It’s the ‘Worsties’ – listing the 25 worst people in news media

Being awful pays off in today’s attention economy, but it also deserves ridicule

There’s a strong incentive in today’s news media to be awful. If you’re really awful, you can draw a huge audience and make big money.

But awfulness disgusts decent people. So I compiled this highly opinionated list of the 25 worst people in the news media. I cast a wide net here: Anyone who reports, analyzes, or disseminates news is eligible for this list. I call these dishonors the “Worsties.”

Candace Owens

The queen of crackpots claims, without evidence, that French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, was born male. Yet millions love Owens’ carny act. She has more than 24.5 million followers and subscribers on her platforms, an 80% increase since Jan. 1, 2025, according to Media Matters.

Scott Jennings

CNN pays this guy to lie. He blamed the devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires on diversity hiring in the fire department.

Jeff Bezos

There aren’t too many media owners on this list, but after his vandalism of the Washington Post, it’s impossible to leave Bezos off.

Joe Rogan

This podcaster endorsed libertarian Ron Paul in 2012, progressive Bernie Sanders in 2020, and fascist Donald Trump in 2024. Now he says he feels misled by Trump. Rogan’s lack of a coherent political philosophy doesn’t stop him from sharing his political philosophy with millions.

Bari Weiss

She’s a right-wing opinion editor masquerading as a straight-news editor, overseeing the trashing of CBS News. (And the Ellison family gets a dishonorable mention for hiring her.)

Tim Pool

It’s no wonder this podcaster was funded by Russia (supposedly without his knowledge): He spreads hate and disinformation. When Trump took office last year, Pool posted: “Trans people officially don’t exist anymore.” Last December, he amplified false claims that a Palestinian student was linked to the shooting at Brown University.

Benny Johnson

Check out the video in which this dead-souled podcaster visits the headquarters of USAID to giddily celebrate its closure – a move by the Trump regime that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths overseas. (Johnson, like Pool, was funded by Russia, supposedly without his knowledge.)

Greg Kelly

This Newsmax anchor was offended by pastels in the Super Bowl LX logo, calling it “a little bit LGBT queer-ish.” He said the NFL is “trying to destroy America.”

Chris Cuomo

CNN fired him as an anchor for a breach of ethics after he covertly used his journalism connections to investigate people accusing his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, of sexual harassment. NewsNation hired the CNN castoff. His prime-time show regularly features former Fox sexual harasser Bill O’Reilly.

Jesse Watters

This Fox host says billionaires should “make the homeless people in Skid Row fight like gladiators” to entertain the public.

Matt Walsh

This podcaster said it would be better for a child to have an arm cut off than to be raised by gay parents.

Megyn Kelly

I wrote a whole piece recently about this podcaster and former Fox host. Last year, she seemed to downplay Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, saying “somebody very close to this case” told her Epstein ”was not a pedophile” – that “he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds” but “liked 15-year-old girls.” (Which would make him a pedophile, Megyn.)

Brian Kilmeade

This Fox host had a solution to the problem of mentally ill homeless people: “Involuntary lethal injection … or something. Just kill them.” He later apologized.

Sean Hannity

This longtime Fox host said there should be a “political litmus test” for people who want to move from blue states to red states to make sure they don’t bring their “idiotic left-wing radicalized policies” with them.

Ainsley Earnhardt

This Fox host said Taylor Swift “needs to have babies” and claimed the United States defeated “communist Japan” in World War II.

Nick Fuentes

This podcaster who dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 is a Holocaust denier. In 2019, he used “cookie baking” as an analogy for Jews being murdered in Nazi death camps, saying, “Six million cookies? I’m not buying it.”

Tucker Carlson

He platformed Nick Fuentes on his podcast last year. Even some fellow right-wingers thought that was too much. Others defended it.

Lachlan Murdoch

This Fox Corp. CEO carries on the mission of his father, Rupert, to destroy our democracy.

Ben Domenech

Meghan McCain’s husband faced a plagiarism scandal early in his career, but that didn’t stop him. He later co-founded The Federalist, which until 2017 had a “black crime” tag to aggregate stories on that topic. Fox News features Domenech as a contributor.

Laura Ingraham

This Fox host declared five days after the start of the Iran war that “Trump has already won in Iran.” Eighteen days later, there’s so much winning that Mideast energy facilities are in ruins, U.S. gasoline prices are way up, and Trump is sending more troops to the region.

Kathleen Parker

How does someone keep a job at the Washington Post after writing a column before the 2016 election headlined “Calm down. We’ll be fine no matter who wins” and following it up with one in 2018 headlined “Calm down. Roe v. Wade isn’t going anywhere”?

Bill Maher

Fox likes to call him a “liberal” when he criticizes the left, as if that means liberals know they’re wrong. Maher isn’t a liberal. He’s a tool.

Riley Gaines

She’s the perfect symbol of today’s attention economy. Finish in a tie for fifth place with a trans woman in a swim meet, get mad about it, create a career as an anti-trans crusader, and get a podcast on Outkick and Fox about politics and culture.

Elon Musk

X’s owner promotes lies and white supremacy on a massive scale. Truly one of the worst human beings alive today.

Mark Zuckerberg

The Meta CEO’s appearance in the row of oligarchs at the 2025 Trump inauguration made it clear that he’ll play nice with the president to keep making billions. Last year, Meta dropped third-party fact-checking, which no doubt pleased Trump, the most outrageous liar in public life.

Agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed anyone? Give me your comments.

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This week’s media atrocity

RIP CBS radio news.

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