Americans Lose Faith in National Media
Despite the availability of dozens of newer digital sources, it’s still virtually impossible to escape national media’s political, social, educational and cultural coverage. Accordingly, attentive consumers have noticed a certain attitudinal/content sameness between and among various otherwise-unrelated mainstream media outlets.
From an August Rasmussen Reports survey: Most likely U.S. voters believe the average journalist to be liberal, few are conservative, and 61 percent think reporters at major news organizations are public figures who deserve scrutiny.
Indeed, Americans are scrutinizing major media. The nearly-monolithic left-wing political, economic and social coverage delivered by traditional media – newspapers, network and cable news – inspires legitimate concerns about whether most remain traditional.
National media’s often-homogenous, highly-debatable narratives raise questions like these:
Does President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed control the national news cycle?
What evidence is there that left-wing media make journalistic distinctions between/among “reporting,” “opinion,” “speculation” and “fantasy”?
Why weren’t initially-overreacting partisan media embarrassed by the anodyne transcript of a Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation? Are most national journalists just Democratic Party operatives with bylines?
Columnist Jim Treacher wrote, “Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn’t know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.” But, if the facts either confirm Biden/Ukraine corruption allegations or prove them unfounded, wouldn’t Americans, especially Democratic primary voters, want to know?
Why do outlets such as the New York Times get upset when readers notice that Times employees have posted virulent racist and antisemitic views on social media, yet remain employed? Do media believe that Americans’ right to publicly object to their and other left-wing misbehaviors is proof that free speech doesn’t work?
Must we simply ignore dozens of old, wrong predictions and accept the new one that global warming will destroy the planet in eleven years? Are the most reliable sources for this catastrophic event a 16-year-old Swedish girl with Asperger’s Syndrome and a youngish, former New York bartender cum congressional newcomer?
Do media even try to vet them, or are “higher education” sources, by definition, considered credible? Even “Studies” department faculty?
Is there one national media outlet that would disagree that only way to reduce gun crimes and mass shootings is to take weapons away from people who don’t do those things?
Are mask-wearing street thugs who commit vandalism and random assaults really anti-fascists? Or are they a just new generation of fascist Brownshirts?
Are the most significant problems faced by black Americans today really “white supremacy,” the Confederate flag, Civil War statues and law enforcement?
How, exactly, have white conservatives caused problems in predominantly-black jurisdictions that have been run for generations by liberal Democrats – white and black?
If you believe that all the people who voted for President Trump are Nazis and/or Klansmen, have you considered popping your political biosphere’s hermetic seal to glimpse life outside? Did President Trump’s election provoke the left’s and liberal media’s contempt for regular American voters – or merely reveal it?
Is America wrong to conclude that traditional media have lost trust, prestige and influence, and that, primarily, it’s national media’s fault?
