How the Lindsay Clancy Trial Has Become a Social Media Circus

You are reading a special free preview of Mediaite’s daily newsletter — the Mediaite One Sheet: a fast, five-minute briefing that curates the best of the media newsletters. Subscribe today at a special new (lower) price to get the One Sheet delivered direct to your inbox five days a week!

Josh Reynolds/AP photo

TOP STORY

ANY LINDSAY CLANCY VERDICT IS THE WRONG ONE

A 12-person jury remains deadlocked while deliberating the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in Jan. 2023. Clancy, who has consistently pleaded not guilty and whose defense team has argued she cannot be held criminally responsible for the killing due to her mental health at the time, faces five possible outcomes: not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, manslaughter, murder in the second degree, and murder in the first degree.

As troubling as the trial and case is, there’s a third aspect that’s also raised eyebrows: the trial by social media. The case has gripped parts of the internet, especially the parenting sphere, and the subsequent conversations offer a glimpse into shifting attitudes about and understanding of maternal health and mental health. There’s also no denying that the social media interest means the trial is rapidly becoming its own media story, and cable news networks are interrupting their own programming to offer the slightest updates from the courtroom.

Per our stack authors today and over the last few weeks, all of this interest is revealing a lot about us — and not all of it is good.

THREE TAKES

The Free Press, Caitlin Flanagan — For Flanagan, the trial is really about the Clancy children, who have been shown beaming in countless family photos throughout the five weeks. “Even very small children have an understanding that there is more than circumstance that has brought them together in life,” Flanagan wrote. “They understand that they are part of a family.” Cora, Dawson, and Callan are seen smiling “with such ardor” at the person behind the lens — “Perhaps their mother?” But, Flanagan continued, “there are many millions of people who have taken to this baleful case in the spirit that has made true crime stories such a reliably popular genre with women.” The case also appeals to women for another reason: though postpartum psychosis is not frequently understood, experienced, or “listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” it is “widely understood on the level of things not spoken; that of taboos and curses.” Despite that, “millions of women who support Clancy” have reached one conclusion Flanagan finds dangerous: “It could have been us.”

TheWrap, A.J. Katz — Clancy’s case has “ignited a social media explosion,” Katz noted today. As he put it, “By the time the jury began deliberating in the Lindsay Clancy case Thursday, two versions of the trial had already unfolded.” One of those versions took place in the Massachusetts courtroom, “where jurors heard conflicting testimony about Clancy’s mental health and considered whether she should be held criminally responsible for killing her three children.” The other “unfolded across courtroom livestreams and social platforms, where viewers clipped testimony, debated evidence and built communities around the case.” The second has been “more than coverage of a high-profile trial,” Katz added. It’s been “a participatory true-crime community producing its own characters, narratives and judgments while the legal process was still underway.”

Page Six, Tatiana Siegel — The trial is also taking place in a  “polarized world ready to post without waiting for context,” Siegel wrote Tuesday. Though she was looking at the upcoming release of progressive political commentator Anand Giridharadas’ book Man in the Mirror, the focus of the book is incredibly relevant to what’s unfolding in Massachusetts. “Giridharadas spent two and a half years on the [Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny] case that riveted the social media sphere, melding his original reporting into a nuanced narrative about two people who became tragic symbols for the right and left in a polarized world ready to post without waiting for context,” Siegel wrote. “That phenomenon has only accelerated since Neely’s death, and is on full display right now with the Lindsay Clancy trial.”

TAKEAWAY: Given all the factors, it’s not entirely surprising that so many people are gripped by the Clancy trial. She’s a white, typically attractive woman who had it all: a husband who loved and supported her, financial stability, her own career, and three beautiful children. She was also susceptible to many of the same emotions and mental health struggles countless mothers have faced after giving birth. But what’s been lost, per our authors, are the actual victims of the crime: the three children who were killed by their mother that January. The trial has peeled back the layers on just how pervasive social media is, how quickly opinions can be taken as facts and disseminated across the internet, and, maybe more than anything, how easily we can be sucked in.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Te Mayonna Brown is a Republican Florida candidate for the state’s 24th Congressional District, but there’s a problem. Per Egger, who spoke to Brown’s campaign manager this morning before sending Morning Shots out, she previously lost a Republican House race in Indiana, where she also “appears to be under indictment for felony wire fraud.” When the two spoke Monday, Brown “flatly insisted—despite clear photographic, social-media, and campaign-records evidence to the contrary—that she, Te Mayonna Brown, wasn’t the Tedora M. Brown who ran for Congress in Illinois or the Te Dora Brown named in a federal indictment.” But her campaign manager Karin Dennis “acknowledged that this was, indeed, the same person.” Dennis also parroted Brown’s claim the charges were dropped, even though there is currently “no evidence of that in electronic court records.”

