Why Is Legacy Media Quietly Embracing MAHA?

MAHA doesn't need mainstream media, but its coverage is helping the movement become a voting block with staying power.

“Is That Carb Ultra-Processed? Here’s a Test Even a Kid Can Do.”

You would think that an article with the above headline would be published in a news outlet such as this one – The MAHA Report. But on Feb. 16, just weeks after Health and Human Services (HHS) flipped the food pyramid, introducing new dietary guidelines that prioritize protein and vegetables, the above headline accompanied a story published by NPR, a news organization long critical of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

For years, left-leaning media characterized Kennedy as a kook and anything he did and said as kooky, against science, unfettered. As he rode into the Trump administration on the back of a powerful and growing coalition known as MAHA, it was all too convenient to bash MAHA as the brainchild of a kook.

But now something remarkable is happening. In real time, Kennedy’s MAHA messaging is breaking through and changing public perception and media coverage. The legacy media is curious about MAHA and its success addressing the chronic disease epidemic. They implicitly and at times reluctantly acknowledge that there is a health problem in America and ultra-processed foods are a big part of that problem.

In Troilus and Cressida (Act III, Scene III), Shakespeare writes, “things in motion sooner catch the eye/ Than what not stirs.” The MAHA movement has momentum and is news. Even if we believe the left-leaning media still have their reservations about MAHA, they don’t want to be seen as out of touch. Plus, there’s something irresistibly apolitical about the concept of making America healthy again. People on both sides of the political divide can put their differences aside and celebrate Americans’ health. That’s not kooky; it’s sane.

MAHA of course has its own eco system. It doesn’t need the mainstream media’s guidance and support. In fact, the mainstream media benefits from MAHA since it is evident that their readers and listeners care about MAHA issues and addressing obstacles standing in the way of improving the chronic disease epidemic.

Moreover, it’s becoming hip for young women to side with MAHA moms, as The New York Times Magazine revealed in its profiles published on April 12, featuring three young women.

NPR is losing support. Tired of the polarization, I stopped listening to NPR in 2020. It no longer felt like news coverage. Clearly, I was not alone in feeling this way. I don’t believe Americans want to be pitted against each other. We want to feel acknowledged and prioritized. We want our health, and the health of our children, to be prioritized.

Secretary Kennedy’s movement is evidence of this. I volunteered for and worked on his 2024 presidential campaign. I heard first-hand what brought us all together. What was said time and time again was that people no longer cared which team they supported; they cared about who was going to fight for Americans’ best interest.

Remember what Edna St. Vincent Millay said about politics and health? “Republican or Democrat at the bedside, the patient still dies.”

This shift in prioritizing our health over politics is powerful. Our power lies in our numbers and in the science that backs up what we know about healthcare and the American food industry.

NPR and other news outlets were quick to criticize Mike Tyson’s Super Bowl ad encouraging Americans to “Eat Real Food.” We get it. The mainstream media just can’t help but recoil from anything that is even remotely related to President Trump – even a positive topic like how eating real, minimally-processed foods can save your life, as Mike Tyson believes it did his.

Like Tyson, I experienced how a change in diet improved my life. I was only 18 when I became chronically sick, gained substantial weight, and developed chronic acne and out-of-control eczema.

I worked with a naturopathic physician, made dietary changes, and healed my body.

There are millions in the MAHA movement with similar stories.

There are millions of us who are fed up with being lied to and manipulated when it comes to health, and poisoned by our food.

MAHA’s numbers keep growing, which is why we are starting to see MAHA-aligned articles making their way into NPR, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among other outlets.

The signs are clear. The MAHA movement is changing the political landscape. It has rapidly become a voting block large enough to throw elections in the direction of MAHA-endorsed candidates.

While individuals at news organizations may still privately loathe Kennedy, the institutions themselves know MAHA is a movement that can’t be ignored.