This is a list of Nintendo DS accessories.

Accessories for the Nintendo DS often came in two forms: those that worked with Slot 1 as a regular DS cartridge, and those that worked in Slot 2 (for Game Boy Advance cartridges) known as a "DS Option Pak" when inserted in the DS or DS Lite system's main menu. When inserted, the GBA slot option on the DS menu will show the text "There is a DS Option Pak inserted", with the exception of any DS/GBA connectivity accessories such as Boktai Solar Sensors and Lunar Knights.

Nintendo has emphasized that its primary intention for the inclusion of a GBA cartridge slot was to allow a wide variety of accessories to be released for the system, the Game Boy Advance compatibility titles being a logical extension.

As the Nintendo DSi and later models lack a GBA slot, Option Paks are not compatible with it, rendering certain games unplayable.

Official accessories

Rumble Pak

The Rumble Pak, also known as the Option Pak, was the first official expansion slot accessory in the form of a Game Boy Advance cartridge. The Rumble Pak provides force feedback for a limited number of games in reaction to events such as collisions in racing games or taking damage in combat-oriented games. It was released on October 24, 2005, and bundled with Metroid Prime Pinball, although it can be purchased separately.

A specially designed Rumble Pak was released in Japan in late May 2006 for the Nintendo DS Lite. The cartridge is about 1 cm shorter to prevent it from protruding out of the Nintendo DS Lite as standard Game Boy Advance cartridges do. There was never an officially-licensed western version of the DS Lite Rumble Pak, however there were some off-brand and unlicensed versions released by various companies (see below).

Because the Rumble Pak is an Option Pak that requires a Game Boy Advance slot, it is incompatible with all subsequent Nintendo handhelds that do not have it, namely the DSi, DSi XL, or the Nintendo 3DS family.

Headset
The Nintendo DS Headset is the official headset for the Nintendo DS. It plugs into the headset port (a combination of a standard 3.5mm (1/8 inch) headphone connector, and a proprietary microphone connector) on the bottom of the system. It features one earphone and a microphone, and is compatible with all games that use the internal microphone. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2006. The headset was released in North America on April 22, 2007, alongside Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, two games that have built-in voice chat. It was later released in Australia on June 21, 2007, also alongside Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Other communication headsets not made by Nintendo also work as the mic.

Opera Web Browser

On February 15, 2006, Nintendo announced a DS version of Opera, a cross-platform web browser. The browser took advantage of the device's dual screens by zooming in or having a longer vertical view. The browser went on sale in Japan on July 24, 2006, for ¥3,800 (approx. $33). It was released in Europe on October 6, 2006.

Memory Expansion Pak
The Nintendo DS Browser ships with an 8 MB RAM Option Pak which is required for the browser to run. Two versions of the Memory Expansion Pak are available. One is compatible with both the original DS and the DS Lite. The second is a smaller translucent version which fits flush with the body of the DS Lite. However, the original DS version can be used with the Nintendo DS Lite, as said in the back of the box.

The Expansion Pak is not used by any other commercial software, but some homebrew applications such as MoonShell or Quake DS can use it.

Faceningscan
The Faceningscan is a camera Option Pak that plugs into the GBA slot of the DS. It is only compatible with 2 games: Face Training, a game exclusive to Japan which gives the player a view of their face as they use the game, and Shiseido Beauty Solution Kaihatsu Center Kanshuu: Project Beauty, another Japan-exclusive game by Sega that also used the camera attachment.

Slide Controller

The "Slide Controller" is an Option Pak that connects to the underside of a Nintendo DS, making the entire device act as an optical mouse. It launched as a Japan-exclusive on August 3, 2007. The Slide Controller is bundled with the game Slide Adventure MAGKID. The Mag Kid is a small magnet centered on the touchscreen. The Slide Controller is attached to Slot 2 of the DS, using technology similar to an optical mouse, with a red LED light located at the bottom of the controller. In order to move the Mag Kid across the screen during the game, the player must slide the entire Nintendo DS system with this controller at a slant angle on a table surface. The slide controller also has built in rumble features used in the game.

Nintendo DS Digital TV Tuner
The  is a 1seg TV tuner that picks up TV signals and plays them on the Nintendo DS, released exclusively for Japan through Nintendo's online shop. It was released on November 23, 2007. The top screen is for watching the broadcast in 16:9 or 4:3 ratio, while the touch screen is used to change the channels. It was packaged with the DS TV [NTR-016], DS TV dedicated cover [NTR-017], and DS TV Dedicated External Antenna (with suction panel) [NTR-025]. The external antenna plugged into the side of the DS TV itself through a standard headphone jack. A series of three suction cups could be used to attach the wire to a window or other smooth surfaces.

The DSTV folds in when not in use with the half containing extendable rabbit ear antennas. The other half clips onto the DS and has a locking mechanism for stability. A button on the side releases the lock. The dedicated cover slips over both halves of the folded DSTV when not in use, covering the contacts over the cartridge portion of the DSTV. While the TV tuner was a Japan-only accessory (due to it only using 1seg signals), it works with all DS and 3DS models.

Activity Meter
The activity meter is a pedometer included with Personal Trainer: Walking (also named Walk With Me in Europe and other regions). It communicates with the DS using an infrared transceiver built into the top of the meter, and one in the end of the game cartridge, meaning it works with all Nintendo DS / 3DS consoles. Its only display is an LED which changes its colour and flashing pattern once the user reaches their daily step goal; all other information has to be viewed by transferring it to the Nintendo DS cartridge. The device stores the final seven days of detailed activity statistics, and the last 60 days of total step counts. There is a clip built into the meter's battery door allowing it to be attached to a person's clothes or a dog's collar. A flat battery door without the clip is also included. The system came with two meters, one is black and one is white.

In Europe a green and white activity meter came with Active Health with Carol Vorderman It could also be bought separately.

The games that supported this were Personal Trainer: Walking and Active Health with Carol Vorderman.

Pokéwalker

The  is a Poké Ball-shaped pedometer that can connect to Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver game cards via infrared signals. The player can transfer a Pokémon to the Pokéwalker from either HeartGold or SoulSilver. Every time the player takes a step, the Pokémon inside gains experience points and the player earns "Watts", a type of in-game currency which was also used on the Pokémon Pikachu virtual pet. Players can also catch various Pokémon on the device and obtain items, then transfer them to the game. The device comes bundled with the games.

When players transfer a Pokémon from their game into their Pokéwalker, they can select which route they would like to take their Pokémon along. Depending on which route the player takes (such as in a grassland or by the sea), they will encounter different wild Pokémon and items. When players first begin their journeys with the Pokéwalker, the list of routes they can select from is short. As players take strolls with their Pokémon, more routes are unlocked with additional Pokémon and items.

One criticism of the Pokéwalker is the ease of "cheating" or "hacking" in which players will intentionally create artificial situations mimicking walking. This has consequently led to multiple varieties of Pokéwalker cheats causing Pokémon to gain experience without the user actually expending the intended effort.

Due to its efficient accuracy when compared to some other pedometers, the Pokéwalker's technical design had since been reused to work for other titles, such as Wii Fit U, which is compatible with the Fit Meter pedometer, an accessory which shares hardware and design with the Pokéwalker.

Nintendo Wireless Keyboard
The , released with Learn with Pokémon: Typing Adventure, was a Bluetooth wireless keyboard for learning how to type quickly and accurately. The keyboard can be put into a "pairing" mode by holding "Fn" while switching it on; it could then connect with other hardware.

MP3 Player/Play-Yan/Play-Yan Micro
The Nintendo MP3 Player was an accessory (cartridge) for the Nintendo DS lite that turned the DS or GBA into a functioning MP3 player.

