On Feb. 1, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) invited Tina Nguyen CM ’11 — national correspondent for Puck — to speak as part of the Athenaeum’s 40th Anniversary Series, which celebrates the achievements of CMC alumni from across the years.
Nguyen’s experience ranges from reporting for Politico and Vanity Fair to authoring “The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out).” Recounting her journey navigating the media jungle, Nguyen offered insights into reporting within and on right-wing media.
During her time at CMC, Nguyen served as the news editor for The Claremont Independent, participated as a fellow at the Salvatori Center and contributed as an occasional cartoonist and columnist for The Forum.
Nguyen recounted how the growing political prominence of conservative figures — and the interest surrounding them — led her into the world of reporting on right-wing politics.
“I did always want to be a journalist of some sort and the cap that led me to reporting on right-wing journalism involved a very weird stint inside right-wing journalism,” Nguyen said.
Diving into her theory, “the infinite fringe,” Nguyen shared the distinctions between fringe and mainstream media and offered her observations about the intertwinement of media, truth and politics.
“I would say the fringe is something that actively rejects mainstream media,” Nguyen said. “It’s defined as much by how strong it is as an institution and how long it’s been there as it is by what it is they cover and who gets to have a job in mainstream media.”
Nguyen’s theory serves as her way of explaining the effects of media and politics had on each other over the past decade.
“It’s my stab at a grand unified theory that explains why the past decade of politics has been so absolutely batshit,” Nguyen said. “It’s hard to tell what’s true, what’s fake and why it seems like people are living in their own separate realities.”
Reflecting on her own experiences covering the MAGA movement, Nguyen emphasized the necessity to reverse the impact of fringe ideologies on public discourse.
“Perhaps it comes from a restructuring of the journalism industry … [and] its ability to reach out to readers, establish a trustworthy relationship with them and give them root news that’s relevant and reflects reality,” Nguyen said. “Maybe it comes from the public having a deeper understanding of the internet’s power to distort the truth and serve up lies or holding online influencers as accountable as they do. Maybe it’s a generational change too.”
Nguyen proposed potential solutions for the future, including reforms in journalism, increased digital literacy, and generational shifts in attitudes toward online media consumption.
“I find that people who grew up with the internet have a deeper understanding that people online have an incentive, financial, political or otherwise to twist their perceptions,” Nguyen said. “Maybe it’s just as simple as telling more people to touch grass.”
During the Q&A section of the event, Ellie Lerner CM ’25 asked about the future of free speech in online media.
“[Do] you think the time has come to limit free speech, either legally or via restrictions on social media platforms themselves?” Lerner said.
Nguyen responded, prefacing the complicated nature of the question.
“Personally, I think that humans were not meant to be confronted with this much information at once,” she said. “A lot of distrust in each other and in media just comes from the fact that there are too many different people screaming in their ears at any given moment. As for legislation, I really would not know how to approach that yet.”
Brian Davidson, director of the Athenaeum, shared with TSL his mission to incorporate diverse perspectives into the program.
“We want to ensure that multiple voices are heard — not just in one semester or one year — but in one talk,” Davidson said. “I think it’s often better to think of [debates] as discussions and not to have that adversarial framing.”
Nguyen reflected on her experience as a CMC student and her key takeaways from the Athenaeum.
“The Ath was where I learned two important skills: How to hold a wine glass and cheese plate in the same hand and how to engage with people who wanted to exchange and develop new ideas, to understand society and hopefully to change it for the better,” Nguyen said.
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