Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism?

Mainstream media seem willing to drop their duty in order to pick up profits

I sometimes wonder why journalists are so nice to the people who want to destroy them.

Republicans who run the government seem determined to wipe out independent oversight, to turn journalism into an obsolete job like lamplighter or video store clerk.

Trump rewards media suck-ups and punishes legitimate journalists. He accuses TV networks of “treason” and threatens to pull their broadcast licenses. The Pentagon evicts reporters for refusing to accept draconian rules. The FBI searches a reporter’s home and seizes her computers, phone, and smart watch. And for a decade, Trump has smeared news outlets as “enemies of the people.”

Yet time after time, mainstream media give these authoritarians a platform to lie to the American people, often unchallenged. One of the media’s motives is based on a misguided principle: They think the marketplace of ideas will sort things out and it’s their job to present “both sides.” They believe that makes them fair; I think it makes them stenographers.

What’s more alarming and not at all principled is corporate media’s triangulation. They want to make their news truthful enough to keep an audience that’s attractive to advertisers while preventing it from being so truthful that it ticks off center-right customers and gains the negative attention of Trump and the tech-financial oligarchy behind him.

As one legacy outlet, CBS News, has become an organ of the dictatorship, its viewership numbers have slipped. There is a financial danger of being too Trumpy. But other major outlets know if they go the other way – if they state the dangers of the regime in frank terms – they will be punished with frivolous lawsuits, regulatory harassment, and a lack of access.

So we get news from an absurd patch of middle ground. Major media know Trump is building a dictatorship, but they’re unwilling to tell the public that Trump is building a dictatorship.

This cynical pursuit of profit at the expense of public awareness is unacceptable. In our democracy, journalists stand in a privileged position, with freedom of the press specifically protected in the Constitution. They have a duty to inform the electorate.

I’m not saying all journalists must be pro-democracy. In a free country, they’re allowed to be communists or fascists or whatever they want, if they do it nonviolently (which fascists generally don’t, since they thrive on violence and abuse of power).

But whatever their ideology, responsible owners of major news outlets should be honest with their audiences about what’s at stake. Their outlets shouldn’t normalize corruption and use soft language for hard truths, such as National Public Radio referring last week to the Trump regime’s “willingness to push the boundaries of the law” when the regime is way, way beyond the boundaries.

What’s especially mystifying about mainstream media’s behavior is that they’re tying the rope for their own noose. If they aren’t willing to accept a basic duty of journalism – to warn the public about dangers to their well-being – they ought to at least be selfish enough to worry about dangers to the well-being of their own industry.

Trump is trying to turn them into fascist functionaries, and they ought to be alarmed about that – unless they don’t care what they broadcast as long as they get paid for it.

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Here’s a new feature: media atrocity of the week

On CBS News’ “Face the Nation” last Sunday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was interviewed by host Margaret Brennan and referred to Homeland Security as an “occupying force that has quite literally invaded our city.”

Brennan responded: “You said ‘occupying force.’ Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

Frey answered: “You can go through whatever rhetorical flourish you want, but when you have 3,000 ICE agents and Border Patrol come to the city, when you’ve got this supposed threat of 1,500 military coming to the city, yeah, that’s very much what it feels like.”

Watch the whole interview. Brennan thinks her job is to trumpet the regime’s talking points and act like Frey is overreacting when his city is under siege. And Brennan also wants to please her right-wing boss, Bari Weiss. I think that’s a bit much.

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