The Play-Yan had two releases in Japan. The first version Play-Yan, had game mini-games which could be downloaded from the website (Play-Yan Garage Games). While the updated Play-Yan Micro (same as the MP3 Player in Europe) was not compatible with the mini-games.

DS Direction Sensing Card
The DS Direction Sensing Card was a Slot 1 cartridge that added a compass feature to DS products. Astroarts Hoshizora Navi uses the DS direction sensing card to figure out one's current orientation and adjusts it on the screen star chart accordingly. The cartridge is double the size of a standard cartridge, sticks out of the slot 1 much like the TV Tuner, and has a locking mechanism on the side with a button to release the cart/compass.

Magnetic Stand
The Magnetic Stand is a stand that utilizes the Slot 2 to hold up the DS or DS Lite. It has embedded magnets on the back and can be closed and hung on a metallic surface such as a refrigerator (for use with cooking, music or exercise programs). It comes with a special stylus with a knob at one end and a string attached to it to hang from the stand. Although it was marketed alongside Personal Trainer: Cooking, it can work with any title.

DS Stand
The DS Stand, included with Face Training, helps hold the DS or DS Lite in profile format so that the system and camera can be used hands-free.

Wi-Fi USB Connector
The Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector is a device that plugs into an open USB port on a computer, and allows the Nintendo DS and Wii to access Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection through it. This device is not needed if one already owns a Nintendo Wi-Fi capable wireless router. The device is only compatible with Windows XP and Vista, with a broadband Internet. Nintendo stopped making the connector because of computers or firewalls blocking some of the programs, which means that it is not supported on any Windows OS after Vista.

GBA/DS Connectivity
In addition to features added by Slot 2 accessories and functionality, a number of GBA games (both first and third party) offered slot 2 support as well offering add-ons and content to their DS counterparts (similar to extra features added by GBC/GBA link functionality on certain GBC games on a GBA, or GBA/GC connectivity on a number of games). For example, putting GBA generation Pokémon games in Slot 2 would allow Pokémon from the GBA game to transfer into the DS games. Connecting Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow into Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow would unlock a few extra items in the store and the player's inventory. Unlockables varied per game, including in-game wallpaper/pictures, videos, items, new characters, easter eggs, new areas, in-game currency, mini-games, bonus outfits, new music, extra bosses, etc.

Stylus
There is a basic stylus that fits inside the DS stylus slot. The stylus came with every iteration of DS up to 3DS and 2DS systems.

Licensed and unlicensed third party styluses were also released as well. Some were exclusive to preorders such as the Orcs & Elves Magic Wand stylus, Squeeballs Party Character Stylus, or the limited edition blue Guitar Pick Pick stylus for Guitar Hero: On Tour. Other colors of Guitar Pick Styluses came with various Guitar Hero and spin off games on the DS.

The original DS came with a small stylus, and the DS Lite came with a slightly larger version. The DSi used more standard sized ones that were similar to the ones introduced with the Lite.

The original 3DS came with a telescoping metal and plastic stylus, but later models (3DS XL, New 3DS, New 3DS XL, 2DS and New 2DS) used solid plastic styluses again (similar to the ones that came with the DS Lite/DSI/DSI XL).

Nintendo DS Wrist Strap & thumb stylus
The original DS came with a special wrist strap, which included a small piece of smooth plastic intended to be used as a stylus with one's thumb. The wrist strap could be bought separately with later editions of the DS through the Nintendo Store, and all iterations of the DS had a hole for the official thumb stylus wrist straps or third-party straps.

The wrist strap has a small plastic pad attached to it that can also be used on the Touch Screen. This pad is designed for use on games that work better with a sliding type of control. To use it, a player must place their thumb or finger against the plastic pad and slide the straplock along the wrist strap to hold the pad in place.

Game Pak Slot Cover
This was an accessory that came with DS Lites in assorted colors matching the system it came with. It was a blank Option Pak that fit into the Slot 2 flush with the system to keep dust out of the slot.

Some modders have repurposed them for DIY Rumble Pak projects.

Licensed third party accessories

Guitar Grip

The Guitar Grip controller is an Option Pak that comes packaged with the game Guitar Hero: On Tour and is plugged into the GBA game slot. It features four colored buttons just like the ones that can be found on regular Guitar Hero guitar controllers for the stationary consoles, though it lacks the fifth orange button found on the guitar controllers. The DS Guitar Hero controller comes with a small plectrum-stylus that can be put away into a small slot on the controller. It also features a hand strap.

The controller comes with two Option Pak adapters, one for the DS Lite, and one for the original DS. The grip is required in order to play any of the Guitar Hero: On Tour games, and is also used to play Band Hero for the DS.

Each game came with its own themed style insert to put into the Guitar Grip to decorate the grip. There were also additional designs sold, along with stickers to decorate the grip as well.

Supported titles:

Guitar Hero: On Tour
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits
Band Hero

Drum Skin
The Band Hero DS Drum Skin is a piece of rubberized silicon that slips over a DS Lite, and is designed to better enable the feel of rapidly playing the drums rather than tapping on drum icons on the DS touch screen.

Paddle controller

The Paddle controller is an Option Pak manufactured by Taito. The Paddle controller was available exclusively in Japan. It was sold both as a standalone and bundled with Arkanoid. The paddle controller is a miniature version of the arcade knob controllers that were first made popular with Pong. They came in assorted colors, including the most common one, white (which came with the game), followed by black, pink and silver, each sold separately.

Supported titles:
Arkanoid DS
Space Invaders Extreme
Space Invaders Extreme 2
Space Bust-a-Move

Despite being available only in Japan, the Paddle controller is compatible with versions of the above titles from any region.

Motion Pack
Tony Hawk's Motion uses a motion-sensing peripheral Option Pak called the "Motion Pack", which is inserted into the Game Boy Advance's Slot 2 as the method of control. It is compatible with Tony Hawk's Motion and Hue Pixel Painter.

Didget glucose system
A blood glucose meter is an Option Pak developed by Bayer HealthCare together with Paul Wessel, the father of a child with diabetes mellitus. It is essentially an upgraded version of the Glucoboy for the Game Boy Advance, which Wessel developed for his son Luke, who often lost his blood glucose meter. Wessel later founded his own company, Guidance Interactive Healthcare, to pursue the creation of children's blood glucose meters. The peripheral came with a pack-in game entitled Knock 'Em Downs - Worlds Fair developed by Sensory Sweep Studios, which is a series of minigames where players are rewarded with bonuses and power-ups should they regularly check their blood sugar levels.

Supported titles:
Knock 'Em Downs - Worlds Fair

Magic Reader
The Magic Reader was an Option Pak manufactured by Konami. It was another card reader that plugged into Slot 2, and came with Juushinden: Ultimate Beast Battlers (a card game similar to Yu-Gi-Oh). The cards were read by tapping them onto the top of the device.

Piano Keyboard
Easy Piano is an Option Pak that includes a 13 key piano that attaches to the DS through the Game Boy Advance game slot.

Supported titles:
 Easy Piano

Beypoint Reader and Beypointer
Made specifically for the Beyblade series, the Beypoint Reader and Beypointer Option Pak was a GBA Slot 2 device that acted as an adapter that connected the Nintendo DS game to a Beypointer. It attaches to a Beyblade Launcher and keeps track of the player's top spinning Beyblade stats in both real life and the Nintendo DS game. The BPR came with the game Metal Fight Beyblade.

