The Attention Economy Navigator, November 2025

This month on the Attention Economy Navigator, our guide to what you should be paying more attention to, and what you can probably pay less attention to. And why those stories might not be what you’d assume.

You can also listen to the podcast episode featuring Akin Olla and Nima Shirazi, or watch the panel plot these stories in real time on YouTube.

High Reality, High Signal

• “Why is Mainstream Media Ignoring Overtly Racist Attacks on Mamdani from Congressional Republicans?” by Adam Johnson in In These Times.
  • Has corporate media learned nothing from the tepid response to the birther conspiracy movement? Apparently not!
  • Nima discusses mainstream media’s habit of conveniently ignoring organizing to focus on Mamdani’s mediagenicity and tight social media game.
• “EA strikes a $55 billion deal to go private in a Saudi-backed buyout just a week before the launch of Battlefield 6” by Elie Gould in PC Gamer
  • What does this mean for gamers? And what does it mean for the Saudi royal family’s standing with the general American public?
  • Nima points out the tension between Islamophobia and the Saudi royal family’s attempts to court American consumers with WWE.
• “Emails Reveal Epstein’s Ties to Mossad—But Corporate Media Looked Away” by Drew Favakeh at FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
  • To be fair, this isn’t really in this quadrant, but it’s in the very middle.
  • Nima shares an insight about the ultra-wealthy’s high level of class solidarity, and that once we stop thinking about this as a story about one bad guy, there’s a frightening lesson about that here.

High Reality, High Noise

• “US and Russian officials draft plan to end Ukraine war based on capitulation from Kyiv” by Luke Harding, Pjotr Sauer, and Andrew Roth in The Guardian
  • Is it really a “peace deal” if only one party agrees with it?
  • Akin points out that “war” can end but insurgency might be here to stay.
  • Cayden wonders if this is just Trump still being salty about the Nobel Peace Prize.

High Conspiracy, High Noise

• “The first signs the Trump era of American politics is ending” by James Pindell in The Boston Globe
  • This seems overly hopeful, and based in a desire for things to “get back to normal.”
  • Bad news: even if Trump is not around, the ideology he espoused is here to stay.
  • Cayden thinks Hakeem Jeffries shouldn’t be so excited about Marjorie Taylor Greene.

High Conspiracy, High Signal

• “The AI Bubble Is Bigger Than You Think” by David Dayen in The American Prospect
  • Cayden still can’t believe we’re talking about billions with a b.
  • It’s a predatory lending scheme wrapped in an overly ambitious infrastructure buildout wrapped in fuzzy mathematics, and it might crash the whole economy.
• Someone made this horrible AI slop song to memorialize Charlie Kirk (and we had to include it so you could wail and gnash your teeth too)
  • It does say something this is coming to us at the same time the first AI “artist” charted on some Billboard & Spotify charts.
  • Makes Cayden miss Creed. (Something he never thought he’d say.)