Posted on 04/16/2020 10:18:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
And the national press wonders why it is mistrusted, and even despised?
Sen. Tom Cotton was among the first to suggest that the information China was releasing regarding the novel coronavirus emerging from Wuhan might be inaccurate. Cotton raised the specter that the Chinese national virology laboratory in Wuhan could have played a role -- even if inadvertent. For that, he was ridiculed. Cotton is a Republican, so his statement was the press's cue to trot out the tropes: This was just some wacky conspiracy theory. His accusations have already been "debunked." He's a war hawk pitching a "fringe theory" bought into by all the other right-wing kooks who also suspect foul play or grievous error in China.
None of that was journalism. That was just repeating Democratic National Committee talking points and dutifully disseminating the propaganda of the communist Chinese government.
Journalism would have been doing what National Review's Jim Geraghty, YouTuber Matthew Tye and Scientific American's Jane Qiu have done: digging through news reports from online Chinese news agency Caixin Global; going through scholarly journals to find papers on viruses in bats being studied at the Wuhan virology laboratory; discovering advertisements for research positions at that same laboratory that require expertise in coronavirus strains in bats; interviewing scientist Shi Zhengli (called "bat woman" or the "bat lady"), who actually went into the caves in the Yunnan province (hundreds of miles from Wuhan, in the Hubei province) where the horseshoe bats that likely carry this virus live -- a different type of bat than those sold in the Wuhan wet market, by the way.
All of that was discoverable through research. Discovering it would have been journalism. But actual journalism would have proven Sen. Cotton correct. And we can't have that.
Similarly, it would have been journalism to actually investigate the claims about corruption within the FBI, and the dangerous politicization of the FISA surveillance warrant process that Rep. Devin Nunes warned of two years ago. He was roundly criticized and his warnings pooh-poohed. And yet, when inspector general Michael Horowitz's report proved Nunes correct, there were crickets. No "We were wrong." No bombshell revelation. Just silence from the Fourth Estate.
It's so much easier to simply repeat what you've been told to say, and what all your politically simpatico friends in the business are saying. And it's much more fun to nudge-nudge-wink-wink and laugh with one another at how morally and intellectually superior you are to the average American than it is TO JUST DO YOUR JOB.
The press is disbelieved -- and even loathed -- because it has lost its credibility. This has happened by virtue of its own actions. Members of the press blame Trump for the public's antipathy toward them (big shock -- they blame Trump for everything), but like most modern unpleasant political phenomena, this didn't start with Trump. He simply made visible that which has been going on, largely unacknowledged, for decades.
The national press is pushing back. We should appreciate the press, it claims, because Trump is an aspiring fascist, and that's why it "covers" him like a swarm of hornets.
YAWN.
Dearest media: It's not that we don't want you to aggressively challenge the people in power. To the contrary, we'd like some equal opportunity aggression.
But we've seen that you only challenge those in power when you don't like their politics. Your guy? Your fave female? They skate. They can get away with all the same things you purport to be outraged about -- corruption, deception, sexual misconduct, self-dealing, government overreach -- when you accuse political opponents of the very same thing.
So Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a "pig" and a presumed rapist because of a 35-year-old uncorroborated allegation. But an allegation that former President Joe Biden penetrated a woman with his fingers in 1993? Time to defuse that inconvenient bombshell with calculated silence or bland coverage. Time to challenge the accuser's credibility and tut-tut about the troublesome gaps in her story. Time to parade out the faux feminists who care about due process and the destruction of men's lives and careers only when it's men whose political viewpoints they like.
Yes, the people you all like will skate. And they know it. So they can flout laws and ethics and morals and even common decency with impunity because they know you've got their backs.
And it's not just politicians with whom you agree who get this white-glove, powder-puff treatment. It's CEOs of incredibly powerful corporations. It's wealthy investors. It's dictators and foreign governments. It's highly regarded academics and thought leaders. It's powerhouse entertainment and media moguls.
No matter who they are or what they've done, as long as they're reliably leftist, they'll be held to a different standard.
You want to know why Americans don't trust you? Because you're arrogant. You're condescending. You're corrupt. You're hypocritical. You're shockingly ignorant. You're pawns in a much bigger game, and your refusal to hold ALL powerful people to account is malfeasance that puts the country at risk. And not just from coronavirus.
Do you want to earn back the public's trust? Stop playing political favorites. Stop trying to shape the news instead of report the news. Stop seeing everything through the lens of your personal politics.
Do your job.
I’ve been saying since 1992 the press is the primary threat to the future of this constitutional republic. Good to see others are now catching on.
I used to joke that the media was an enemy.
I’m no longer joking.
Sooner or later, either we treat them as such or we bend over and assume the Obama position to anyone that wants a piece.
The Mainstream Media can abuse its First Amendment rights with disastrous results.
Nothing more, or less, than the propaganda wing of the Socialist Democrat National Committee.
They wouldn’t know real journalism if it hit them in the a$$!
Does anyone believe the media. The US leads the world in fake news media.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus so he could throw them in jail. They were telegraphing northern army movements to the south.
They've been thought of like scum since the beginning of this country.
Franklin was one of the greatest muck rakers of his time.
Yep, the lyin’ main stream enemedia is nothing more than the communist propaganda arm of the world communist party, let alone the DNC.
Must think bigger. You can bet the handful of world politician owners are.
They are domestic enemies and willing accomplices to traitors and the NWO.
Tesla CEO calls out fake news that he didn’t send ventilators to hospitals.
https://summit.news/2020/04/16/elon-musk-what-i-find-most-surprising-is-that-cnn-still-exists/
You know CNN sucks the big one when even Elon Musk calls them fake news.
I have never seen nor heard of Laura Hollis in or on any of the Big Media.
Her very absence is to me proof of what she claims. Voices like hers are to kept out of sight and out of hearing.
Was Dr. Goebbels the author of today’s collegiate Journalism text books? It’s a thought.
Reminds me of a certain scene in the story “What I saw at the Coup”.
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3654942/posts
It’s not the enemy of the left. It is the primary tool.
I don’t want them to ‘do your job.’
I want them to die the death of 1,000 self-inflicted cuts, then be stamped into DUST!
I want to see the rise of people who only report the: ‘Who, What, Where, When, Why and How’ of a situation WITHOUT all of the personal projection!
They don’t even have to be ‘journalists!’
I know it is wrong of me to wish horrific, gibbering, flesh eating death upon the Enemedia, but there it is...
It seems like their primary job is to discredit President Trump.
Is someone just now figuring that out? Really?
Yet no mention of Comcast or ATT
This is the real problem.
NBC, MSNBC, Sky are Comcast
CNN is ATT
Telecom must not also control the news
They are enemies of everything good. A monstrous evil.
If ever there was a need for an investigation, this is it. Bribery, blackmail, payoffs, collusion would be rampant.
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