Supported titles:
Metal Fight Beyblade/Metal Fight Beyblade DS
Metal Fight Beyblade - Bakutan Cyber Pegasis
Metal Fight Beyblade - Bakushin Susanoo Shurai
Beyblade: Metal Fusion
Beyblade: Metal Masters

Pedometer
Known as the "Thrustmaster Ubisoft Pedometer", the Pedometer is a Slot 2 compatible Pedometer Option Pak that came with My Weightloss Coach by Ubisoft.

Solar Sensors
Lunar Knights added solar sensor functionality by utilizing the three Boktai games in Slot 2 ("W-Gate") as Option Paks (DS/GBA Connectivity). Each game offered a different function in relation to the energy taken from the sun.

Depending on which game is introduced into the W-Gate, the Solar Sensor will cause different effects in Lunar Knights:

Solar Sensor Version 1: By inserting Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand in the GBA Slot, the standby character will fill his ENE (Energy).
Solar Sensor Version 2: By inserting Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django in the GBA Slot, the standby character will fill his LIFE.
Solar Sensor Version 3: By inserting Shin Bokura no Taiyō: Gyakushū no Sabata in the GBA Slot, the standby character will fill his TRC (Trance) meter.

SmartStylus & SmartStylus 2 (unreleased)
The SmartStylus and SmartStylus 2 by PDP were to add vibration feedback "based on movements and commands in the game." It came in two models, which were the wireless SmartStylus 1 and 2 devices for the Nintendo DS. Both feature a vibration feedback that players using the stylus will feel based on movements and commands in the game. The SmartStylus 2 includes a variety of added features, including LED, sound, and motion feedback. With the motion feedback capability, the stylus acts as a motion input device, allowing the player, for example, to hit a home run by swinging the stylus off the DS screen. They were looking for licensing by Nintendo.

It was to come with a game called Squeeballs.

Unlicensed 3rd party accessories

Ranger GPS System
The Ranger NDS GPS System is an Option Pak designed by China's Fab Chain, and is a GPS add-on module for a NDS Lite. It provides turn-by-turn directions with Google Maps integration. The Ranger can display maps in both 2D and fake 3D perspective modes, and even has automatic day/night modes.

Hyperkin 3 Game Selector
The Hyperkin 3 Game Selector is an add-on that plugs into Slot 1, and allows the player to both insert three different DS cartridges and select between them on the DS main menu.

FM Radio Converter
FM Radio Converters refer to a number of add-ons for the DS and DS Lite that added FM Radio support to the DS. The Dragon NDS Lite FM Radio Converter cart fits into Slot 2 (DS Lite only), while the FM Radio by Futureronics fits into Slot 1 (DS to DSi XL). The Bling Tunes FM Radio was yet another DS compatible radio add-on that simply attached to the DS, and linked through the audio-out jack.

Third Party Rumble Paks & Memory Expansion Paks
A number of unlicensed or generic third party rumble paks were released by various companies in lite or original formats as stand alone or conjunction with a flash cart. They utilized a number of different methods to add rumble to games, most using standard mobile-phone motor technology for rumble. Official ones used sliding motors from ALPS, leading to level of vibration between official and third party rumble paks being inconsistent or different (some noisier than others, or sometimes offering different settings for intensity via a flashcart menu).

Some unlicensed rumble paks were included inside slot 2 flashcards or as separate slot 2 accessories (with slot 1 flashcards). These include products such as the DSTT rumble pak (designed to work with DSTT flashcart), the EzFlash 3in1/Ezflash V (which included Rumble/Memory Expansion, and NOR GBA support for compatibility for DS/GBA connectivity), Supercard Lite (which was a slot 2 DS only flashcart with built in Rumble Pak, the rumble replaced GBA support), or the M3DS Real, that came with a generic lite rumble pak, the NDS/NDSL 2in1 rumble for R6 Gold flashcart, and many other brands. Most of these came in black or white options (but at least one off brand included transparent shells like the Lite Memory Expansion Pak).

Supercard Mini SD Rumble was a GBA cart sized combo-flashcart + Rumble Pak for the original DS (which had a clear atomic purple shell). EZ-Flash 3in1/Ez-Flash V also had versions for the original DS as well.

Ewin produced a North American version of the lite option pak following the June 11, 2006 release of the system. Ewin's expansion paks came in different colors to match the most common DS Lite colors at the time (black, white, pink, light blue, and other colors). This used a mobile-phone rumble motor as opposed to the official DS Lite which used a sliding motor.

There was the release of the Ez-Flash Omega Definitive Edition, which has a switch to switch the flashcart into 'Mode B'. This turns the cart into "Link" for DS/GBA linking, Rumble as a stand-alone rumble pak, and RAM as stand alone memory expansion for the Opera browser.

Hacking and homebrew

Max Media Dock
Datel manufactures the Max Media Dock, which allows people to access, store and run media content from CompactFlash cards. It can accept cards up to 8 GB in size. This tool also lets people use DS homebrew. DS homebrew is software written for the Nintendo DS handheld games console by hobbyist programmers. A version of this was literally a card holding a 4gb HD that slid on the back of DS/DS Lite via Slot 2. Datel also released another media player/backup method Personal Media Player that came with a Slot 2 cartridge called the Gigapack.

Max Media Dock is compatible with both the original Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DS Lite.

Flash Cartridges
Flash Cartridges are devices used for running software on the DS not hard-encoded into a cartridge, such as homebrew games, homebrew software, listening to music, viewing pictures or documents, other not-officially available functions, and virtual versions of the software on official cartridges, which were often stored on removable media such as an SD card. There are many DS flash cart variants on the market. Although they are still compatible with the DS, Slot 2 flash carts originally intended for the Game Boy Advance have been superseded by more modern DS flash cards which use Slot 1, such as the N-Card, M3, Supercard, EZFlash Vi, G6DS Real, DSTT, Acekard, and CycloDS Evolution.

GBA Movie Player

The GBA Movie Player plays films and music from flash memory cards, and comes in both SD and CF versions.

References

Nintendo DS accessories

de:Nintendo DS#Zubehör

List of Nintendo DS accessories


Medium is an American online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and launched in August 2012. It is owned by A Medium Corporation. The platform is an example of social journalism, having a hybrid collection of amateur and professional people and publications, or exclusive blogs or publishers on Medium, and is regularly regarded as a blog host.

Williams, previously co-founder of Blogger and Twitter, initially developed Medium as a means to publish writings and documents longer than Twitter's 140-character (now 280-character) maximum.

In March 2021, Medium announced a change in its publishing strategy and business model. The change is to its mix of paid journalists working on its own publications – this will be proportionally reduced – versus its support of independent writers, which will increase.

History

2012–2016
Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and former CEO, created Medium to encourage users to create posts longer than the then 140-character limit of Twitter. When it launched in 2012, Williams stated, "There's been less progress toward raising the quality of what's produced."

By April 2013, Williams reported there were 30 full-time staff working on the platform, including a vacancy for a "Storyteller" role, and that it was taking "98 percent" of his time. By August, Williams reported that the site was still small, although he was still optimistic about it, saying "We are trying to make it as easy as possible for people who have thoughtful things to say".

Medium has been focusing on optimizing the time visitors spend reading the site (1.5 million hours in March 2015), as opposed to maximizing the size of its audience. In 2015, Williams criticized the standard web traffic metric of unique visitors as "a highly volatile and meaningless number for what we're trying to do". According to the company, as of May 2017, Medium.com had 60 million unique monthly readers.

Medium maintained an editorial department staffed by professional editors and writers, had several others signed on as contractors and served as a publisher for several publications. Matter operated from Medium Headquarters in San Francisco and was nominated for a 2015 National Magazine Award. In May 2015, Medium made deep cuts to its editorial budget forcing layoffs at dozens of publications hosted on the platform. Several publications left the platform.

