Posted on 11/10/2016 5:48:05 AM PST by Hojczyk
There’s a place for opinionated journalism; in fact, it’s vital. But our causal, profession-wide smugness and protestations of superiority are making us unable to do it well.
Our theme now should be humility. We must become more impartial, not less so. We have to abandon our easy culture of tantrums and recrimination. We have to stop writing these know-it-all, 140-character sermons on social media and admit that, as a class, journalists have a shamefully limited understanding of the country we cover.
What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like they’re some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages.
We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting fun to gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the process.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Very good article. No one in the media will read this or learn any lessons. He’s one in a million that comprehend what happened.
Wikileaks should break into the media’s emails.
The media was, and was seen to be, in the tank for Hillary.
What happens next?
The media will criticize Trump and the Trump administration relentlessly. They will not be able to stop themselves because it will be so much fun and because it is actually their job to do exactly that.
Unfortunately for their reputation, they don’t have a time machine and can’t go back eighth years and play their proper role in criticizing the Obama administration. Nor can they correct their campaign coverage.
How are we going to see this? As further proof of media bias.
With their extreme bias in this election and reluctance to criticize a liberal (and black) president, the media has damaged itself. Now just by doing their proper job they will inevitably further damage their reputations. A whole generation of Americans will view everything they say as suspect.
The American political system works better when an outside force applies pressure to expose corruption and dishonesty. The press should be that force, but by not restraining their own political beliefs and agenda they have reduced their own ability to fill that role.
Thank you for that. I saw an opinion from Rex Huppke. I don’t know who he is except that the piece appeared in the local paper online. He looks smug. The headline said “Get over election loss and work to keep Trump in check”. I asked him where he has been the last eight years. This is the reason journalists have lost credit except among other journalists.
So long as the MSM gets its new employees out of the LEFTIST schools of journalism the MSM will keep the bias locked in. The other entry into the MSM comes from politicians & bureaucrats - both predominant with hard-core Democrats! No change there in its embedded bias!
Aww, poor them! They’re so sorry! They get it now! they’re gonna change now! We can trust them now.
You are correct that Donald Trump was the only candidate who was capable and willing to go against the MSM without flinching. It comes from his successes as a businessman. Politicians quickly learn that they need to modify their true feelings in order to get past the corrupt press corps/police.
I was not a fan of Trump, the candidate, originally, but it became obvious to me somewhere around last Christmastime that none of the others had the confidence and gumption to really fight the battle. So to Donald Trump, I say Hooray! Hooray for your stamina, hooray for your belief in America, and hooray for your willingness to never give up.
I do hope he gets a few nights sleep under his belt, for his future is a going to be a tough one.
Uh-oh. Looks like Will Rahn won't be getting invited to many Christmas winter holiday parties this year!
Why?
Because it was never the medium - it was the message. Marshall McLuhan was wrong.
'Drudge' was the on-line site they were competing with - and what was his 'advantage'? Drudge highlighted stories that 'got it'... Stories outside the liberal elite group-think. Stories we - the people - could relate to...
Let me try to explain this in a way BRIAN SNYDER might understand... What if a bunch of football coaches were assigned the job of interpreting the world of journalists... the world of 'thinkers'... They - and they alone - became THE scribes - top down. No one else bought (metaphorical) ink by the train load except 'coaches'. Answering them on a real level was impossible - they controlled the press. Add to that a bias 'the coaches' had that made them look down on the 'four eyes' types... sickly reader types who think and never act... then let them write about YOUR type BRIAN SNYDER for years and years... getting it wrong, yucking in up in the locker room. Attributing motives to you that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with their contempt for you etc...
Then tell me about the hatred you and your friends would start to feel BRIAN SNYDER... and how that hatred would grow over the years. And how you would not be overly impressed with some 'coach' realizing that measuring all people by one stick is inherently unfair... and the solution is for the "oh so wise' coaches to attempt some empathy for the 'four eyes'... It's still insulting. Even with the glimpses of insight...
Brian Snyder discovers the first rule of holes.
Waiting for Snyder to be fired in 3...2...1...! The msm will just double down and become more biased than ever if that is possible.
the other thing this reporter will never see is that only people who have a built in corrupted mindset can ever make it to the top. The screening process will never allow a fair minded independent person into their club.
This year people turned en masse to bloggers, citizen journalists, youtubers, etc because they know the truth when they hear it and they know coordinated nonsensical propagandistic BS is all they were getting from the leftists in the LSM.
This naval gazing won’t last long.
JFTR, the author is Will Rahn, whose last job was at the Daily Beast. Very interesting that someone with a background like that would be so candid.
his success in going against the media was also because he was independently wealthy. I heard rush say in the 2012 elections that herman caine dropped out after all those women accusing him only because his donors drooped him.
Peter Theile, founder of Pay Pal, nailed it:
The media took Trump literally, not seriously.
The people took Trump seriously, not literally.
Wait - judging people by how they look. Isn't that, dare I say it, bigotry?
A home run - but the media and political movers and shakers who need to read this and understand it will never see it.
still
They are are busy right now mocking Trump voters and explaining to each other how we are the dying remains of a racist, sexist small town, uneducated class of regressive knuckle draggers.
To them this election was just the last convulsion of old farts with quaint, dated ideas about the US Constitujtion - a document they value as no more than a relic that belongs in a museum, or a dump.
They chckle in agreement that we can’t die off quickly enough so they can get back to helping other leftists put the Obama-Train back on the rails.
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