Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Bottomless Well of Media Lies
When the art of fiction becomes the template for journalism, it is the end of journalism. Journalism is dead. The news as presented by popular media was sold out for a shallow, meaningless, callow world. Journalists collectively see themselves as America’s savior from the unwashed, when they are actually inhabitants of the rankest morass, dastards of their own creation. They are co-conspirators in a crime wave of peddling lies and ruining lives; and they do it with a heavy hand that would make a mob-boss jealous, using extortion and fear to maintain power.
‘Truth, holding a mirror and serpent’ by Olin Warner. Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, DC
As conservatives, we are used to the one-sided viewpoints and repetition-as-truth being spun easier than a spider’s web. But we know how fragile it really is. We know because of the voracity with which those who occupy the newsrooms and publishing offices are now lashing out. I’ve written about Bari Weiss’ resignation before in broader terms, but it is much more telling of the lack of character, the cowardice, and the pettiness, that the brutal anti-Semitic, cruel, unacceptable behavior she was subject to at the New York Times by her own colleagues – and her bosses did nothing to defend her. But to them, Ms. Weiss was a traitor to their cause. She refused to submit to an ideology that would imprison her intellectual honesty. Thinking and speaking against the dogma is an unforgivable sin.
Popular, mainstream media news and journalism are no longer professions. Together, it is a new identity class to be pursued by those who seek their own vainglorious fame. But it isn’t open to anyone. To rise through the ranks of the chattering class, one must declare religious allegiance to a monolithic ideological culture and pledge to proselytize in the name of their self-serving, progressive faith. Their thin veneer of viewpoint diversity, the pursuit of truth, and claims of holding the powerful accountable has been ungraciously wiped away, revealing thin-skinned, sanctimonious lemmings, more enamored with their own influence than being concerned with factual reporting. But the truth, much to the chagrin of progressives, has an inconvenient way of coming out.
And the truth is a mere hurdle when elections are at stake. And for the Democrats and their media propaganda wing, a Joe Biden win would be the crowning trophy with which to vanquish the Republicans and also a bludgeon to the conservative cause. From a sanctimonious pedestal, removed from the real problems of average Americans, journalists and newsmakers in the media business tell us who we are and what we are supposed to believe based on our race, sex, and age, all the while wailing about the President failing to be a unifier. Their single-minded, divisive political agenda is to coronate the rightful leader – Joe “The Great White Hope” Biden. And they are willing to lie to do it because for them the end justifies the means. For the leftist media, the price of a light slap on the wrist because of misinformation is worth the progressive cause. Joy Reid, Al Sharpton, Brian Williams, Dan Rather, all were caught in egregious falsehoods, but now enjoy the spotlight – and leftist credibility – once again.
The monopoly on the media must be broken if America is to survive. The blinkering elites strut about, basking in their humorless vanity, destroying reputations and lives like tossing cigarette butts on the sidewalk. But what is left in the ashes are real people. I see it in the burned streets of Minneapolis. It’s in the tears of people who lost their businesses and jobs. But the media has its own story to tell, and it doesn’t involve those people. They have a cause to promote. Nothing made that more apparent than when MSNBC anchor Ali Velshey so cavalierly stated on national television the rioters protestors were “not generally unruly.” He wasn’t going to report the truth on the ground. That wouldn’t fit the planned narrative justifying protests of a systemically racist nation. There is no room for truth in a world where the press is the judge, jury, and executioner. They are the gatekeepers of a subjective truth under which we the citizens are ruled.
But as the collective American media and institutional mind closes, an opportunity for disruption and change of course on the magnitude of the 2016 election, opens. People are hungry for the truth.
I believe most of us can see through the reports of America’s pending doom and are hopeful for a renewed faith in our future beyond pandemics, globalist foes, and economic ruin. We are tired of seeing the daily drumbeat of people like Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman who root for our nation’s failure. They hope a steady serving of fear will give them power, at the same time using politically charged accusations to end civil conversations contrary to their own hollow assertions.
I’m finished just taking the lies. For too long, I’ve been quiet in my own disbelief of the absolute corruption in the media. When the major media outlets scrutinize the President about offhand remarks regarding Ghislaine Maxwell, I remember the media silence about Amy Robach’s bombshell about the main villain, Jeffrey Epstein. When the major news outlets try to pressure corporations to tow the social justice line, remember they need weak leaders to cave to their demands and hand over advertising dollars to stay afloat. Encourage young, smart, independent-minded kids to pursue careers where truth is objective and history is to be cherished. Object to government-sponsored censorship when communication bills regulating speech and tech startups are up for a vote. The big tech monopolies and mainstream media outlets’ lack of competition is the biggest threat to free speech and the marketplace of ideas. We can – and must- fight back against the triumph of the will that leads down the path of national ruin.