In 2017, Medium introduced paywalled content accessible only to subscribers. In 2017, Medium began paying authors based on how much users expressed their appreciation for it through a like button which each user could activate multiple times. The formula for compensation was soon adapted to also include the amount of time readers spent reading, in addition to the use of the like button.

Medium has brought in revenue through native advertising and sponsorship of some article series.
Medium gained several new publishers to host their content on the platform.
There was an aborted attempt to introduce advertising to the site, leading to Medium cutting its staff by 50 employees in January 2017 and closing offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Williams explained that "we had started scaling up the teams to sell and support products that were, at best, incremental improvements on the ad-driven publishing model", but that, instead, Medium was aiming for a "new [business] model for writers and creators to be rewarded, based on the value they're creating for people". At that time, the company had raised $134 million in investment from venture capital firms and Williams himself.

In 2016, Medium acquired the rich media embedding platform Embedly, a provider of content integration services for numerous websites, including Medium itself. That same year there were 7.5 million posts published on the platform, and 60 million readers used medium.com.

2017–present
In March 2017, Medium announced a membership program for $5 per month, offering access to "well-researched explainers, insightful perspectives, and useful knowledge with a longer shelf life", with authors being paid a flat amount per article. Subsequently, the sports and pop culture website The Ringer and the technology blog Backchannel, a Condé Nast publication, left Medium. Backchannel, which left Medium for Wired in June, said Medium was "no longer as focused on helping publications like ours profit."

In October 2017, Williams reaffirmed Medium was not planning to pursue banner advertising as part of their revenue model and was instead exploring micropayments, gratuities and patronage.

In January 2021, Medium announced that it had acquired the social-based ebook company Glose. In November 2021, Medium acquired browser-based graphic design tool Projector. Projector's team joined Medium and Projector was shut down in 2022. Projector co-founder and CEO Trevor O'Brien became Medium's chief product officer. In November 2021, Medium also acquired audio-based learning platform Knowable.

Medium employees announced their intent to form a trade union with CODE-CWA in February 2021. According to the Medium Workers Union, 70% of eligible employees have signed union cards, representing workers in editorial, engineering, design and product departments. On February 11, they asked management for voluntary recognition of their union. On March 1, the company announced that the Medium Workers Union had fallen one vote short of the number needed for union recognition. During the leadup to the unionization campaign, Medium hired the union-busting firm Kauff McGuire & Margolis and the CEO Evan Williams led small discussion groups in which he urged employees not to join the union.

On July 12, 2022, the company announced that Ev Williams would be stepping down as CEO and transitioning to chairman of the board. Tony Stubblebine, chief executive of Coach.me, took over as CEO of Medium on July 20, 2022. On August 11, 2022, Stubblebine announced a layoff of 29 staff members.

User information and features

Users
Medium does not publish official user stats on its website. According to US blogs, the platform had about 60 million monthly visitors in 2016. In 2015, the total numbers of users was about 25 million.

Platform
The platform software provides a full WYSIWYG user interface when editing online, with various options for formatting provided as the user edits over rich text format.

Once an entry is posted, it can be recommended and shared by other people, in a similar manner to Twitter. Posts can be upvoted in a similar manner to Reddit, and content can be assigned a specific theme, in the same way as Tumblr.

In August 2017, Medium replaced their Recommend button with a "clap" feature, which readers can click multiple times to signify how much they enjoyed the article. Medium announced that payment to authors will be weighted based on how many "claps" they receive.

Users can create a new account using a Facebook or Google account. Users may also sign up using an e-mail address, when they are signing up using the mobile app of Medium.com.

Memberships
Medium offers users subscriptions to become a member for a $5 monthly or $50 yearly fee. With a Medium membership, access to "exclusive content, audio narrations of popular stories, and an improved bookmark section" is enabled.

Partner Program
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Tag system
Posts on Medium are sorted by topic rather than by writer, unlike most blogging platforms, including Williams' earlier Blogger. The platform uses a system of "claps" (formerly "recommendations"), similar to "likes" on Facebook, to upvote the best articles and stories, called the Tag system, and divides the stories into different categories to let the audiences choose.

Publications

"Publications" on Medium are shared spaces with a homepage on Medium's website that carry articles and blog posts, like a newspaper or magazine. The articles published or saved on it can be assigned editors, and can be saved as drafts.

 Medium acquired science and technology website Matter in 2013.
 Cuepoint, Medium's music publication, is edited by Jonathan Shecter, a music industry entrepreneur and co-founder of The Source magazine. It publishes essays on artists, trends, and releases, written by Medium community contributors, major record executives, and music journalists, including Robert Christgau, who contributed his Expert Witness capsule review column. Cuepoint was started in 2014.
 Medium also published a technology publication called Backchannel, edited by Steven Levy. In 2016, Backchannel was purchased by Condé Nast.

In 2016, Medium hired the founder of the publication Human Parts, which focused on personal stories.

On February 23, 2016, it was announced that Medium had reached a deal to host the new Bill Simmons website, The Ringer. In August 2017 it left Medium for Vox Media.

In 2019, Medium acquired Bay Area website The Bold Italic. Also in 2019, Medium launched seven new publications: GEN (politics, power, and culture), OneZero (tech and science), Marker (business), Elemental (health and wellness), Focus (productivity), Zora (women of color) and Level (men of color).

In 2020, Medium launched Momentum, whose subjects are anti-racism and civil rights.

Board and corporate governance

Board members

As of June 2020, Medium's board members were:

 Evan Williams
 Biz Stone
 Josh Elman of Greylock Partners
 Ben Horowitz
 Colin Kaepernick

Former use of holacracy

Medium initially used holacracy as its structure of corporate governance. In 2016, they moved away from holacracy because they reported difficulty coordinating large-scale projects, dissatisfaction with the required record-keeping, and poor public perception of holacracy.

Reception
Reviewing the service at its launch in 2012, The Guardian enjoyed some of the collections that had been created, particularly a collection of nostalgic photographs created by Williams. TechCrunch's Drew Olanoff suggested the platform might have taken its name from being a "medium"-sized platform in between Twitter and full-scale blogging platforms such as Blogger.

Lawrence Lessig welcomed the platform's affordance of Creative Commons licensing for user content, a feature demonstrated in a Medium project with The Public Domain Review—an interactive online edition of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, annotated by a dozen Carroll scholars, allowing free remixes of the public domain and Creative Commons licensed text and art resources, with reader-supplied commentaries and artwork.

However, in 2013 the service suffered criticism from writers, with some confused about exactly what it is expected to provide.

A 2019 Nieman Lab article chronicling Medium's first seven years described the site as having "undergone countless pivots", becoming "an endless thought experiment into what publishing on the internet could look like".

Government censorship of Medium

Malaysia
In January 2016, Medium received a take-down notice from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for one of the articles published by the Sarawak Report. The Sarawak Report had been hosting its articles on Medium since July 2015, when its own website was blocked by the Malaysian government. It had reported allegations that money linked to a state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), ended up in Prime Minister Najib Razak's bank accounts.

Medium's legal team responded to the commission with a request for a copy of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's official statement that the post was untrue, for information on which parts of the article were found false, and for information on whether the dispute has been raised in court. The site declined to take the content down until directed to do so by an order from a court of competent jurisdiction. In response, on January 27, 2016, all content on Medium was made unavailable for Internet users in Malaysia.

The ban has been lifted as of 18 May 2018, with the MCMC stating the ban lift was because "there was no reason (to block the website)" as the 1MDB report has been made public by the government.

Egypt
As of June 2017, Medium has been blocked in Egypt along with more than 60 media websites in a crackdown by the Egyptian government. The list of blocked sites also includes Al Jazeera, The Huffington Posts Arabic website and Mada Masr. Medium was made available again in late 2022 as of November 2022.