SCOOP 🍨 POLITICO Playbook, Dasha Burns, Adam Wren, and Will Steakin — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer isn’t especially concerned about President Donald Trump’s brewing trade war with Canada, which is something states that border the country might be interested in knowing. Greer told Playbook that “It’s more their emergency than ours” and added that “there are no negotiations happening on trade right now.” This comes one week before the Sept. 8 deadline for Canada’s potential $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs. Greer also suggested the Trump White House may raise the stakes. “If Canada believes that prohibiting and banning American goods and services is appropriate, then obviously that’s something that the United States should consider as well,” he added.

ANALYSIS 👀 The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — The Washington Post published an article by reporters Alex Horton and Tara Copp Sunday about concerns “several” military leaders have expressed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that “prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere.” The story prompted Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen to write on X that “whoever leaked this is a traitor and out to be prosecuted.” The New York Times’Benjamin Mullin noted that Thiessen’s response was “unusual,” and Jones agreed. “Mullin is right. This is unusual. And awkward,” he wrote.

ANALYSIS 👀 The Free Press, Suzy Weiss — Designer John Galliano’s planned exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute was cancelled this year due to antisemitic comments he made 15 years ago. (Galliano told two women, “Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f*cking gassed” and “Dirty Jewish face, you should be dead.”) But Weiss thinks Galliano’s exhibit should proceed. “Yet the outcome is even worse than the original decision to honor Galliano with a lifetime retrospective,” she wrote. That’s because the true culprit is Anna Wintour, “and her precious Costume Institute [who] put everyone in this position in the first place.” Weiss added, “I say: Anna Wintour made her bed. I for one wish she had been forced to sleep in it.”

ANALYSIS 👀 Morning Brew, Sam Klebanov — US colleges are facing a dip in enrollment that is expected to “decline by 13% in the next 15 years,” Klebanov wrote. And schools are already dealing with two problems: “Families are increasingly bargain hunting for the most generous financial aid as they doubt the value of a higher education,” and “the Trump administration has restricted international student visas, denting enrollment in the process.” Smaller schools are being hit first, and “are increasingly dipping into their endowments to fill budget shortfalls, which often leads to downgrades in their credit rating.” But larger schools, like Syracuse University, are also noting the shift — and some students “are also flocking to Southern state schools, lured by warm weather and relatively low tuition.”

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

Status, Oliver Darcy — Following a trend that has been cropping up all over the place lately, Politico is the latest media org to expand its live events division. The company is hiring 10 new staffers and appointing Annie Allen as vice president of global special events. Leadership framed in-person events as a central pillar of Politico’s upcoming third decade, arguing that as generative AI pumps out a deluge of synthetic text, audiences and business partners will place an even higher premium on face-to-face gatherings. QUOTE 📣 Per Global Editor-In-Chief Jonathan Greenberger and chief commercial officer Cally Baute, “As we approach POLITICO’s 20th anniversary and plan for our third decade, events will be a key driver of our future growth… And as A.I. creates an unprecedented abundance of information, it will also create a greater hunger for distinctly human connection.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — The B2B creator media company Workweek, which operates on a shared-services and high-CPM sponsorship model, raised a new funding round to open its proprietary publishing tools to outside industry creators. After initial coverage suggested anyone could publish on the network, founder Adam Ryan clarified that Workweek maintains an application-only gatekeeper system with a strict 28% acceptance rate across its five networks to protect sponsor trust and editorial standards. QUOTE 📣 “So basically, if I understand them correctly, Workweek has a vetting process for allowing members of a particular industry into its respective online communities, and only vetted community members are also allowed to launch newsletters on its platform.”

Feed Me, Emily Sundberg — You want to see what the mounting pressure on journalists to be masters of all trades looks like? Take a peek at a new job listing from The Wall Street Journal. The paper is recruiting a single talent to host a podcast, write a daily newsletter, and host in-person events—all for an offered salary of $120,000. QUOTE 📣 “Would you sign up to become the ‘recognizable host’ of WSJ’s podcast, What’s News, plus write and curate the daily What’s News newsletter, plus foster ‘two-way relationships’ by hosting live events, plus basically sign up to be a video star at WSJ… all for an $120k salary? I sure wouldn’t.”

