ELDER: How news aggregators reinforce political ignorance

Aggregators tell people what they want to know.

Published May 23, 2026  •  3 minute read

A man shows a smartphone with the logo of social network TikTok. Photo by Loic Venance /Getty Images

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The other day, a young lady got on the elevator and promptly whipped out her smartphone and began scrolling.

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“Excuse me,” I said, “can I ask you where you get your news?”

She said, “You mean like news about what’s going on in the world?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, TikTok.”

This reminded me of a dinner conversation I once had with economist Thomas Sowell. We discussed the overwhelming consensus among economists that the minimum wage does more damage than good. He called the minimum wage perhaps one of the most studied topics in the field.

Sowell talked about a 1987 New York Times editorial with the headline, “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.” It said:

“… There’s a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market …

“An increase in the minimum wage to, say, $4.35 would restore the purchasing power of bottom-tier wages. It would also permit a minimum-wage breadwinner to earn almost enough to keep a family of three above the official poverty line. There are catches, however. It would increase employers’ incentives to evade the law, expanding the underground economy. More important, it would increase unemployment: Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and fewer will be hired.”

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Now The New York Times has since reversed its position. But Economics 101 has not been repealed.

“Given this consensus,” I asked Sowell, “why does the minimum wage remain so popular even among some Republican politicians? Why haven’t you economists won this argument?”

He said, “Because many people, especially on the left, have never heard the arguments against the minimum wage. They get their information from TV news, and they’re not interested in the downside of the minimum wage.”

This conversation about this “ignorance bubble” took place about 25 years ago. Today, most people no longer get their news from the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC.

News aggregators like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, TikTok and YouTube now serve as primary news conveyors and deliver the news feeds that pop up on smartphones. As aggregators, they select stories from news outlets and serve them to consumers based on what the platforms think users want to see.

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This means the aggregators increasingly prioritize stories that reinforce a user’s preexisting worldview. Their goal is to keep the user glued to the phone. The best way to do this is to tell people what they want to hear and give “news” that confirms what they already believe. And that’s the problem: People increasingly consume information that confirms their beliefs instead of challenging them.

All Sides is a company that measures media bias, whether from the left or the right. This is from a recent analysis:

“AllSides conducted news aggregator bias analyses in late 2025. Among the most biased remain Google News and Apple News — in 2025, Google News (Lean Left) curated 73% of articles from outlets with a bias on the left and just 1% of articles from outlets on the right. Apple News (Lean Left) curated 50% from the left and just 2% from the right.

“Most news aggregators curate primarily from media outlets with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Lean Left or Left. Our 2025 analyses found that most curate less than 10% of articles from news outlets rated Lean Right or Right. Aggregators tend to source from legacy media outlets that Americans and expert bias reviewers on average rate Lean Left or Left, like CNN (Lean Left), AP (Left bias), and The New York Times (Lean Left).”

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Take one narrative pushed by the likes of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “The rich don’t pay their fair share in taxes.” In fact, the top 10% of earners pay nearly 75% of all federal income taxes. The top 1% pay over 40% while earning roughly 20% of the nation’s income. These numbers certainly undermine the narrative that “the rich don’t pay their fair share.” Indeed, based on their share of the nation’s income versus their share of federal taxes paid, one could argue that the rich are overtaxed.

Large numbers of Americans do not know this. If the news aggregators have anything to say about it, many Americans never will.

Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host.

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