China
In April 2016, Medium was blocked in mainland China after information from the leaked Panama Papers was published on the site.

Albania
The Albanian Audiovisual Media Authority blocked Medium in Albania from April 19 to 21, 2020.

Vietnam
By the end of 2020, Medium was reported to have been blocked by some ISPs in Vietnam.

Russia
Unknown Russian Authority blocked Medium website and all its subdomains in the Russian Federation on May 31, 2023.

Software architecture
Medium's initial technology stack relied on a variety of AWS services including EC2, S3, and CloudFront. Originally, it was written in Node.js and the text editor that Medium users wrote blog posts with was based on TinyMCE. As of 2017, the blogging platform's technology stack included AWS services, including EBS, RDS for Aurora, and Route 53; its image server was written in Go, and the main app servers were still written in Node.

See also
 Substack

Notes

References

External links

American companies established in 2012
Blog hosting services
Blog software
Internet properties established in 2012
Online publishing companies of the United States
Subscription services

Medium (website)


Persistence hunting is important because it is thought to have been important in earlier human societies. It is practiced today by the San people and by the Rarámari (Tarahumara) people of northwest Mexico.

Many animals on grassland move faster than humans. However, humans have endurance and can jog-trot for long distances. Their loss of hair allows them to sweat easily, and their spears give them a way to kill prey at the end of the hunting.

A group of about four men start out on a search. Finding a suitable antelope, they move towards it, and the animal runs away. They check the signs, such as broken blades of grass, and follow it more slowly, but persistently. Eventually the animal has to stop to eat grass. Grass has so little nutrient that continual eating during the day is essential for their survival. If the antelope runs off into the far distance, one of the younger men is chosen to run after it while the others jog along behind. The runner comes back to say where the animal has gone. In this way younger members with endurance and older men with experience have their roles in the hunt. Eventually the men catch up while the animal can run no further without digesting grass (which is its 'fuel').

There is an alternative explanation as to why the animal eventually stops running, and that relates to its lesser ability to reduce its temperature by sweating, because its coat of fur is so much denser than the human hair covering. This may indeed play a part, but primarily the cause of fatigue is what is called 'metabolic fatigue', such as the shortage of fuel within the muscles.

The San people and their hunting methods were presented on television by David Attenborough in the documentary The Life of Mammals, Program 10 Food for thought.

Hunting

Persistence hunting


A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are "domestic actors who work to undermine the national interest, in cooperation with external rivals of the state." The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organized actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, espionage, and/or terrorism executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

Origin
The term "fifth column" originated in Spain (originally quinta columna) during the early phase of the Spanish Civil War. It gained popularity in the Loyalist faction media in early October 1936 and immediately started to spread abroad.

The exact origins of the term are not clear. Its first known appearance is in a secret telegram dated 30 September 1936, that was sent to Berlin by the German chargé d'affaires in Alicante, Hans Hermann Völckers. In the telegram, he referred to an unidentified "supposed statement by Franco" that "is being circulated" (apparently in the Republican zone or in the Republican-held Levantine zone), and he suggests that in that statement Franco had claimed that there were four Nationalist columns approaching Madrid, and a fifth column waiting to attack from the inside. The telegram was part of the secret German diplomatic correspondence and was discovered long after the civil war.

The first identified public use of the term is in the 3 October 1936, issue of the Madrid Communist daily Mundo Obrero. In a front-page article, the party propagandist Dolores Ibárruri referred to a statement very similar (or identical) to the one that Völckers had referred to in his telegram, but attributed it to General Emilio Mola rather than to Franco. On the same day, the PCE activist Domingo Girón made a similar claim during a public rally. During the next few days, various Republican papers repeated the story, but with differing detail; some attributed the phrase to General Queipo de Llano. By mid-October, the media was already warning of the "famous fifth column".

Historians have never identified the original statement referred to by Völckers, Ibárruri, Girón, de Jong, and others. The transcripts of Francisco Franco's, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano's, and Emilio Mola's radio addresses have been published, but they do not contain the term, and no other original statement containing this phrase has ever surfaced. A British journalist who took part in Mola's press conference on 28 October 1936, claimed that Mola referred to quinta columna on that day, but by that time the term had already been in use in the Republican press for more than three weeks.

Historiographic works offer differing perspectives on authorship of the term. Many scholars have no doubt about Mola's role and refer to "fifth column" as "a term coined in 1936 by General Emilio Mola", though they acknowledge that his exact statement cannot be verified. In some sources, Mola is named as a person who had used the term during an impromptu press interview, and different—though detailed—versions of the exchange are offered. Probably the most popular version describes the theory of Mola's authorship with a grade of doubt, either noting that it is presumed but has never been proven, or that the phrase "is attributed" to Mola, who "apparently claimed" so, or else noting that "la famosa quinta columna a la que parece que se había referido el general Mola" (the famous fifth column that General Mola seems to have referred to) Some authors consider it possible if not likely that the term has been invented by the Communist propaganda with the purpose of either raising morale or providing justification for terror and repression; initially it might have been part of the whispering campaign, but was later openly floated by Communist propagandists. There are also other theories afloat.

Some writers, mindful of the origin of the phrase, use it only in reference to military operations rather than the broader and less well-defined range of activities that sympathizers might engage in to support an anticipated attack.

Second World War

By the late 1930s, as American involvement in the war in Europe became more likely, the term "fifth column" was commonly used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders of the United States. The fear of betrayal was heightened by the rapid fall of France in 1940, which some blamed on internal weakness and a pro-German "fifth column". A series of photos run in the June 1940 issue of Life magazine warned of "signs of Nazi Fifth Column Everywhere". In a speech to the House of Commons that same month, Winston Churchill reassured MPs that "Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand." In July 1940, Time magazine referred to talk of a fifth column as a "national phenomenon".

In August 1940, The New York Times mentioned "the first spasm of fear engendered by the success of fifth columns in less fortunate countries". One report identified participants in Nazi "fifth columns" as "partisans of authoritarian government everywhere", citing Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, and the Netherlands. During the Nazi invasion of Norway, the head of the Norwegian fascist party, Vidkun Quisling, proclaimed the formation of a new fascist government in control of Norway, with himself as Prime Minister, by the end of the first day of fighting. The word "quisling" soon became a byword for "collaborator" or "traitor".

The New York Times on 11 August 1940, featured three editorial cartoons using the term. John Langdon-Davies, a British journalist who covered the Spanish Civil War, wrote an account called The Fifth Column which was published the same year. In November 1940, Ralph Thomson, reviewing Harold Lavine's Fifth Column in America, a study of Communist and fascist groups in the U.S., in The New York Times, questioned his choice of that title: "the phrase has been worked so hard that it no longer means much of anything."

Immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox issued a statement that "the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war was done in Hawaii with the exception of Norway." In a column published in The Washington Post, dated 12 February 1942, the columnist Walter Lippmann wrote of imminent danger from actions that might be taken by Japanese Americans. Titled "The Fifth Column on the Coast", he wrote of possible attacks that could be made along the West Coast of the United States that would amplify damage inflicted by a potential attack by Japanese naval and air forces. Suspicion about an active fifth column on the coast led eventually to the internment of Japanese Americans.

During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in December 1941 said the indigenous Moro Muslims were "capable of dealing with Japanese fifth columnists and invaders alike". Another in the Vancouver Sun the following month described how the large population of Japanese immigrants in Davao in the Philippines welcomed the invasion: "the first assault on Davao was aided by numbers of Fifth Columnists–residents of the town".