Feed Me, Emily Sundberg — GQ is strengthening its push into multimedia by launching One More Question, a weekly video and audio interview franchise hosted by veteran feature writer Zach Baron that premieres with a marquee NFL star. The expansion reflects a wider industry shift where legacy print publications are turning longform print profile writers into on-camera interviewers, following GQ‘s video cover stories and former New York Times writer Kyle Buchanan‘s launch of his own audio-video show. QUOTE 📣 “Shifting to weekly is intense. And expensive. I wonder how they’ll measure whether it’s working.”

Awful Announcing’s The A Block, Drew Lerner — Former NFL star and sports personality Ryan Clark has landed a major (new) platform for his media enterprise following his abrupt departure from ESPN last month. Clark signed a multi-year partnership with Netflix to bring video episodes of his popular talk show The Pivot to the streamer beginning a week from today, with exclusive episodes dropping every Tuesday and Friday as Netflix continues to build out its studio sports lineup. QUOTE 📣 “You can’t keep Ryan Clark down for long.”

Page Six Hollywood, Tim Baysinger — A juicy feud between United Talent Agency (UTA) and Penske trade publication Variety is escalating. PSH’s Peter Kiefer and Tatiana Siegel reported on contentious text messages between veteran journalist Matt Donnelly and agency reps. The public friction prompted UTA chief executive David Kramer to circulate a widely discussed company-wide internal memo addressing relations with the trade outlet. QUOTE 📣 “While the temps in LA were unseasonably warm, it wasn’t as heated as the beef between Hollywood agency UTA and Penske pub Variety.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Related to some of the other trends mentioned today, publishers are also slowly but surely dismantling the long-held separation between newsrooms and video desks. Outlets like The Telegraph and The New York Times are increasingly mandating that print reporters appear on-camera to summarize their reporting, viewing video clips on social platforms as essential defense against independent aggregators and influencers. QUOTE 📣 “Obviously this introduces a new dynamic into the typical journalism career. As recently as a few years ago, a text-based journalist could reasonably assume that their main job was to report and write stories that appeared in print and on the web. It wasn’t that there was zero crossover between written and video content, it’s just that the crossover was more of a special occurrence that required some advance coordination. Now they’re two sides of the same coin.”

CJR’s The Media Today, Amos Barshad — Proving that niche print can still thrive amidst digital headwinds, family-owned UK weekly The Non-League Paper is celebrating its 27th anniversary, selling roughly 800,000 copies annually. Mobilizing an army of local correspondents and team volunteers across England and Wales every Saturday evening, the paper publishes in-depth match reports on over 100 games across the fifth through eighth tiers of English soccer to serve a dedicated, grassroots community that mainstream digital outlets ignore.

OTHER COOL STUFF

OutKick — NFL Hall of Famer Randy Moss hosted the inaugural Pro Football Hall of Fame Pro-Am bass fishing tournament on New York’s St. Lawrence River. Gridiron icons spent the weekend talking trash and reeling in bronzebacks, with Saints legend Rickey Jackson edging out Browns star Joe Thomas by just five ounces for the trophy.

Morning Brew — Prediction market platform Kalshi handed down its first-ever lifetime ban, officially booting disgraced former Congressman George Santos from the exchange for insider trading.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

Punchbowl News AM — Democrats are putting money into key races in Maine, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and Ohio, Punchbowl noted today. That includes “$4.4 million on a digital and television buy criticizing Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for caving to President Donald Trump” as well as “launching six new ads across the House battleground, with a heavy focus on Spanish-language messaging.”

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

Noahpinion, Noah Smith — Smith did an excellent job of grabbing attention today with the headline: “Roundup #87: Technology BAD!!” The accompanying illustration (which features a refrigerator with sharp teeth and several other angry appliances chasing people down a suburban street) kept that attention, and that newsletter’s contents sealed the deal. Smith offered several smart takes on big tech topics of the time, including lessons from the Hugging Face AI attack, whether or not TV was destroying all of our social connections long before social media was even imagined, and persistent antisemitism on the left (which has a tech tie-in, promise).

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.