海角大神

As resident jester at the maverick journalism outlet The Free Press, Nellie Bowles scours the news for the absurd and hypocritical, and then skewers the best of the worst in her column, TGIF.

For instance, when Joe Biden warned in his farewell address that billionaires wield too much power, Ms. Bowles scoffed that he only meant Republican plutocrats. 鈥淢e, I鈥檓 balanced,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淚 love all our oligarchs, on both sides. ... I want our political battles to be fought on warring yachts off the coast of Croatia.鈥�

The lampooning, along with her book, 鈥淢orning After the Revolution鈥� 鈥� which argues that progressive politics and mainstream journalists 鈥渨ent berserk鈥� in the early 2020s 鈥� have turned Ms. Bowles into a darling among conservatives and disenchanted Democrats.

鈥淚f I had to read just one thing all week to both amuse me and inform me without predictable bias, I鈥檇 pick Nellie鈥檚 TGIF column 鈥� so smart, so funny,鈥� says comedian Bill Maher, who has hosted her on his HBO talk show.

But Ms. Bowles鈥� political views defy easy categorization. 鈥淢y personal politics are totally chaotic,鈥� she tells the Monitor. 鈥淏est described as strong opinions, loosely held. But that鈥檚 why I鈥檓 a journalist and now mostly a satirist. If I had good political answers to the conundrums of the day, I鈥檇 be off doing that.鈥�

For most of her 36 years, Ms. Bowles was a 鈥渉appy liberal,鈥� a sixth-generation San Franciscan whose beliefs were as synonymous with the city as fog and cable cars. In fifth grade, she stapled photos of factory farm animals to her backpack to protest the campus cafeteria鈥檚 meat dishes.

At her high school, an elite boarding academy near Santa Barbara, she led the gay-straight alliance. With a penchant for steel-toed Doc Martens and rainbow stickers, she was initially the only out-of-the-closet student. As a child, 鈥淚 completely ignored dolls unless it was to decapitate them,鈥� she says in her book.

Ms. Bowles didn鈥檛 intend to be a journalist. Hoping to write popular science books, she majored in psychology and comparative literature at Columbia University. The summer before her senior year, she trekked to Montreal to help with a study of hypnosis as a substitute for pain medicine.

She soon realized, however, that 鈥淚 was very bad at science research.鈥� Still wanting to write, she cajoled her way into an internship at the San Francisco Chronicle and 鈥淥n Day 1, I knew this was my career,鈥� she says.

Seven years later, in 2017, she snagged the brass ring, joining the San Francisco bureau of The New York Times to cover tech and culture. But a cup of Goldfish crackers and a sojourn in Seattle helped turn her dream job to disillusionment.

Things began crystallizing in 2020, around the time that protesters transformed six blocks of Seattle into a cop-free zone. Amid conflicting accounts on whether the takeover created Camelot or chaos, Ms. Bowles wanted to report on merchants suing the city for withdrawing police and fire protection from the neighborhood. Several Times colleagues questioned her motives, cautioning that such an article would put her 鈥渙n the wrong side of history,鈥� she recalls.

鈥淔or me,鈥� she says, journalism is about 鈥渇ollowing your curiosity,鈥� not censoring facts that undermine pet political causes. She went ahead with the story, which ended up on the newspaper鈥檚 front page.

Ms. Bowles鈥� love life also raised hackles. Two years earlier, during a trip to New York, she had rendezvoused over fish-shaped crackers with Bari Weiss, a Times opinion editor and writer, to discuss a news tip. 鈥淚 fell in love immediately,鈥� Ms. Bowles says. A long-distance texting relationship ensued and blossomed into romance.

Some co-workers were aghast. Although Ms. Weiss leans left on a number of issues, her conservative stances on others made her 鈥渁 perennial political pi帽ata, with just about everyone taking a whack,鈥� as a magazine put it. Citing bullying by colleagues, Ms. Weiss quit the paper shortly before Ms. Bowles鈥� Seattle story was published. Ms. Weiss鈥� resignation letter, which also alleged a betrayal of journalistic standards, went viral. As the uproar unfolded, Ms. Bowles suggested they 鈥済et out of Dodge,鈥� telling Ms. Weiss, 鈥淭here鈥檚 this place called California and it鈥檚 sunny, it鈥檚 beautiful, and people are so nice ... and politics is like the 10th thing they care about.鈥� So the couple moved to Los Angeles, got hitched at an instant wedding chapel, and began plotting their future.

When Ms. Weiss envisioned launching a big media company, Ms. Bowles thought the idea was 鈥渄elusional,鈥� but nevertheless opened an account for her on Substack, a publishing platform popular with exiled journalists. Debuting in January 2021, it took off swiftly, she says.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bowles went on leave from the Times and began her book, which was 鈥渕ore or less a list of stories I wanted to write for The New York Times, but knew I couldn鈥檛.鈥� The topics included a 鈥淭oxic Trends of Whiteness鈥� class, a homeless encampment 鈥渞un by BMW-driving socialists,鈥� and the hollowness of land acknowledgments. (鈥淵ou鈥檙e not giving the land back鈥� to Native Americans, she sniffs; it鈥檚 more like, 鈥淟et鈥檚 remember that people were slaughtered here on the soil under this beautiful Craftsman house, and then let鈥檚 continue on and have dessert.鈥�)

Less than a year into the project, Ms. Bowles quit the paper and joined her wife鈥檚 venture as the flagship columnist. The Free Press has since racked up investors, expanded staff, and branched into podcasts and live events. Boasting over a million subscribers (145,000 are paying), it鈥檚 a bright spot in today鈥檚 mediasphere.

With TGIF, Ms. Bowles is sort of a modern-day Mort Sahl, the pioneering political comedian of the 1950s and 鈥�60s. But instead of walking onstage with a newspaper and riffing on headlines like Mr. Sahl, she walks on a treadmill beneath her shoulder-high computer screen while hunting for material to satirize. She test-drives her 鈥渞ants鈥� over dinner, and finalizes the roundup each Thursday.

Although most of her foils are progressives, she鈥檚 not averse to roasting conservative kahunas, including Elon Musk (鈥淣ormally you have to kill people to get that powerful鈥�) and President Donald Trump, whose inauguration meme coins are 鈥渓ike tiny Ponzi schemes; the price goes up as long as people keep buying.鈥�

Ms. Bowles acknowledges missing the in-depth reporting that marked her newspaper career, but with a 2-year-old daughter and infant son, such stories are harder to pull off.

鈥淥nce the kids are in school, I鈥檒l go back to feature writing,鈥� she says.

Then again, TGIF typically attracts three times as many eyeballs as her Times articles, she notes. 鈥淚t鈥檚 so much fun.鈥