Later usage

 German minority organizations in Czechoslovakia formed the Sudeten German Free Corps, which aided Nazi Germany. Some claimed they were "self-defense formations" created in the aftermath of World War I and unrelated to the German invasion two decades later. More often their origins were discounted and they were defined by the role they played in 1938–39: "The same pattern was repeated in Czechoslovakia. Henlein's Free Corps played in that country the part of fifth column".
 In 1945, a document produced by the U.S. Department of State compared the earlier efforts of Nazi Germany to mobilize the support of sympathizers in foreign nations to the superior efforts of the international communist movement at the end of World War II: "a communist party was in fact a fifth column as much as any [German] Bund group, except that the latter were crude and ineffective in comparison with the Communists". Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., wrote in 1949: "the special Soviet advantage—the warhead—lies in the fifth column; and the fifth column is based on the local Communist parties".
 In 1979, Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, orchestrated a purge of political dissidents within the Ba'ath Party. Hussein claimed that he had uncovered a fifth column within the organization and ordered Muhyi Abdul-Hussein Mashhadi to confess his alleged involvement and that of 68 other politicians, who were promptly arrested. Twenty-two of the arrested, including Mashhadi, were executed.
 Zainichi Koreans living in Japan, particularly those affiliated with the organization Chongryun (which is itself affiliated with the government of North Korea) are sometimes seen as a "fifth column" by some Japanese, and have been the victims of verbal and physical attacks. These have occurred more frequently since the government of Kim Jong Il acknowledged it had abducted Japanese citizens from Japan and tested ballistic missiles near the waters of and over mainland Japan.
 A significant number of Israeli Arabs, who compose approximately 20% of Israel's population, identify more with the Palestinian cause than with the State of Israel or Zionism. As a result, many Israeli Jews, including politicians, rabbis, journalists, and historians, view them (and/or the main Israeli Arab political group, the Joint List) as a fifth column.
 Counter-jihad literature has sometimes portrayed Western Muslims as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. Following the 2015 attack by French-born Muslims on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage said that Europe had "a fifth column living within our own countries". In 2001, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn talked about Muslim immigrants being a "fifth column", on the night he was dismissed as leader of Liveable Netherlands.

 In 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin called Russian citizens who are against the Russian invasion of Ukraine as fifth columnists and "national traitors".

In popular culture
The title of Ernest Hemingway's only play "The Fifth Column" (1938) is a translation of General Mola's phrase, la quinta columna. In early 1937 Hemingway had been in Madrid, reporting the war from the loyalist side, and helping make the film The Spanish Earth. He returned to the US to publicise the film and wrote the play, in the Hotel Florida in Madrid, on his next visit to Spain later that year.

In the US, an Australian radio play, The Enemy Within, proved to be very popular, though this popularity was due to the belief that the stories of fifth column activities were based on real events. In December 1940, the Australian censors had the series banned.

British reviewers of Agatha Christie's novel N or M? in 1941 used the term to describe the struggle of two British partisans of the Nazi regime working on its behalf in Britain during World War II.

In Frank Capra's film Meet John Doe (1941), newspaper editor Henry Connell warns the politically-naïve protagonist, John Doe, about a businessman's plans to promote his own political ambitions using the apolitical John Doe Clubs. Connell says to John: "Listen, pal, this fifth-column stuff is pretty rotten, isn't it?", identifying the businessman with anti-democratic interests in the United States. When Doe agrees, he adds: "And you'd feel like an awful sucker if you found yourself marching right in the middle of it, wouldn't you?"

Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) features Robert Cummings asking for help against "fifth columnists" conspiring to sabotage the American war effort. Soon the term was being used in popular entertainment.

Several World War II era animated shorts include the term. Cartoons of Porky Pig asked any "fifth columnists" in the audience to leave the theater immediately. In Looney Tunes' Foney Fables, the narrator of a comic fairy tale described a wolf in sheep's clothing as a "fifth columnist". There was a Merrie Melodies cartoon released in 1943 titled The Fifth-Column Mouse. Comic books also contained references to the fifth column.

Graham Greene, in The Quiet American (1955) uses the phrase "Fifth Column, Third Force, Seventh Day" in the second chapter.

In the 1959 British action film Operation Amsterdam, the term "fifth columnists" is used repeatedly to refer to Nazi sympathizing members of the Dutch Army.

The V franchise is a set of TV shows, novels and comics about an alien invasion of Earth. A group of aliens opposed to the invasion and assist the human Resistance Movement is called The Fifth Column.

In the episode "Flight Into the Future" from the 1960s TV show Lost In Space, Dr. Smith was referred to as the fifth columnist of the Jupiter 2 expedition. In the first episode, he was a secret agent sent to sabotage the mission who got caught on board at liftoff.

There is an American weekly news podcast called "The Fifth Column", hosted by Kmele Foster, Matt Welch, Michael C. Moynihan, and Anthony Fisher.

Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 story "The Day After Tomorrow", originally titled "Sixth Column",
refers to a fictional fifth column that

In Foyle's War, Series 2 Episode 3, "War Games", one line reads, "It's the Second salvage collection I've missed, they've got me down as a fifth columnist."

See also
 Alien infiltration
 Black propaganda
 Copperhead (politics)
 Demographic threat
 Entryism
 False flag
 Front organization
 Internal enemy
 Jash (term)
 Quisling
 Sleeper cell
 Stay-behind

Notes

References

Further reading

 Britt G. The Fifth column is Here / George Britt. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc.,1940 125 p.
 Lavine H. Fifth column in America / Harold Lavine (1915-). New York: Doubleday, Doran, Incorporated, 1940 240 pp.

1936 introductions
1930s in Madrid
1936 in Spain
Articles containing video clips
Deep politics
Intelligence operations by type
Irregular military
Psychological warfare techniques
Spanish Civil War
Urban guerrilla warfare tactics

Fifth column


Empress Dowager Wang (王太后, personal name unknown) (died February 22, 845), formally Empress Gongxi (恭僖皇后, "the respectful and careful empress"), known during her lifetime at times as Empress Dowager Baoli (寶曆太后) then as Empress Dowager Yi'an (義安太后), was an empress dowager of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty.  She was the mother of Emperor Jingzong and a concubine of Emperor Muzong.

Background
It is not known when the future Empress Dowager Wang was born, but it is known that her family was from Yue Prefecture (越州, in modern Shaoxing, Zhejiang).  Her family was a family of officials, and her father Wang Shaoqing (王紹卿) served as a county magistrate.

As princely and imperial consort
When the future Empress Dowager Wang was young, she entered the Crown Prince's palace and became a consort to then-imperial prince Li Heng, and she bore his oldest son Li Zhan in 809.  After Li Heng became emperor in 820 (as Emperor Muzong), she was created an imperial consort rank — although the rank has been lost to history — but was not created empress.  In 822, after Emperor Muzong suffered a stroke that rendered him unable to walk, Li Zhan was created crown prince, at the urging of the key officials Li Fengji and Pei Du.

As empress dowager
In the spring of 824, Emperor Muzong died and was succeeded by Li Zhan (as Emperor JIngzong).  Emperor Muzong's mother Empress Dowager Guo was honored grand empress dowager, while Consort Wang was honored empress dowager.  In summer 824, when a disturbance led by two commoners, Su Xuanming (蘇玄明) and Zhang Shao (張韶), caused Emperor Jingzong to flee the palace briefly and flee to the Shence Army (神策軍) camps, he was concerned about the safety of the two empresses dowager and had the soldiers escort them to the Shence Army camps as well.  Only after the disturbance was suppressed did he (and presumably they) return to the palace.

