News organizations are using cowardly words to describe killing abroad, fascism at home — downplaying the danger to democracy.
There was a shocking and incredibly important story on the front page of the New York Times last week. As reported by an A-team of journalists including two Pulitzer Prize winners, the Times warned its readers that Donald Trump — if returned to the White House in 2025 — is grooming a new team of extremist government lawyers who would be more loyal to their Dear Leader than to the rule of law, and could help Trump install a brand of American fascism.
You say you didn’t hear anything about this? That’s not surprising. The editors at the Times made sure to present this major report in the blandest, most inoffensive way possible — staying true to the mantra in the nation’s most influential newsroom that the 2024 election shouldn’t be covered any differently, even when U.S. democracy is on the line.
7 years after 2016, and Trump coming down that fake golden escalator: ya think?
During 2016 election The New York Times published thousands of stories about Clinton email/Benghazi, not one on Trumps lifelong ties to NY/Russian mob. As if The New York Times wasn’t in a particularly knowledgeable position to report on 70 years of NYC construction & mob history
News has been neutered.
They’re too concerned with stepping on people’s toes to show people what matters.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen articles reporting on footage without showing the actual footage.
Most annoying thing: talking heads talking about a video instead of actually showing it.
They waste so much money on these roles that do nothing to help the audience.
Most of them are owned by the very same companies they would speak out against. It’s a propaganda machine at best Ryight now.
The 3 independent Pillars of Democracy are the Press Pillar, the Judicial Pillar and the Political Pillar.
They’re supposed to watch over each other because there is a pragmatic expectation even in Democracy that some amongst those holding power will be crooked or become crooker (after all “power corrupts”), hence the 3 independent pillars to solve the whole “who watches the watchers” problem.
(If you look at even the supposedly most well intentioned implementations of ideologies other than Democracy, you see all of them failing because power becomes concentrated in a single nexus, then naturally corrupted and then the crooks just entrench themselves and make sure they’re immune to the Law and will never lose Power)
If you have lots of money and want to subvert the mechanics of how citizens have some control over the highest powers of the land in a Democracy, the easiest way by far is to buy the Press. Once the Press is bought, the politicians can be bought all the while electors are blissfully unware of it because the Press won’t report it. If the Judicial Pillar is not independent of the Political Pillar (for example, because judges are positions of political nomination and/or politicians control the purse strings of the Judiciary Pillar), then you end up with a system were Democracy is but theatre.
The Power Of Citizens having been neutred through these mechanics, the highest power of the land becomes the Power Of Money.
Welcome the the US of A!
(Far from the only one, I might add, but probably the most further ahead in terms of the Power Of Citizens having been nullified)
I think it’s more that their incentives are perverse.
When you are ad supported it means you rely on clicks, views, and viewers. So you are incentivized to maximize views which in some cases means making people very angry and scared, sometimes means not showing them stuff they don’t want to see or hear, and sometimes means fabricating bullshit (fox News) because they real story wouldn’t get you as many clicks.
Us, as citizens and consumers of news, have abdicated our responsibility to be skeptical though. We’ve leaned on trustworthy news media over the years to be that filter, skeptic that’s impartial and honest. We trusted them to speak truth to power, dig into the nuance and explain it to us.
They aren’t doing that anymore and we haven’t shifted our approach to the news. A lot of people still just trust the news(the news they like) as if it’s still honest and impartial.
Another thing that shifted was the “don’t believe everything you read on the Internet” to people believing anything theyve read on the Internet.
Most annoying thing: talking heads talking about a video instead of actually showing it.
they were the prototypical reaction video youtubers
The reaction video youtubers at least show you the damn video.
So they are doing a BETTER job than traditional media.
I like when they talk about what people tweet, rather than doing any actual investigative journalism. “Well Cumnugget78 said XYZ, so we’ll discuss like that’s true.”
We have to stop thinking about news media as being the fourth estate and realize that it is a business. Their business is reliant on the status quo, in not rocking the boat. With advertisers like weapon manufacturers: Raytheon, Northrop Grumman: oil companies Exxon, etc and big pharma. They have a clear profit motive to not do journalism and to run whitewashing propaganda campaigns as their business model.
Some news orgs lie outright and others through omission. Either way they have a clear bias and an interest in guiding a narrative.
Its not about being cowardly or timid. Its about profit. The serve the same monied interests that buy our politician’s.
In russian infosphere it’s a meme already, has been for a long time. Kremlinslurping media don’t even downplay the brutality of things, they invent newspeak to avoid upsetting words.
If some psycho got gas flowing in a communal house and then ignited it to blow the whole building, it’s not a blow, it’s a clap. A clap, a flap, or whatever.
I’m sure it’s accurate and all, but it will be a cold day in hell when I click on an Inquirer link.
Edit: Nevermind. I mistook The Inquirer for the much less reputable The National Enquirer.
What’s wrong with Inquirer? Genuinely curious
You know what? I was wrong. I mistook “The Inquirer” A Philadelphia based newspaper with “The National Enquirer” a tabloid rag that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. My bad.
Our fragile republic is in danger
they’ve all become entirely obsequious to wealth
Anyone else ever think of pulling the plug on election day? It’s just too much, man. I suffered through one term of Trump; I can’t do it again.
What do you mean pulling the plug? Like disconnecting after voting? I hope you still do your part and vote. Right?
Of course I’ll vote. I’m just not terribly confident about the results regardless.
Fascism won’t be going away no matter the results of the next election so we’re going to need people to stand up for each other. We need people who can spot fascism and call it out. People aren’t inclined to believe the kind of fascist takeovers that the Republican and Libertarian parties have gone through the first time we tell them. At least, when I tell people irl they don’t seem to really believe it. We need everyone we can get to keep telling them. There’s never going to be a moment when everyone realizes what’s happening so people have to spread it by word of mouth, either online or irl.
I don’t want to do another Trump term either, but we need to be there for each other.
You’ll make it through and our country will either fall apart or come out stronger.
Biden signed off more land than trump in terms of fossil fuel production.
Ceasef- I mean humanitarian pause
