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Renaming the Mainstream Media
This morning as I strode on the treadmill, I realized that David Harsanyi, on his podcast with Mollie Hemingway, You’re Wrong, planted a seed in my brain for a brand-new and more appropriate name for the mainstream media. Let me share how important I think this re-labeling will be for the foreseeable future.
Most of us on the Right refer to the mainstream media, or MSM, as newspapers that used to take pride in mostly publishing the news. Part of their purpose was supposedly to give us the truth, an objective rendition of what was happening in the world. (I know there are some who would debate this purpose, and we can certainly discuss that disagreement.) The New York Times and Washington Post in particular were supposed to be the bastions of newspapers everywhere, because they had the ability to position reporters all over the world. We trusted them, relied on them (foolishly, or not) to give us the facts, although we’ve known for a while that they were biased to the benefit of the Left.
In the last several years, though, these newspapers and those who genuflect to them have made their biases unequivocally clear. They are the handmaidens to the Left, although it’s unclear whether the Left or the media are the ones who are making the demands. Recently (it seems to me), the term “legacy media” has been used. Some people claim that this word is being used to suggest that the print media is archaic, and that we will be getting all of our news online; I suspect they may be right. Although I couldn’t help wondering whether the word “legacy” was also being used to suggest a format that was handed down from a long and venerable tradition.
But maybe not.
Now I would like to introduce you to the new term I am recommending and lauding to describe the current state of our media that calls itself news.
We should call it the vanity press.
Isn’t that perfect?
Today our print media has no interest in what they claim was originally their mission. Instead, they publicly state that they are not interested in objectivity or the truth, as shown in this panel discussion held by Columbia University:
This holding of the tongue that objectivity demands can be especially detrimental to journalists belonging to marginalized communities. ‘Objectivity, to me, has been a silencing force,’ said Lewis Raven Wallace, a journalist who is transgender and whose book The View from Somewhere concerns objectivity’s detrimental impacts and details historical acts of journalism that reveal objectivity’s constraints. . .
Objectivity also works against meaningful diversity and inclusion efforts, Lowery and Wallace both noted, holding news organizations back from reshaping historically white power structures. Such newsrooms, Wallace argued, are ‘spaces of concentrated power and resources that white people run and make editorial decisions in,’ and should embrace lessons on subjectivity from advocacy journalism and grassroots news organizations, bypassing the objectivity roadblock to instead work for and with marginalized and oppressed peoples.
In other words, their subjectivity is of paramount importance: their beliefs, their ideas, their agenda are the keys to good journalism and what we need to know.
When we talk about a traditional “vanity press,” we are usually describing books that are self-published, that authors choose for one reason or another to finance the publication of their work. When I looked up the meaning of “vanity,” however, I thought the definitions were more accurate for those who believe that they know what we, the public, need to be taught. Vanity, as defined by Merriam-Webster, more accurately describes the work of today’s press: (1) inflated pride in oneself or one’s appearance; (2) something that is vain, empty, or valueless.
Since the Left is constantly manipulating and redefining our language, I think it’s time that we demanded that the Left accept a significant redefinition of the media.
Don’t you think that “vain, empty, or valueless” is on point?
From now on, I will call the Vanity Press by its most accurate and legitimate name.
Published in Journalism
Good one. But “fascist press” will do, as well.
I’ve noticed Mollie Hemingway seems to use “corporate press” or flat-out calls them “regime propagandists” frequently, and I think she’s spot on with that.
I like it! It conveys the sense of smug self-righteousness that pervades the MSM.
It seems one of the perks of being a journalist these days is that you get to write about people you despise.
I thought you were going to suggest the term “Handmaiden Press.”
Their articles could be referred to individually as “Handmaid’s Tales.”
The idea is to insult them, so that works, too!
That works, too, MG! So many different ways to disparage them for what they are.
Yes. It seems like the type of label that would drive them crazy if it catches on. “Fascist press” is too easy to dismiss. But a term like “Vanity Press” might cause someone to look up what it means.
“advocacy journalism” == propaganda.
“Corporate Media” works for me. It is accurate and it also has to sting all of the self-righteous journos who fancy themselves as anti-capitalism.
True. But I don’t know if would have that sting, given that they do work for corporations.
I would have preferred “Leftist A__holes,” but “Vanity Press” works too . . .
You could extrapolate and group the various “X’s Studies” things in Academia into “Vanity Studies”.
Funny. I had similar thoughts a night or two ago. I submit “government media”.
Not quite “State media,” as when a Republican is in office it does not cleave to his interest. It is all-government, all the time. “Deep State media” seemed a bit too cute.
All good suggestions, and in circumstances could be the most accurate descriptions. I mostly like Corporate Media, because it accurately describes these institutions with a broad brush, that easily separate them for the normies.
I also like Media Industrial Complex – which can be used to describe how individuals are interchangeable with government media, and failing that, pushed into academia.
How about Permanent state propagandists?
They loved the lockdown, Russia collusion, hiding shenanigans of Biden Inc, have no problem with adding 70K IRS agents (see Chuck Todd), the teachers unions, the PTA over parents …
Not for me.
They’re not state propagandists, as they would have shifted on Russia collusion when Trump became president. Maybe permanent dnc propagandists… Or just dnc media …
On a podcast to which I was listening this morning but had been recorded several days ago, Mollie did use the term “vanity press” and explained how many media companies are vanity projects in the colloquial sense of feeding the egos of the owners with little or no expectation of monetary profits.
[Side note – each time I see this post with its illustration of “TRUTH” coming out of the typewriter my mind keeps going to the Soviet news organization “PRAVDA,” which I understand was a term for “truth” even though PRAVDA was peddling the opposite of truth. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone younger than about 60 would recognize any reference to PRAVDA.]
How about “liars,” “fantasists,” “fabricators,” “fraudsters,” “prevaricators,” etc….
Anything these people deem to be of Caucasian/Western Civilization heritage is bad and to be disregarded as though it were the waste product of humanity. They have complete disrespect for what I consider to be my society and culture, of which, I am very proud. Do they have anything to offer which would improve upon what we have inherited? It could be that they do in some instances. But why should I care? If I identify with my heritage, then they want to destroy me, imprison me, and cancel me. This is what they offer me in exchange for indulging them in their “improvements” which are in most cases distortions and deviances. No thank you.
they carried the water for the FBI during Trump admin
I was counting on the oldsters getting it.
NO! For corrupt members of the FBI. Had these agents been following their normal proper procedures, they would not have been leaking stories to the press – false stories – in order to use these reports as a predicate to get warrants…
And since when is a news story considered evidence? Reporters don’t put their sources under oath – nor do the editors take any real steps to verify the story filed. Other than “It’s O’Neil with 2 Ls… “
Normal is not synonymous with Proper. Not now, at a minimum.
They/Them seems fitting.
Normal by the book FBI operations – particularly as documented in 2016 – have been violated by all these actions… The problem you need a workforce to follow the policy and a management to enforce it.
Without those things it doesnt matter what the law is – they’ll do whatever they need to get their man… Even frame.