Published in General
We really need to get to the bottom of this.
About the only thing you can believe in the newspaper these days is the sports scores (and yesterday’s weather).
Throughout 99% of history, “journalism” has been this way. All of it was partisan and most of it vicious. The difference is that now it supports one side only. Remember Yellow Journalism? That was how the Left took over journalism. They said, “This Yellow Journalism is a terrible scourge on the country! We need more professional journalists who just report the news.” The Right shrugged, “I suppose we could do that.” And then for forty years the Leftists took over while pretending to be fair and just reporting the facts. Usually, it was facts they made up, though, and occasionally one or another would get caught. They’re still pretending, and we have ceded the ground.
Agree, though I would add what’s happening now is more than just one-sided reporting. It’s the outright stifling of any diverse views. Honest reporters recognize their bias and at least make an attempt at countering it or exploring opposing views. Further, the use of power to bulldoze corporate collusion and publicly shame what they consider the morally superior opinion (theirs, natch) is much more pronounced.
An honest reporter and an honest politician walk into a bar.
Never mind.
Maybe something about a lawyer, I don’t know.
“The monopoly on the media must be broken if America is to survive.”
The monopoly was on track to being broken, as online access to news/opinion grew…but the rise of social media again put access under the control of a few very large entities, and, moreover, the social pressures on these platforms are so extreme that relatively few people will express their opinions absent formal censorship.
I think people willing to believe things as outlandish, well, so outlandish that we have Poe’s Law, means that pretty much anybody can get a platform and build an audience without regard for truth at all.
So what we have is a market for news that’s not hungry for truth, but hungry for affirmation and a thrill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
They exist. A few, Catherine Herridge is one. Hey, the good ones (one?!) should be recognized as such.
There.. fixed it for yuh.
Depending on your paper, weather reports may carry a subliminal agenda.
Subliminal?
Conservative “leaning” media: Fox News. Wall St. Journal, a few tabloid papers, such as the NY Post and Boston Herald. I don’t think that OAN is really worth counting.
Left “leaning” media: CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, NY Times, Washington Post, the largest paper/news website in every media market in the US, network affiliates throughout the US.
I’ve probably left something out, but, except for PBS, these entities are all for profit.
So the question worth asking is whether the profit motive in journalism is better satisfied when coming from the left. Fox gets excellent ratings and (I’m assuming) that the WSJ makes money. But they have little to no competition for conservatives.
Media on the left not only stays on the left, but survives amidst serious competition from other media on the left. It’s true that some dead tree newspapers have undergone layoffs and drops in advertising revenue, but this doesn’t seem related to editorial perspective. And if they’ve determined that it is, why don’t outlets on the left shift to the right?
It’s easier to pose that question than answer it, but I think it would useful to consider that the answer involves money. Is media bias a product of the profit motive?
Somewhere someone said that too many reporters go into journalism because they want to make a difference. They see journalism as a way to change things, and we can assume they don’t want it change willynilly, but they have a goal in mind.
And if they have a goal in mind for their reporting, it will be biased towards achieving that goal.
And for what it’s worth, Kevin Williamson is a big fan of NYT’s journalism, go figure. The editorial part is another matter completely.
Perhaps I was a trifle understated. Your graphic is much more on-point.
CNN is owned by AT&T, MSNBC and NBC are owned by Comcast, ABC is owned by Disney. Only CBS and NY Times are stand-alone entities rather than being owned by larger corporations. (PBS is in a category all its own owing to government funding, and Washingto Post is owned by Jeff Bezos as an individual)
It should be understood that when saying (for example) that “CNN does X”, that really means that either AT&T affirmatively wants X done, or is OK with it being done to let it continue.
It should also be noted that CNN and MSNBC do not appear to be all that successful or profitable in financial terms.
I think that you mean WaPo is owned by Bezos. The Times is controlled by Carlos Slim.
All these entities, whether part of a larger company or not, presumably have their own balance sheets. I suppose, put another way, my question is whether the desire for a leftist perspective is so great at the corporate level that dollars and cents don’t much matter.
CNN and MSNBC are bundled channels — CNN is paired with the other Warner Media properties like HBO, Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network; while MSNBC is bundled to cable, satellite companies and streaming services with outlets like SciFi and The Golf Channel.