In 826, Emperor Jingzong was assassinated, purportedly by his polo players, led by Su Zuoming (蘇佐明).  The eunuch Liu Keming (劉克明) initially supported Emperor Muzong's younger brother Li Wu the Prince of Jiàng to succeed Emperor Jingzong, but soon the eunuch army commanders Wang Shoucheng, Yang Chenghe (楊承和), Wei Congjian (魏從簡), and Liang Shouqian (梁守謙) killed Liu and Li Wu, supporting Emperor Jingzong's younger brother Li Han the Prince of Jiāng (note different tone) instead (as Emperor Wenzong).  Emperor Wenzong honored his own mother Consort Xiao empress dowager and honored Empress Dowager Wang "Empress Dowager Baoli" ("Baoli" (寶曆) being Emperor Jingzong's era name).  There were thus three empresses dowager in the palace at the time (along with Grand Empress Dowager Guo).  It was said that Emperor Wenzong was filially pious and honored the three empresses dowager properly.  Whenever he received valuable food items, he would first submit them to the ancestral temples, then the empresses dowager, before receiving them himself.

In 831, the chancellors suggested that there was a confusion between the titles of Grand Empress Dowager Guo and Empress Dowager Wang, and suggested that "Empress Dowager Baoli" was an inappropriate title.  They pointed out that in the past, the empresses dowagers were referred to by the names of their palace, and suggested that Empress Dowager Wang be referred to as "Empress Dowager Yi'an" because she resided at Yi'an Hall (義安殿).  Emperor Wenzong agreed.  She died in 845, by which time another younger brother of Emperor Jingzong's, Emperor Wuzong, was emperor.  She was buried in the eastern gardens at Emperor Muzong's tomb Guangling (光陵).

Notes and references

 Old Book of Tang, vol. 52.
 New Book of Tang, vol. 77.
 Zizhi Tongjian, vols. 243, 248.

8th-century births
845 deaths
Tang dynasty empresses dowager

Empress Dowager Wang (Jingzong)


Michelle Malkin (;  Maglalang; born October 20, 1970) is an American conservative political commentator. She was a Fox News contributor and in May 2020 joined Newsmax TV. Malkin has written seven books and founded the conservative websites Twitchy and Hot Air.

Around 2019, Malkin began to distance herself from conventional conservatism and instead publicly support members of the extreme right, including Nick Fuentes, as well as other white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and Groypers, including Identity Evropa leader Patrick Casey. In November 2019, she was dropped by conservative organization Young America's Foundation (YAF), citing her support for individuals associated with antisemitism and white nationalism.

Early life
Michelle Malkin was born October 20, 1970, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Philippine citizens Rafaela (née Perez), a teacher, and Apolo DeCastro Maglalang, who was then a physician-in-training. Several months prior to Malkin's birth, her parents immigrated to the United States on an employer-sponsored visa. After her father finished his medical training, the family moved to Absecon, New Jersey. She has described her parents as Ronald Reagan Republicans who were "not incredibly politically active".

Malkin, a Roman Catholic, attended Holy Spirit High School, where she edited the school newspaper and aspired to become a concert pianist. Following her graduation in 1988, she enrolled at Oberlin College. Malkin had planned to pursue a bachelor's degree in music, but changed her major to English. During her college years, she worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide, and network news librarian. At Oberlin, she wrote for a conservative student newspaper started by Jesse Malkin, who later became her husband. Her first article for the paper heavily criticized Oberlin's affirmative action program, and she said it received a "huge[ly] negative response" from other students on campus. She graduated in 1992 and later described her alma mater as "radically left-wing".

Career

Journalism
Malkin began her journalism career at the Los Angeles Daily News, working as a columnist from 1992 to 1994. In 1995, she worked in Washington, D.C. as a journalism fellow at the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute. In 1996, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she became a columnist for The Seattle Times. According to Goldsea, by the end of the year "Malkin was unleashing the no-holds-barred style of political spitballing that would ultimately make her a poster girl for the radical right".

Since 1999, Malkin has written a syndicated column for Creators Syndicate. Her column is published by outlets including Townhall. Some publications which previously carried her column, such as The Daily Wire and National Review, stopped doing so around 2019 when she began to espouse more extreme views. The white supremacist publication American Renaissance began publishing her column in 2020.

On April 24, 2006, Malkin launched the conservative blog Hot Air, where she remained CEO until she sold the website in 2010. The site's staff at launch included Allahpundit and Bryan Preston; Preston was later replaced by Ed Morrissey on February 25, 2008. In February 2010, Salem Communications bought Hot Air from Malkin. In March 2012, Malkin founded the website Twitchy, a Twitter content curation site. She sold Twitchy, also to Salem Communications, the following year.

For years, Malkin was a frequent commentator for Fox News and a regular guest host of The O'Reilly Factor. In 2007, she announced that she would not return to The O'Reilly Factor, alleging that Fox News had mishandled a dispute over derogatory statements made about her by Geraldo Rivera in a Boston Globe interview. Malkin joined Conservative Review's online television network, CRTV, when it launched in 2016, to host the documentary-style show Michelle Malkin Investigates. Malkin left CRTV under unclear circumstances when it merged with TheBlaze in December 2018. Malkin later joined competitor Newsmax TV in May 2020, where she began to host the show Sovereign Nation.

Books

Malkin published her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces, in 2002. It reached #14 on the New York Times bestseller list.

In 2004, she published In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror, defending the U.S. government's internment of 112,000 Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II, and arguing that racial profiling is acceptable in times of war. The book drew harsh criticism from mainstream scholars, organizations, and individuals including the Japanese American Citizens League and Fred Korematsu. The Historians' Committee for Fairness, an organization of scholars and professional researchers, published an open letter condemning the book for not having undergone peer review and arguing that its central thesis is false. Some conservative scholars spoke out in support of the book, including Thomas Sowell and Daniel Pipes. The Virginian-Pilot called her "an Asian Ann Coulter" and dropped her column in November 2004. Eric L. Muller also published a critique of In Defense of Internment.

Malkin's third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, was released in October 2005. Malkin released her fourth book, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, in July 2009. It remained on The New York Times Non-Fiction, Hardcover Best Seller list for six weeks. Her fifth book, Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs, was released in May 2015 and was a response to the "you didn't build that" statement made by President Barack Obama three years earlier, on July 13, 2012. Malkin published Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers in 2015 along with John Miano. She published Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction? in 2019.

Blogging
In June 2004, Malkin launched a political blog, MichelleMalkin.com. A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee described Malkin as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers". In December 2008, Malkin's blog was the largest conservative blog, and in 2011, the people search company PeekYou reported that Malkin had the largest digital footprint of any political blogger. In April 2020, Malkin moved her blog and its archives to The Unz Review, a far-right website run by former publisher of The American Conservative, Ron Unz. According to the Anti-Defamation League, The Unz Review is "a site that features numerous white supremacists and antisemites and is run by Ron Unz, who has written a number of antisemitic tracts."

Malkin has also been a contributor to the far-right anti-immigration website VDARE, writing a weekly column since 2002.

Jamil Hussein

In late 2006 and early 2007, Malkin was a leading voice among several right-wing bloggers who questioned both the credibility and the existence of Iraqi police captain Jamil Hussein, who had been used as a source by the Associated Press in over 60 stories about the Iraq war. The controversy began in November 2006 when the AP reported that six Iraqis had been burned alive as they left a mosque and that four mosques had been destroyed, citing Hussein as one of its sources. The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior and the United States military initially denied Hussein existed, leading Malkin and others to dispute the AP's reporting.

In January 2007 the AP reported that the Ministry had acknowledged Hussein's existence, and that authorities were seeking his arrest for having spoken to the press. Malkin reported the Iraqi government's confirmation. According to The Washington Post, Malkin also "expressed regret", though media scholar Arthur S. Hayes wrote in his 2008 book Press Critics are the Fifth Estate that her post "contains no apology or words of regret from her".

