How The New York Times uses a custom AI tool to track the "manosphere"

"Built in-house and known internally as the "Manosphere Report," the tool uses large language models (LLMs) to transcribe and summarize new episodes of dozens of podcasts. "The Manosphere Report gave us a really fast and clear signal that this was not going over well with that segment of the President's base," said Seward. "There was a direct link between seeing that and then diving in to actually cover it.""

"The New York Times tracked this growing discontent across the GOP base closely for months, culminating with the near-unanimous passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by Congress last November. An AI-generated report, delivered directly to the email inboxes of journalists, was an essential tool in the Times' coverage. It was also one of the first signals that conservative media was turning against the administration, according to Zach Seward, editorial director for AI initiatives at the Times."

"A chorus of right-wing commentators and influencers openly criticized President Donald Trump and his administration for failing to follow through on their campaign promise to release the federal documents. Political podcasters who had embraced Trump during his reelection campaign were up in arms, with social media figures like Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz publicly pressuring the administration to reverse course."

The Justice Department announced in July 2025 that it would not make additional files public from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Right-wing commentators, podcasters, and social media figures including Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz publicly pressured President Donald Trump and his administration to release the documents. News organizations observed growing discontent across the GOP base, which culminated in near-unanimous passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by Congress. An AI-generated tool called the Manosphere Report used large language models to transcribe and summarize podcasts and provided an early signal that a segment of the President's base was reacting negatively. The manosphere includes communities promoting narrow, patriarchal masculinity and often overlaps with MAGA and far-right social media ecosystems.

Read at Nieman Lab