Time’s editors showed in July 1994 that they believed their job was not to uncover the truth but to provide political cover to Democrats in Washington. It’s only gotten worse since then, but I believe this incident formally marks the end of the “mainstream media” as we once knew it. Like many other countries in Europe and elsewhere, we now have a politicized media in the United States. But unlike other countries, in all but a few cases our media refuses to acknowledge its ideological affiliation. So added to bias, you have hypocrisy.
Kenneth R. Timmerman
August 6, 2022
Ex-Time reporter: The day I knew journalism had died in America
[It may have been the day Timmerman recognized journalism was a propaganda arm of the Democrats but that kind of crap was happening long before that. I have heard first hand stories from the late 1970s. It probably wasn’t new then. I suspect journalism has always been biased and hypocritical.—Joe]
I think political media have been around since the dawn of the Republic. What has changed in the last century or so is that publishers stopped admitting they were partisan, and switched to a fraudulent pretense of objectivity.
Remember, they hid the fact that FDR was on deaths door during the 1944 election. All so they could keep a Democrat in office.
They hid the fact that FDR couldn’t walk unassisted when he ran for POTUS the first time.
Nothing really new. The term ‘Yellow Journalism’ came about in the late 1800s, describing sensational and unethical ‘reporting’ in the newspapers of the day.
Gen. Sherman of civil war fame had this to say of media personnel. “I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.”
That, and the all time winner was Walter Duranty of the NYT. When reporting on the Ukrainian mass-starvation create by communism. Dismissed the deaths as.
“You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
Think Rachael Mad-cow and the View feel any different about you and me?
Any bets on how they report on the Mar-A-Lago raid?
And remember, you can have all the opinion you want. It’s protected, as long as your not Alex Jones.
Agree. Media has always been about rewards (money, power). Remember the paper boy shouting “Extra, Extra”.
And you need to look at the source of the stories. While the media does create some, they rely upon sources of news. Today, like in the past, the story or source wants to surprise and incentivize the reader. Today we say clickbait, but it is the same driving influence as it has always been.
Think about a researcher? How do they get funded? Who’s on top? The one who replicates a study, or the one who claims something new and exciting? The same thing goes on everywhere.
Claim you’ve seen a UFO and perhaps you’ll be famous. Remember the stories of cold fusion? Remember the story of the $1000 dollar toilet bowl. Or the plain old snake oil salesman hawking his cures?
The same is true for comments on stories. Post something defending global warming and then look at the comments.
We live in a world where everyone trying to get ahead has an axe to grind and is trying come out on top. We call it capitalism and praise individuals that rise to the top. They call it success and influence. It’s as true for the left as it is for the right. Motivations and rewards may differ, but coming out on top is what matters.
Clickbait is the illusion that it costs the reader nothing to read a “story” from the media. Before the Internet made the content so cheap, the phrase was “Pick me up and buy me.” I remember reading once that the adult movie industry wasn’t selling films, it was selling VCR box covers with a free sex video inside.
“uncle Walter” Cronkite, the beloved newscaster, was a card-carrying communist. That wasn’t revealed until he had retired. His lying reports from his Vietnam trip did a lot of damage.
Rush Limbaugh, whatever one may think of him and his delivery style, spoke of this decades ago. His thesis goes something like this;
One’s comprehension of history typically goes back no further in time than his date of birth.
I’d say that it might include the date of the coming of age of one’s parents.
I’m seeing this phenomenon in effect almost daily as I peruse the musings of the younger generations. They often talk about changes in the American culture as being very recent, sometimes within just a few years. What they’re really saying is that their cultural discernment capabilities are only just now developing.
There are those who say that the newspapers of the day (late 1800s) perpetrated the Spanish American War by willful misreporting.
We know for a 100% certainty that the media willfully and maliciously edited George Zimmerman’s 911 call dispatch recording to make it appear as though Zimmerman was acting out a violent form of racism. We know for a 100% certainty that the media, nearly all in concert (i.e. conspiracy) lied blatantly about the basic facts, which were easily discoverable by anyone within a day or two of the incident, in the Kyle Rittenhouse case for a full year, never changing their tune, even after the “not guilty on all counts” verdict. Examples are far too numerous to count, as they’re at it practically every day, all day.
I’ve been asking around, and you should too, if people believe the following regarding the Rittenhouse affair.
Do you believe that;
1. Rittenhouse illegally obtained an AR-15
2. He illegally took said AR-15 across state lines
3. He’s a racist against black people
4. Hating black people, he showed up at that location to hunt black people, and,
5. He shot black people?
A large percentage of people believe all of those things, and yet they’re all lies perpetrated over and over for a year by major, professional media outlets having an anti-American, anti-civil rights agenda.
It’s the unfortunate case now, and the brash dishonesty among key media outlets was equally well established and equally egregious more than 100 years ago.
NOTHING on the ground has changed, people. Not in a couple of millennia, really. Get that much figured out and it’ll be a lot easier to understand why we’re in the mess we’re in, and why it’s going to get a lot worse. For one thing, you’ll stop being forced to act so confused. Then you can stop asking the (dumb) question, “How could it ever have come to this?”
But the media outlets are not, collectively, the chief of liars. They’re only surrogates. Paid actors, of you will. Once you understand that much, you can begin the very difficult and yet eye-opening process of determining, “Where’s Waldo”. But then you’ll become a target. One of a hated minority.
Jesus Christ spoke directly to that last point when he said;
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Matthew 5:10-12
Yup; this issue is as old as the hills. But the solution is older still.
“NOTHING on the ground has changed, people.”
Human nature has been pretty consistent over the millennia. What changes is the geography, the climate, the culture, the religion, the specifics of whether there’s an easy means of travel or if the society is isolated and constrained as to area. This is the real reason to study history. The Founding Fathers knew this.
What originally got my attention was the discovery, in high school, that the history textbook didn’t match the books in their own library. It was obviously deliberate changes, as the whole book was like that. I was one of those people who read books for entertainment, and most any book in a library was fair game. I already hated school, and this just put the capstone on that situation. History teacher hated dealing with me after this. This was the mid 60’s. When did it start?