National Media, RIP
Local news reporting has changed little since World War II. Readers and viewers still get factual coverage of municipal events, meetings, high school sports, obituaries and other items of local interest.
But, one as-yet-unpublished obituary could – should – appear everywhere: National journalism has died – taking national unity with it.
In school, today’s corporate media figures aspired to “make a difference” à la Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who broke the Watergate story leading to President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
Few – none, really – have succeeded. In fact, media performance – or its lack – has earned the scorn of one of their idols.
Carl Bernstein made this comment in 1992: “The lowest form of popular culture – lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives – has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
Clearly, corporate media’s failure to practice real journalism isn’t new, but their decades-old deficiencies have worsened.
Today’s national media “luminaries” have sacrificed their credibility on the altars of social/cultural activism and left-wing partisanship. They have turned themselves into court eunuchs for Democrats.
The same “journalists” who spent four-plus years calling former President Donald Trump a “liar” are now in full cheerleader mode for proven-liar President(ish) Joe Biden, as they were for former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both confirmed fabulists.
Media’s extravagant praise for and kid-gloves treatment of a clearly-impaired Joe Biden is even more cringe-worthy than the cringe-inducing mush Biden utters. Their journalistic negligence and partisan advocacy helped elect Biden, so national media are complicit in and co-owners of every one of Biden’s failures.
Today, national newsrooms are among America’s worst prevaricators by commission as well as omission. Partisan media resorted to fabrications in their relentless, unprofessional efforts to destroy President Trump.
Although he mocked them mercilessly – usually accurately – as “fake news,” ironically, Trump was very accessible to the same press who now tolerate and forgive Biden’s extraordinarily-limited availability and aversion to questions.
Today, mentioning Biden’s obvious debilities is off-limits, even though insinuations and allegations about the intelligence and/or mental acuity of Presidents Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bushes 1 and 2 were common.
Moreover, lapdog media have subjugated themselves to Biden’s staff.
The press meekly backed off when White House spokes-scolder Jen Psaki demanded, “Why do you need to have that information?”
That embarrassment alone confirms the utter dereliction of American journalists and encapsulates corporate media’s pathetic abdication, not only of journalistic standards, but of their dignity, as well.
Media’s partisan protectiveness extends even beyond the president and his staff.
Other than his dubious artistic “talents,” what have national media reported about Hunter Biden? What do you suppose they would have done if a Trump family member were a crack-smoking, stripper-impregnating, child-support-shirking, laptop-abandoning, influence-peddling degenerate?
Americans only got those Hunter stories from the internet, foreign sources and a few conservative reporters. Inside the national media bubble the laptop evidence was called “Russian misinformation.”
Disingenuous national media have attempted to ruin the lives of people far more accomplished than Hunter Biden over far less serious – even unserious – allegations. Think: Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Then, years in the making, in 2020, corporate media finally plunged over a cliff.
Last year, against the backdrops of looting, assaults, burning buildings and shattered storefronts, as rioting razed entire, including black communities in Democrat-run cities, national media assured viewers that the “protests” were “mostly peaceful.” Now, they’re trying to ignore or soft-pedal the reality that Biden will abandon Americans in Afghanistan.
Because they’ve been derelict for too long, any tardy or after-the-fact media “disclosures” won’t rehabilitate them.
Among plunge-facilitator Donald Trump’s greatest presidential successes was to expose national media’s laughable affectations of “unbiased reporting.”
Far from “mainstream,” national media generally hold views well to the left of most Americans, so, almost daily, Mr. Trump encouraged media to display their dreadfulness in full view of the American public who, in turn, tuned them out.
Trump didn’t destroy hostile media, he merely turned the spotlight on them and let them destroy themselves.
Corporate media outlets are hanging on, primarily among likeminded liberal audiences. That’s why none of them even pretend objectivity anymore.
Today, NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC/WaPo/NYTimes/USAToday, et al, are seen as Democrat Party propagandists. They are all as good as dead to the vast majority of 300+ million American consumers.
