TMZ turning to Congress is a win for the GOP
When I first heard Harvey Levin had put out a call from TMZ to turn the general public into a paparazzi-style press corps that would hound lawmakers caught in the wild during a partial government shutdown, I admit, I appreciated the chance of tangible accountability. A sighting of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chatting with Mickey Mouse, wand in hand, felt almost cathartic. But the idea that TMZ has suddenly discovered a civic conscience strains credulity.
I soon remembered that Levin is widely reported to allow his personal relationship with Donald Trump to dictate the way the president is covered on the site. One staffer told ThinkProgress during Trump’s first term that “Harvey just really likes powerful people, and he really likes having friends who are powerful, and who better than the President of the United States?” Then, in 2021, TMZ was acquired by Fox Corporation for $50 million.
Congress getting tabloid treatment sounds, at first blush, exactly where American democracy stands in the Trump era. But progressives desperate for any sign of a functioning media ecosystem should be leery of TMZ’s Washington pivot.
Congress getting tabloid treatment sounds, at first blush, exactly where American democracy stands in the Trump era. But progressives desperate for any sign of a functioning media ecosystem should be leery of TMZ’s Washington pivot. In a moment when one party holds unified power in Washington, the media outlet is actively working to blur the lines of accountability with “both sides” framing that ultimately serves to protect power.
“Maybe they’re on a cruise somewhere, or in Hawaii or some other great place. We want those pictures,” Levin said in a video soliciting images from the public. “And the point of this is to show how fed up the American people are — because we are.” He’s not wrong; people are righteously fed up. Federal workers going without pay while elected officials jet off to vacations is obscene. And the core insight — that viral footage of lawmakers enjoying themselves while their constituents suffer can generate real pressure on them to do the right thing — is sound.
But then Levin told viewers that Congress was “insulting our intelligence by thinking, ‘Oh, we can [one] get over on them by blaming it on the other party,’” adding that the fault lies with “both parties.”
The public, quite rationally, tends to assign blame to the party in power. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. The Senate reached a bipartisan funding deal to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rejected it. He then put the House into recess rather than allow a vote he knew he would lose. Polling from Quinnipiac, Navigator, ABC/Washington Post/Ipsos and Economist/YouGov shows independents understand this reality and disproportionately blame Republicans for government dysfunction, including the ongoing partial shutdown and last fall’s full shutdown, which was the longest in history.
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The “both sides” framework is perhaps the most reliable tool in the right’s rhetorical arsenal because it does not require a defense of the indefensible. If you simply muddy the political waters just enough, voters feel justified in their exhaustion with all of it — and then they either stay home, or seek to blow up the system with a protest vote. Levin, for his part, has launched a political movement he calls OWTA (for Out With Their Asses), calling on voters to support non-incumbents during the midterms — and explicitly making it clear he blames both Democrats and Republicans equally.
When TMZ reported on dozens of lawmakers visiting Edinburgh Castle on a taxpayer-funded trip this week, described by Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis, as “high level meetings with [our] counterparts in the Irish government,” the outlet conspicuously avoided identifying them as Republicans. The one fact — political affiliation — that signals who to hold accountable was deliberately stripped out of the headlines and social media captions. Neither was there any reporting on whether the congressional delegation was lodging at either of Trump’s two resorts in Scotland. As good as it may feel, TMZ’s coverage is nothing more than accountability theater.
Unfortunately, it’s likely to work. According to the Pew Research Center, more than half of American adults now get at least some of their news from social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, X and TikTok. On social media, a viral clip rarely comes with context attached. The billionaires in control of our algorithms, like Elon Musk, reward right-wing content. On X and TikTok, TMZ’s sightings of lawmakers across the country receive several times more engagement than interviews with lawmakers or even their celebrity posts.
To be clear, Democrats are not above criticism. No serious political observer believes they are; their participation in the revolving door between public service and corporate lobbying is particularly corrosive. But the idea that the two parties are currently mirror images of dysfunction is not supported by evidence. That notion is a false narrative that disproportionately benefits the GOP, a party that thrives in chaos and low-information environments.
Tabloid tactics can expose power, but they can also be co-opted by it. TMZ on Capitol Hill is not the independent media cavalry arriving to save American democracy. Instead we need to call it what it really is: controlled opposition with Fox Corporation for a parent.
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