If you get those, you also have to sign up for the news channels, even if nobody’s watching them. So if you’re a liberal-leaning corporation like Comcast, you can shift $$$ around to where other channels’ profits can make up for any losses you might see from MSNBC’s ratings. It’s also why companies like Comcast or Warner Media hate the idea of a la carte channel options for viewers, because that would unbundle their networks and force each to rise of fall on their own.
(On streaming services, they already do operate at a discount to Fox News — the hotel I stayed at coming home from vacation had Roku TV in the rooms, and the desk clerk said they stream MSNBC, CNN and CBS’s streaming news channel on the bottom tier level, but they don’t stream Fox News because it’s on the premium level of Roku’s service.)
Yes, it’s Washington Post that’s owned by Bezos. (I’ll fix)
Carlos Slim owns about 13% of NYT, but his ownership is in the form of Class A shares, which have less voting power than the Class B shares held by the Sulzberger family.
I think I must be so biased that I cannot see it. One thing I think I always try to do is look for arguments supported by verifiable facts from those whose views I oppose. I rarely get anything that carries the opposing argument to prevail. So am I right or blind? @Hoyacon was party to a conversation I had regarding media and others presenting someone as anti-Semitic resulting in a large measure of canceling within the industry covering that person’s expertise. I’m open to being persuaded since I don’t have enough background with the person to support the contrary position of no anti-Semitism. My research has not yet yielded evidence I require to accept that premise of ant-Semitism for that person. I’m still looking and still waiting for the specifics to support that opinion that is trying to tell me the person is anti-Semitic.
The media fills my life with these very kinds of situations.
One thing to consider: some of the parent corporations have non-US operations (in China, for example) whose success may be influenced by the reporting & opinion journalism of their relatively small US media entities.
Thanks. “Controlled” was a poor word choice.
Hopefully Bari Weiss’s resignation will help open some eyes, but she should have done so two years ago when the NYT hired Sarah Jeong, as I noted at the time: https://ricochet.com/540661/archives/on-sarah-jeong-and-the-reaction-on-the-righton-sarah-jeong-and-the-reaction-on-the-right/#comments
She herself, and most of those on the professional Right talking about this now, deserve a lot of the blame for the current state of affairs.
I think you need to include AM talk radio and podcasting to this list. I would argue for things like National Review and Ricochet on the technical grounds that they are “media” but I get what you’re driving at: “mainstream” or mass market media.
In general, I don’t think there’s any shortage of conservative leaning voices in the media. Certainly if you limit your definition to just TV and newspapers you’ll come up short but IMHO that’s too restrictive.
Fair enough as to AM radio. I would, however, note that thatAM is preaching to the choir for the most part. It’s my belief that mass media in the form of television and daily news reaches a much higher percentage of independents of people who are “persuadable.”
I am going to pretend you never said that. The word journalism means something, and it applies to people slaving for us in the marketplace like Mark and Mollie Hemingway, James Lileks, Brit Hume, Terry Mattingly, John Batchelor, Michael Von, Gordon Chang…you take my point.
I know that in a sea of frauds collecting seven figure salaries to read news churned up by corporatist hacks it is difficult to remember that there are still hundreds of actual journalist whose reports are precious to protecting the republic and striking down the insurgency.
Looking for more, I posted “What Journalism Publications do You Recommend?” and received several excellent recommendations. (It’s not self promotion, it is journalist promotion. Or that’s what I tell myself.)
I agree with this. Everyone dismissed the brainwashing of students at our institutions of “higher learning”, thinking once they hit real world employment, it would shake them out of their socialist, utopian dreams. But this didn’t come to pass as they ended up forcing the semi rational people into cowardly men.
Ok, mercy! There are indeed journalists. And hard working ones whose jobs are made much, much harder by the grifters and spotlight baskers. I did read your post and it was a very good round table discussion to share trusted resources. It frustrates me, though, that it is no longer a meritocratic career. Those who are most influential and visible are more often than not the ones who push the liberal dogma with most force.
Ladies and gentlemen, today in the safe space known as the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/opinion/coronavirus-china-us.html#click=https://t.co/lrsSGtdqkJ
If only Cuomo were as wise and capable as Xi. The good news is, being behind the paywall, I can stop reading after the first three lines.
You get your money’s worth!
I’ve always hated that line ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’. BS your job is to find out the facts and report them , not to comfort or afflict anybody.
Media delenda est.