I think one of the main problems here isn’t news media itself, it’s the lack of education and laziness of the population leading to blind trust in media. A SIGNIFICANT portion of Americans don’t want to do the work required to really understand an issue... they want to be spoon fed the data, the analysis and the solution (true for both sides of the political spectrum in our country, but much more potent and centralized on the left). This isn’t new... look at the propaganda/unbiased publications of the Sons of Liberty and ALO during the American Revolution. The population of the 13 colonies was highly literate and educated, and the ALO used that to their advantage by pushing their narrative through newspapers, letters and the Committees of Correspondence coupled with activist action to push/bully people into supporting them. Now obviously I am not upset by the outcome (‘Murica!), but we have to take an unadulterated view of the history of journalism/news media in this country. This pattern of extreme bias and partisanship has continued from the moment of our founding through to today, and large segments of our population have always gobbled up their biased, addenda driven horseshit. I think the key here is the rise of independent and highly transparent journalists/news media/civic commentary sources (Rogan, Bari Weiss, Taibi, the glorious Comstock, etc) that have enormous reach due to the internet. These sources are incredibly attractive to non-lizard people who wish to do some leg work, be objective as much as possible and genuinely engage in respectful civic discourse to address issues in our society with people of diverse viewpoints. This may not be a majority of people, but I think there are enough of us, and the contrast between these two methodologies is so stark, that support for this new type of journalism will continue to grow. So whatever you do, don’t stop writing your articles please...Cheers.
We crossed a threshold at some point in the last 2 to 3 years into a post-truth alternative universe. It just seems like there has been a confluence of forces by a number of critical institutions that have pushed a narrative so hard, so far, and so fast that there may be no turning back. Everything seems very different now. I’m not sure where we are heading as a society, but it’s probably not to a good place.
It's less like the media is mainlining smack and more like they keep taking massive doses of LSD. The versions of events that are posted in main stream media are constantly skewed by the bizarrely distorted lenses through which these "journalists" view them. They are constantly looking for ghosts of white supremacy, phantoms of "right wing" terror, and clockwork elves of crusading anti-science scientists.
I didn’t have the displeasure of reading the article, so thank you for the review.
Mr. Downie has taken journalism’s ‘circling the wagons’ to a whole new level apparently.
To follow your drug-referential theme it seems consumers of mainstream news are more and more taking on the role of the Mom who finds the bag of weed that the Downies of the world forgot to remove from their front jeans pocket before tossing them in the dirty laundry pile. Mom would love to believe Mr. Downie’s flimsy excuse of “I was holding it for a friend.”But Mom knows bullshit when she hears it.
So what does Mom do? To your horror she flushes your weed down the toilet. In the eyes of us Moms out there, journalists are doing the same to their credibility.
Fantastic writing, as always.
I think one of the main problems here isn’t news media itself, it’s the lack of education and laziness of the population leading to blind trust in media. A SIGNIFICANT portion of Americans don’t want to do the work required to really understand an issue... they want to be spoon fed the data, the analysis and the solution (true for both sides of the political spectrum in our country, but much more potent and centralized on the left). This isn’t new... look at the propaganda/unbiased publications of the Sons of Liberty and ALO during the American Revolution. The population of the 13 colonies was highly literate and educated, and the ALO used that to their advantage by pushing their narrative through newspapers, letters and the Committees of Correspondence coupled with activist action to push/bully people into supporting them. Now obviously I am not upset by the outcome (‘Murica!), but we have to take an unadulterated view of the history of journalism/news media in this country. This pattern of extreme bias and partisanship has continued from the moment of our founding through to today, and large segments of our population have always gobbled up their biased, addenda driven horseshit. I think the key here is the rise of independent and highly transparent journalists/news media/civic commentary sources (Rogan, Bari Weiss, Taibi, the glorious Comstock, etc) that have enormous reach due to the internet. These sources are incredibly attractive to non-lizard people who wish to do some leg work, be objective as much as possible and genuinely engage in respectful civic discourse to address issues in our society with people of diverse viewpoints. This may not be a majority of people, but I think there are enough of us, and the contrast between these two methodologies is so stark, that support for this new type of journalism will continue to grow. So whatever you do, don’t stop writing your articles please...Cheers.
Posted it on Truth Social and Twitter. 😎🔥
We crossed a threshold at some point in the last 2 to 3 years into a post-truth alternative universe. It just seems like there has been a confluence of forces by a number of critical institutions that have pushed a narrative so hard, so far, and so fast that there may be no turning back. Everything seems very different now. I’m not sure where we are heading as a society, but it’s probably not to a good place.
It's less like the media is mainlining smack and more like they keep taking massive doses of LSD. The versions of events that are posted in main stream media are constantly skewed by the bizarrely distorted lenses through which these "journalists" view them. They are constantly looking for ghosts of white supremacy, phantoms of "right wing" terror, and clockwork elves of crusading anti-science scientists.
I didn’t have the displeasure of reading the article, so thank you for the review.
Mr. Downie has taken journalism’s ‘circling the wagons’ to a whole new level apparently.
To follow your drug-referential theme it seems consumers of mainstream news are more and more taking on the role of the Mom who finds the bag of weed that the Downies of the world forgot to remove from their front jeans pocket before tossing them in the dirty laundry pile. Mom would love to believe Mr. Downie’s flimsy excuse of “I was holding it for a friend.”But Mom knows bullshit when she hears it.
So what does Mom do? To your horror she flushes your weed down the toilet. In the eyes of us Moms out there, journalists are doing the same to their credibility.
“Do you see what he did there? He pulled the old “magician changing a magic wand into a steaming pile of cow shit” trick.”
😂