Speaking

For 17 years, Malkin was a featured speaker for Young America's Foundation (YAF). On November 14, 2019, during a YAF-sponsored speech at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Malkin praised white nationalist political commentator Nick Fuentes. In the same speech, she spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and former Iowa Republican Representative Steve King. YAF cut ties with Malkin on November 18, saying, "there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists". Organizers at Bentley University also canceled a scheduled book promotion event after the incident.

Malkin has spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). She was a featured speaker in 2019, and her anti-immigration speech, in which she condemned the "ghost" of John McCain, drew controversy. In 2020, Malkin spoke at the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), an event organized by Nick Fuentes that was described by Rolling Stone as the "right-wing extremist answer to CPAC". She also received press credentials to attend CPAC 2020, but did not speak at the conference. She spoke again at AFPAC 2021.

Views
Until 2019, Malkin was generally described as a conservative. Beginning in 2019, some publications began to describe her as right-wing, while some continue to describe her as conservative. She has been described as far-right by HuffPost in 2019, and Business Insider, Vanity Fair, and the Washingtonian in 2020. She has been described as alt-right by The Bulwark and The Independent in 2020.

Daniel Holtzclaw

Malkin has written about Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma City Police Department patrol officer who was convicted in December 2015 of multiple counts of rape, sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy, and other sexual charges. She has repeatedly argued that she believes Holtzclaw is innocent, saying that the forensic evidence backs his version of events, not the accusers' versions, and also that the investigators chose not to perform several tests she characterized as routine. Malkin debuted her first and second episodes of CRTV.com's Daniel in the Den on December 12, 2016, in Enid. Malkin released her film about the case, entitled Railroaded: Surviving Wrongful Convictions in 2017.

Immigration
Malkin supports stricter immigration laws in the United States. She was a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2019, where she said levels of immigration into the United States amount to an "invasion" and "endanger our general welfare and the blessings of liberty". She also condemned politicians, including the "ghost" of recently deceased Senator John McCain, for failing to enact stricter immigration regulation.

Since 2002, Malkin wrote a weekly column for VDARE, a far-right anti-immigration website. In a 2002 appearance on Hannity & Colmes, Malkin called for militarization of the Canadian border, comparing Canada to conflict zones where United States troops were deployed and saying, "Canada bears a lot of responsibility for making us as vulnerable as we are to terrorism".

In 2017, Malkin endorsed alt-right candidate Paul Nehlen in his ultimately unsuccessful primary challenge against Paul Ryan for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, citing Nehlen's opposition to "elites" who support open borders as the reason for her endorsement.

Muslims
Malkin has advocated for interning Muslims on national security grounds. Malkin also defended "racial, ethnic, religious, and nationality profiling policies" used during the War on Terror.

Malkin has covered anti-Muslim topics on episodes of her CRTV show Michelle Malkin Investigates, including "The Muslim Refugee Rape Epidemic" and "Honor Killings: The Real War on Women". Malkin promoted her 2019 book, Open Borders Inc., at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a non-profit that has been described as Islamophobic.

Support for white nationalists

Amanda Carpenter wrote in March 2020 that Malkin had begun to "link arms with the most vocal elements of the white nationalist movement". In August 2020, the Anti-Defamation League wrote, "in the past year ... she has publicly and explicitly allied herself with white supremacists" and that she herself was "echoing" white supremacist views. The Southern Poverty Law Center described her in January 2021 as a "former conservative-pundit-gone-white-nationalist-apologist".

YAF dismissed Malkin in November 2019 after she gave a YAF-sponsored speech at UCLA titled  "America First: the Torch Is Being Passed". In her speech, she praised Nick Fuentes as "one of the New Right leaders", and also spoke supportively of the Proud Boys, Laura Loomer, and Steve King. In 2020, Malkin faced criticism for speaking at the America First Political Action Conference, which is hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and also featured Patrick Casey, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa. Malkin has also supported Gavin McInnes, and has described him and Laura Loomer as friends of hers. She has described herself as the "mommy" of the Groypers, a loose collection of white nationalists who follow Nick Fuentes.

In 2020, Malkin appeared on Red Ice, a white supremacist radio program, and cautioned listeners about changing demographics and "multicultural rot".

In November 2021, Malkin delivered a speech at the annual American Renaissance Conference, hosted by the white supremacist New Century Foundation. Malkin and her family were subsequently banned from using Airbnb in reaction to her having appeared at the event.

Accusations of antisemitism
According to Bridge Initiative, a Georgetown University research project on Islamophobia, Malkin has promoted conspiracy theories about George Soros on her social media and on Fox News programs. In 2019, Malkin joined far-right commentator Gavin McInnes for a Facebook Live event to promote her book, and agreed with him when he claimed that Soros was "not a Holocaust survivor" but a "Holocaust facilitator": Malkin has denied accusations of anti-semitism, saying that she is "the proud wife of a grandson of Ukrainian Jews who came to this country to escape pogroms [and is] a proud supporter of Israel, but more importantly, a proud supporter of American sovereignty." At the 2020 America First Political Action Conference, Malkin said it was "not anti-semitic" to question "whatever the precise number of people is who perished in World War II."

2020 United States presidential election

Following the 2020 United States presidential election, Malkin helped advance the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Trump. She used the #StopTheSteal hashtag on Twitter and spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in her hometown of Colorado Springs to protest the election results. She also appeared in a trailer for a film about the movement, which also featured Fuentes and Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander.

Personal life
While in college at Oberlin, she began dating Jesse Malkin. They married in 1993 and have two children. Jesse Malkin worked as a healthcare consultant for RAND Corporation. Jesse is a retired health economist, who now works on his wife's speaking engagements and helps her run her business.

Malkin and her family lived in North Bethesda, Maryland, until 2008 when they relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Publications

Books
 In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror (ISBN 0-89526-051-4)
 Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild. Washington, D.C.: Regnery (2005). . .
 Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers, with John Miano. New York: Threshold Editions/Mercury Ink (2015). . .
 Audiobook read by Juliet St. John, with an introduction read by the author. New York: Simon & Schuster Audio (2015). . .

Book contributions
 "The Patriot Act Does Not Target Immigrants" (viewpoint six). In: The Patriot Act, edited by Lauri S. Friedman. Detroit: Greenhaven Press (2006), pp. 41–46. . .
 "The Military Prison at Guantanamo Bay Should Stay Open." In: Prisons, edited by Lauri S. Friedman. Detroit: Greenhaven Press (2008), pp. 85–90. . .

Reports
 "The Deportation Abyss: 'It Ain't Over 'Til the Alien Wins.'" Backgrounder (September 2002).

References

Further reading
 Grewal, Inderpal. "'Security Moms' in the Early Twentieth-Century United States: The Gender of Security in Neoliberalism." Women's Studies Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1/2: The Global & the Intimate (Spring/Summer, 2006), pp. 25–39. The Feminist Press at the City University of New York. .

External links

 Official blog archive (March 2004–September 2022) at Unz Review

1970 births
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American women writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alt-right activists
Alt-right writers
American women bloggers
American bloggers
American columnists
American conspiracy theorists
American nationalists
American writers of Filipino descent
American political commentators
American political writers
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American women columnists
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Catholics from Colorado
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Competitive Enterprise Institute
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Living people
Maryland Republicans
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Oberlin College alumni
Pennsylvania political journalists
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People from Absecon, New Jersey
Right-wing populism in the United States
The Seattle Times people
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Asian conservatism in the United States
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Michelle Malkin