The Press Corpse

Legacy Media, R.I.P.

(Mainstream media, 1920s-2024, RIP)

“The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.”

~ H.L. Mencken (with apologies to the aforementioned professionals)

Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina...

Poor Laura Helmuth. The former Editor in Chief of the formerly relevant Scientific American magazine resigned in disgrace last week after firing off a series of expletive-laced social media posts during her election night meltdown. See for yourself...

Out here on the deplorable flatlands, we don’t pretend to know which way the “moral arc of the universe” should be bent, nor whose job it is to augment such cosmic metaphors in the first place. We merely observe that it is often those who so stridently decry “threats to our democracy” who shiver most without the imaginary security blanket of the majority. Boo-hoo.

And yet, the will of the mobjority is not our favorite plaything. (Mercifully, America is a republic, not a democracy; one governed by laws, not by enlightened magazine editors, however self-important they may or may not be. At least, that’s the idea...)  

Anti-Scientific, Un-American

In any case, Helmuth’s unlettered outburst led some racists sexists bigots people living in the real world to wonder whether the editor’s unvarnished objectivity had perhaps been compromised... a reasonable question in light of the fact that it was under Helmuth’s stewardship that the once proud magazine broke with its 175-year tradition to endorse a candidate for president. (Spoiler: ‘twas not the victor.) 

Newly liberated from her professional obligations (and presumably disinvited from Thanksgiving dinner in the Hoosier State), Helmuth had ample time on her hands to reframe her untimely departure as merely an opportunity for a long-awaited ornithological adventure...

“I’m going to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching),” Helmuth wrote in her goodbye cruel world post... but only after issuing an apology, of sorts, in which she admitted she made “offensive” and “inappropriate” remarks, but insisted that, “I respect and value people across the political spectrum.” 

She then added, lest any doubt linger as to her shredded credibility, “I am committed to civil communication and editorial objectivity.”

This from an activist editor who systematically reduced a once-serious publication into a gushing soil stack of woke agitprops, who fought tooth and claw to quash any and all dissent from the Party Line on every subject from how, precisely, to adjust the earth’s thermostat... to how racism and sexism are responsible for every disparity known to man... to how many genders there are (infinite, duh!)... right down to the sole permitted origins story of The Covid. 

Consider this Scientific American headline from March 2022:

“The lab leak hypothesis made it harder for scientists to seek the truth. Virus origin stories have always been prone to conspiracy theories. COVID disinformation has threatened research—and lives.” 

Or the bizarre claim, from a November 2023 article, that:

“The inequality between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports.”

Or an article from June of this year, titled:

“The Science Behind Covid’s Six-Foot Rule”

Which went on to explain how Gain of Fauci’s ridiculous and draconian mandates “made scientific sense at the time.”

Or how about the August 2021 article titled:

“Modern Mathematics Confronts its White Patriarchal Past.”

Or the July 2021 article titled:

“Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy.”  

One could go on... and feel plenty dumber for having done so. 

And it’s not just Scientific American, either. Remember when the Editor in Chief of Science, Holden Thorp, casually quipped:

“The NRA and everyone who supports them should burn in hell.”

Or when NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, publicly lamented Hillary Clinton’s war crimes in Libya shameful treatment of her husband’s sexual abuse victims use of the words “boy” and “girl.” Griped Maher:

“I do wish Hillary wouldn’t use the language of “boy and girl” – it’s erasing language for non-binary people.”

Again, one could go on...

Self Canceling

And so we highlight Helmuth’s case today not because she is the exception but because, during a seemingly interminable era of mindless woke cultism, she has rather become the rule. Helmuth is emblematic of the Fabian-style capture of so many of America’s once proud institutions by radical identitarians, professional race-baiters, victimhood Olympians and unreconstructed neo-Marxists. 

And yet, your helplessly sanguine editor dares to wonder: might Helmuth’s long overdue pasturing actually augur well for the future? Could we be approaching... or even passing... Peak Woke?

Since that frightfully triggering event (elsewhere known as a “free and fair election”), legacy media’s misfortunes have gone from merely disastrous to utterly catastrophic. 

In the week immediately following the election, MSNBC’s viewership hemorrhaged by a whopping 54%, fueling speculation that parent company, Comcast, might be looking to hawk several of its top cable networks, including MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and Oprah Winfrey’s must miss cringe-a-thon, Oxygen. 

It’s unclear as yet how adult America will cope without the guiding moral lights of pretend people like Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence ODonnell, but one suspects they’ll make it through the dark times ahead just fine. Meanwhile, Joy Reid and Don Lemon joined a handful of other #brave bobbleheads in throwing their toys out of the pram and performatively rage quitting social media giant, X, effectively canceling themselves. 

The world responded with a unanimous “humph.” 

UK-based progressive rag, The Guardian, also announced it would no longer post on the X platform, citing “disturbing content,” which is strange given the frequency with which they cheerfully deploy terms like “Nazi” and “White Supremacist” for anyone who dares disagrees with their own narrow worldview. This was the very same newspaper, dear readers may recall, that felt the need to offer free grief counseling to its editorial staff after the US election results.

Meanwhile, billionaire owner of the LA Times newspaper, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, has promised to overhaul the entire editorial board there after several of the paper’s top writers hissy quit when he blocked the paper’s endorsement of Harris, suggesting instead that it print side-by-side analysis pieces that included the pros and cons of both candidates. Soon-Shiong’s response to their teen tantrum: Don’t let the door hit you in the derriere on your way out. From his post on the verboten platform, X:

“Coming soon. A new Editorial Board. Trust in media is critical for a strong democracy.”

Now, we have no idea if we are finally witnessing the decline of captured legacy media, but we take some refuge in Herb Stein’s famous observation: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

When the press corpse finally does reach room temperature, it will not be a moment too soon.

In the meantime, thanks for reading… and stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman

P.S. As mentioned in this space before, America's trust in mass media is plumbing all time lows, with less than a third of recent Gallup Poll respondents expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

(Source: Gallup, 2024)

According to Gallup, 2023-2024 was the third consecutive year that more U.S. adults registered no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another third (33%) of Americans expressed “not very much” confidence.

It is against this well-earned decline in trust that we offer a special shoutout to our dear Notes Members; we’re ever grateful for your generous and ongoing support. As dear readers know, Notes is an entirely independent, reader-supported publication (as in, we accept no advertising and bow to no boss, bend no knee).

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