This morning, I had to blow off some steam, still full of energy, even though I didn't sleep a wink last night. While at the gym, I saw a friend, and we talked bout the election. Paraphrasing her comments, she said, "I think the parties are at the extremes. Most of us are in the middle, but the parties are on the far extremes. Take immigration. One side is about building a wall, and the other side is about letting everyone in."
I stopped her. "Who said the Democrats were about letting everyone in? They actually worked with one of the most conservative Senators to write a bipartisan border bill endorsed by many conservatives. THAT'S THE MIDDLE! Working together with the other side is technically the middle ground. Trump was the one who ordered it killed so he could campaign against it."
I then pressed her further. "Do you think the economy is good or bad right now?"
She responded by saying "It costs me more for food so..."
"But it always costs more for food. That's inflation. Do you know the country's economy today is one of the strongest we've ever had?"
She seemed to have no idea.
These are two separate issues, which were primary talking points this election cycle, and yet a woman who I don't believe is an avid right winger didn't seem to have any idea of the truth. As a matter of fact, she seemed a bit stunned when I informed her of the truth.
She's not alone. The national news media has been stunningly inept this year, constantly pandering the the Republican base while holding the Democrats to an impossible standard. I'm not talking about Fox News, OAN, RT, or Newsmaxx. We know those entities exist only to push Republicans' talking points. I'm talking about CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, Huffington Post, AP News, and others, news media who advertise themselves as beacons of truth when all they really are is echo chambers for Republicans talking points and platforms for biased reporting.
The consummate example of this was Joe Biden. In the aftermath of his debate performance, the national news media ran with Trump campaign talking points and fluffed up editorials, demanding (as they described it) the 'clearly incompetent candidate' step down. Yet the last three weeks of the Presidential campaign featured a clearly mentally compromised Trump who stumbled and slurred his way through incohesive sentence after incohesive sentence. I still have yet to see ANY of the national news media talk about whether Trump was fit for office. On the contrary, they always seemed to take the attitude of "Oh Donald, you scamp!"
Is this overt bias intentional or not? I think a little bit of both. Most national news media is owned by far-right owners who want to push a Republican narrative, and their daily content is deeply intertwined with the sales team and their desire to not upset Republican advertisers, advertisers who use their buying power to control the narrative. The days of editors standing up to the sales team for the integrity of the "news" are long gone. At first, it was giving a little more favorable coverage of a Republican-leaning story, insisting "we're just covering the news" (think the Hillary fake email scandal of 2016). Today it's almost as if the Republicans themselves are writing the stories and handing the copy to the media to print. IF there is any clarity or counterpoint at all, it's usually buried ten to twenty paragraphs deep, well away from the pro-Republican/anti-Democratic headline.
I'm not saying they shouldn't have covered Biden's bad debate performance, but they did so with such eagerness, determination, and gusto. The bigger crime is that as they covered Biden, screaming, "It's newsworthy," THEY made the decision that Trump's antics and disqualifying behavior weren't newsworthy.
This is the point where national news media will feign outrage! "How DARE you, sir! We have indeed addressed Trump's antics!" If you put out 20 news articles and in the 20th, at paragraph 12, you finally shine a slight bit of light on Trump, THAT'S NOT EQUAL! That's only you creating, at the bare minimum, a pathetic false equivalency to justify your other 20 articles running with the Right's talking points.
This is all by design. Republicans are masters at controlling the national narrative and have created a machine that actively puts the collective national news media on the Republican side of the media scale, pushing down with brazen intensity, making it virtually impossible for the average reader/listener/viewer to get an unbiased perspective.
There are some good news outlets still out there. NPR does an okay job, as does the bellwether, the BBC and most states/cities have one or two independent journalism options (think Heartland Signal, Sahan Journal, or Minnesota Reformer in the upper midwest), but the pickings are slim.
Part of this situation is the Democrats' own fault. Multiple times, a progressive/left-leaning media network has tried to gain traction. On the radio airwaves, the Air America Radio Network launched in the mid-2000s, and Current TV tried to launch in the 2010s. Instead of nurturing and funding these fledgling networks like the Republicans do, the Democratic Party belligerently went out of its way to not support them, then acted stunned when both of those ventures crumbled.
The Democrats are outmatched by the Right AND themselves.
What can we do about this? My suggestion is to reject the national news media. Find the one or two outlets that seem to still have a level of journalistic integrity and delete the rest of them from your life. If enough people turn away from them, then maybe (although unlikely) they might change their ways.
Also, support the media outlets that are trying to give you a more fair perspective.
A major reason Donald Trump is back in the White House is the intentional/unintentional coordination with the national news media. I don't believe they can be trusted anymore.
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