Media Culpa

MSM R.I.P. the long, slow death of the legacy media...

(Reporters with various forms of "fake news" from an 1894 illustration by Frederick Burr Opper. Source: Public Domain)

“Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.”

~ William Blum (1933 – 2018)

Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World...

Predictable. Despicable. Culpable. 

The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump – and the coverage both leading up to and following the event – underscores what has been painfully obvious to many of us for years: 

The mainstream news is broken...and beyond repair. 

Barely had the blood dried on former President Trump’s ear in Butler, Pennsylvania over the weekend, when the legacy media was busily disgracing itself once again. 

Here’s how a handful of major outlets reported on “the incident” in the moments following an assassination attempt on the leading candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America (also known as “a fairly important story”):

Donald Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after loud noises rang out through the crowd ~ Associated Press

Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles former president, crowd ~ USA Today

And, tragi-comicaly…

Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally ~ CNN

Deadly Sounds

Gee... what might those “loud noises” have been? Noises that were so loud they – what? – caused the victim’s ear to spontaneously gush blood? 

Not only was the assailant already dead by the time these headlines went to virtual print, but an innocent bystander, Corey Comperatore, a father, husband and community fireman, lay slain a few feet from the shooter’s target. Hmm...

“Loud noises”? “Startles former president”? “Falls at rally”? 

These headlines stood as mainstream coverage... even as videos of concerned rally goers pointing at the man on the roof and yelling “he’s got a gun,” for minutes prior to the shooting, were streaming across the internet. That is, even before the “loud noises” began ringing out, the story was already racing away from the mainstream media’s fumbling grasp. 

In other words, people around the world were watching events unfold with their own eyes, even as the media was hopelessly attempting to shape a narrative that clearly did not correspond with reality. 

Of course, it goes without saying that we should always want our news to prioritize being correct over being first... but it’s a little difficult to swallow the “just getting our facts straight” line from a roster of legacy outlets that has made such a habit of getting the facts wrong... 

This is, after all, the same media that assured us the Hunter Biden laptop story was “classic Russian disinformation” (when it was not)...

That assured us covid positively, definitely, absolutely, cross-our-fingers-and-hope-to-die did not originate in a lab... (even though the very scientists who told us as much were pretty certain it did)...

And that the target of the weekend’s assassination attempt had, in fact, colluded with Russia in order to win the 2016 presidential election... when a multi-year investigation, among the longest and costliest in the history of the presidential office, found that allegation to be “without evidence”... despite the nation’s major newspapers and television networks running headline after headline, story after story, day in day out, year in year out, asserting/wishing it to be so.

“Repeat a lie often enough,” as the old saying goes...

Racist-in-Residence

And yet, such sloppy reporting was nothing compared to the dripping cynicism (not to mention casual racism) that followed in this article from Forbes:

That particularly odious story has since been deleted, but not before the magazine’s resident “anti-racist” said the quiet part out loud. (The contributor, Shaun Harper, lists his credentials as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion expert. Imagine our shock...)

And yet, such a story is not written in isolation. It is born in a media milieu that not only tolerates such rabid intolerance, but which actively promotes it. 

Here is a media machine that routinely cheerleads wars abroad and actively stokes division at home, that prioritizes being wrong over being silent (or even late), that rushes to “Hilterize” anyone who disagrees with the Establishment Narrative, that has its Mistake Setting on loud and proud and its Retraction Dial set to seldom and silent, and which above all has about as much subtlety as nudity at a science fair. 

It will come as a surprise to few readers of these pages, therefore, that public trust in the once-proud Fourth Estate is at all-time lows. Here’s a 2023 poll from Gallup, showing the sorry state of affairs...

Media Culpa

The situation is even worse when we consider that this poll was taken before Morning Joe told us this was “the best version of Biden” and that a slew of videos showing the president bumbling and fumbling were simply “cheap fakes” and not to be believed by your own lyin’ eyes... 

...that is, until the infamous debate debacle restored Americans – Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike – to their proper senses. Once again, the mainstream media was caught with its pants plainly on fire. 

Indeed, the situation has become so appalling that even executives at NBC(!!!) appear to be vaguely aware that something might be amiss. In the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting, the network’s big wigs decided to pull their flagship morning breakfast news show (which also happens to be the president’s favorite source of information), Morning Joe. 

Per fellow establishment mouthpiece, CNN:

“A person familiar with the matter told CNN that the decision was made to avoid a scenario in which one of the show’s stable of two dozen-plus guests might make an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used to assail the program and network as a whole.” 

And here’s

Oliver Wiseman

, a contributor over at the excellent Substack,

The Free Press

, with a helpful translation of NBC’s decision:

At a crucial moment for the country—right after an attack on American democracy, as the RNC gathers to nominate Trump, and with Joe Biden fighting to stay in the race, we don’t trust the people we pay to bring you the news to bring you the news. It’s confirmation that so much of cable news exists for partisan entertainment, not to inform its audience. And next time you think of switching on MSNBC, ask yourself: If the network’s own executives don’t trust these people, why should I?

The Heart of the Matter

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Now is not the time to reorganize the legacy media... to give those in the mainstream another shot at making things right... to rebrand or reshape or re-anything. 

To put the same propagandists in charge of the conversation would be to put the wolves in charge of the sheep...again. (And we know what doing the same thing and expecting different results is, right?)

The system is corrupted. It is beyond saving. And if we want to see the political landscape change... from hyper-charged, partisan cage fight to the kind of free and open discourse upon which an informed citizenry relies... we need first to recognize that simple fact, and second to evolve beyond the current, status quo. 

Practically speaking, that means tuning out of legacy media for good. It means withdrawing your consent to being lied to, manipulated, propagandized. And yes, it means supporting independent journalism that you trust, wherever you find it (including right here on Substack), where you can hold authors directly accountable for their words. 

We cannot entrust the new media to the old guard. It is time to put legacy media to rest.

MSM, R.I.P.

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman