There are many words that could be used to describe the state of media today, but I will only use two.
Hoo boy.
Since I need to fill out this blog post a bit more, I think I’d better use a few more words. To put it mildly, the lessons the media should have learned by now have gone the way of Whoopi Goldberg winning an award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center anytime soon. As a former journalism student myself, I am astounded people who get paid to tell us what to think…I mean the news can continually make mistakes that would get you kicked out of Journalism 101 at a junior college that also doubles as a tire repair shop.
And when you consider they’re acting as fact checkers as well as reporters, it’s a double whammy. If it were just an error every once in a while, it might be easy to forgive. Unfortunately for them, Kyle Rittenhouse entered the chat. After months of painting him (incorrectly) as a racist gun-nut who wanted to shoot black people for riot…I mean protesting, not only was he acquitted, but now he’s starting to go after some of the media types who smeared him before, during, and even after his day in court.
And you thought Nick Sandmann was pwning the media!
Then, there’s the current war in Ukraine, where we’re told only one side is telling the truth and anyone who says differently is a traitor. There is an old saying that applies here, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” As much as we want to root for those plucky Ukrainians, knowing how fucked up media coverage has been on domestic matters should cast some serious doubt on whether we can trust it on foreign affairs, which American media care next-to-nothing about to begin with. Good thing there’s a war going on or else we wouldn’t know where Ukraine is on a world map or know what flags to put on our social media profiles to show that, dammit, we care!
And really that’s the point with media coverage anymore. It’s not to keep us informed as to what is happening or to flesh out details that would help us make informed decisions. It’s to make us feel something. President Joe Biden fucking up the economy worse than he fucked up the Afghanistan withdrawal? That’s not important, but what is important is that we feel he’s doing a good job.
That is one of the most abused powers of the media right now: the power to elicit emotions. A snide comment slipped into an allegedly straight news story, a carefully edited audio or video clip, or even a catchy phrase to summarize a piece of legislation can be enough to create an idea that may or may not be tethered to reality.
Just ask Florida Governor Ron Desantis and his press secretary Christina Pushaw. They’ve been dealing with media types and Leftists (but I repeat myself) maligning the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that Desantis is expected to sign into law once it hits his desk. You know how many times the word “gay” appears in the bill, including its title?
Zero. None. Zilch. Nada. The Big Goose Egg. The number of times Jen Psaki tells the truth.
But do you know what is in the bill? Prohibition of mentioning any discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation to children in lower grades. That’s it. And, oddly enough, that’s the part that Leftists hate the most! Let’s be clear, though, it doesn’t prohibit discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity with older children. Just kids who are not too old to eat their own boogers. Yet, to hear the Left and the media (again, I repeat myself) talk, the bill makes things horrible for all transgender or gay students. Why, we’re practically in a more fabulous version of “The Handmaid’s Tale” if we stand by and let this bill pass!
And Twitter idiots ate it all up and asked for seconds.
That’s the power of the media in one isolated incident. And I’ve lost count of the other times the media got it completely wrong over the past year. But that’s not the only problem the media have to deal with. They’re also getting into the history revision game. Whether it’s admitting those “conspiracy nutjobs” offering medical advice on how to combat COVID-19 were right all along or “just finding out” about the Hunter Biden laptop story that’s been covered for, oh, almost 2 years now, the media love to avoid taking responsibility for getting their facts wrong by pretending to be or actually being uninformed until it’s too late.
Let that roll around in your minds a bit. We have a group of influential individuals who shape public opinion with what they say and do telling us how to feel about issues while knowingly or unknowingly withholding information that may eventually be true. And that’s just Twitter! The media are far worse!
And until they learn their lesson, either through self-reflection, a massive movement within the media to clean up their acts, or enough defamation lawsuits to bankrupt them, the media will continue to suck ass. But there is a bright side.
I will still have plenty of material to write pieces like this!
Okay, so it’s a bright side for me, but I think you’ll enjoy it, too.
