug. 22, 2026
Competing narratives
Left-leaning media frames the ruling as a victory for affected immigrants and families, arguing the policy unfairly blocked eligible applicants.
Right-leaning media frames the ruling as judicial interference with an “America First” effort to prevent potential welfare abuse.
Both sides agree the judge found Rubio exceeded his authority.
Essential Reads
- Political foes unite in a common cause: de-Flocking America
- Trump shares the airwaves with a man he once called a ‘rat’ — his former fixer Michael Cohen
- This company checks schoolwork for AI cheating. Now it wants to use students’ papers to train AI
- A vibe shift online? How tradwives’ ‘girlboss’ turns indicate a changing content market
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Getty Images Political foes unite in a common cause: de-Flocking America
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images Trump shares the airwaves with a man he once called a ‘rat’ — his former fixer Michael Cohen
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Justin Paget/Getty Images This company checks schoolwork for AI cheating. Now it wants to use students’ papers to train AI
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Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images for Valentino A vibe shift online? How tradwives’ ‘girlboss’ turns indicate a changing content market
Round out your reading
- All your questions about napping, answered.
- Trump’s $5,000 promise echoes past payouts that never materialized.
- Inside the effort to make data centers pay their share of electricity costs.
- Why did the Feds seize the ’largest Martian meteorite on Earth’?
- Photos and video show exactly where and when Trump visited Ground Zero after 9/11.
