How Charlie Kirk Anticipated the Media Moment
Anna Paulina Luna was a model and influencer when she crossed paths with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA in the mid 2010s. In short order, she was the group’s director of Hispanic outreach and then, as of 2023, a US congressperson. Speaking to Dan Adler on Tuesday, following Kirk’s killing, Luna described her rise on social media and the ways in which Kirk, a far-right figure for whom controversy and attention were commodities, helped her learn to use the medium. “Charlie taught me how to do it early on,” Luna told Adler for his story on how Kirk’s tactics redefined the political playing field.
Elsewhere today, Eric Lutz speaks to a leading expert on the rise of political violence; Natalie Korach assesses the Murdoch family détente; and Eve Batey reports on a new documentary that digs in on Leni Riefenstahl’s long-maintained narrative of ignorance.
Sphere of Influence
BY DAN ADLER
Charlie Kirk’s trademark event—and source for his unflagging streams of content—was the college campus drop-in, where he’d debate students about politics and his intense Christian faith. The genre was time-honored (Ben Shapiro, Dinesh D’Souza), but Kirk achieved new levels of notoriety owing to the serial consistency of his online output. In his depictions, the young left was rootless, flimsy, decadent, and miserable, in contrast with his smirking command. That ease of delivery was evident in even his most provocative positions and rhetoric: that rape could not justify an abortion; that Kamala Harris was a “DEI candidate”; that the idea of Muslim mayors leading both London and New York didn’t “feel right.”
Dan Adler reports on how the conservative influencer and organizer was emblematic of social media’s by now all-consuming influence in American politics.
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POLITICS
Charlie Kirk and Our Era of Political Violence
BY ERIC LUTZ
As belligerent rhetoric takes over political discourse, experts raise alarms about the risk of further bloodshed.
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MEDIA
The Costs of Ending the Murdoch Family
BY NATALIE KORACH
Rupert got his way in a long-running family fight—after some hefty payouts. But that doesn’t mean the sun is shining in the House of Murdoch.
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FILM
Debunking Leni Riefenstahl
BY EVE BATEY
A new documentary seeks to upend the late filmmaker’s claims that she was unfairly targeted for her eagerness to collaborate with Hitler.
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Spotlight
Inside the Elaborate Prison Swap With Putin
BY DREW HINSHAW AND JOE PARKINSON
In their new book, Swap: A Secret History of the New Cold War, Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson, Wall Street Journal international-investigations reporters and Pulitzer finalists, give a gripping account of the celebrities, billionaires, and spies who pulled off America’s largest prisoner trade.
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