Bothsidesism has been my pet peeve since I tried to listen to NPR for a month back in 2010 because all my friends said they preferred it to the hip hop station I listened to It took one month before I threw up my hands, after they responded to a proposal Obama made to pay for two years of post-college education, not with several experts from community colleges or apprenticeship programs but by a rebuttal from a professional Obama hater with no background in education or workforce training. Every issue has two exactly equal sides according to NPR, and as a journalist myself, I know that's crazy. In some cases, there's a single truth while other issues have many possible sides.
Having been a secretary back in the day, I can testify that part of the job was making the boss sound more literate and often more rational and courteous than he [sic] was.
I learned in J-School back when that the role of the journalist was to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." When I see reporters today politely listening to b*llsh*t and outright lies, then thanking the liar and moving on, I am astonished. Lies un-interrogated and un-exposed become the truth.
I recall when the editor of the local daily spewed this crap and the publisher of a local Black newsletter who was also on the panel pulled the mic over to himself and said, "What you do is comfort the wealth and powerful and afflict the afflicted." It was so true. (That same daily is now basically a professional sports newsletter, all football all the time.)
Money is the obvious answer. Normal people can't understand how money overrules welfare of the people. Things, technology, business, politics all placed above the people. "Insurgency will rise when the bloods been sacrificed." Look out greed.
Incredibly disheartening the extent to which the 4th estate has played along with political malpractice. Ignorance is no defense. Learn about the separation of powers and report on the gross abuses of said powers.
I'm not sure it's all about money when it comes to places like NPR being mealy-mouthed. Most journalists try to be fair-minded, and the right has taken advantage of that to work the refs for decades now. The GOP and conservatives in general scream "liberal media" when someone reports a truth that is not flattering to them, so conservative Americans have been well trained to believe that facts are liberal and not to be trusted.
When I got my bachelor's in journalism, I'm pretty sure we never discussed the concept that all voices are not equal or that one "side" is not worth quoting if they're spewing hate or fiction. There was a time when people were a little more afraid of being caught lying in public forums, so we didn't have to be quite so on guard. I hope journalism schools are doing better these days.
Thank you for the article, I am tired of doom and gloom on CBS. I watch, PBS and MS Now at times. My main feed is Independent Journalism. May greed bite them in the fanny karmetically speaking.
I don't watch any of it, nor subscribe to any of the legacy "news" papers. I get about half a dozen substack newsletters and am assessing which ones to subscribe to. Some of them are very informative and well done.
"Boundary-pushing" and "reshaping" are my two most hated normalizing frames the so-called "mainstream" media uses constantly. The NYT newsletter this morning had a headline about Trump "remaking" America, state by state. "Remaking" isn't what he's doing. He's destroying American norms and the rule of law, not "remaking" by any definition.
Given Trump's bizarre behavior regarding the Nobel Peace Prize and Greenland, the mainstream news media severely damages its credibility now every day it turns a blind eye toward his obvious mental illness. This is way past the point of being a somewhat murky or partisan issue.
Yup. If you saw him homeless in the street, you'd write about his obvious mental illness and probable drug addiction (no one sleeps so little without being addicted to something). How do we have a press which can be brutally honest about the homeless, yet can't muster a basic factual description of the most dangerous person in the world?
Top leaders prefer profits above all and they believe especially since most of them are white that none of this will affect them. And frankly you also have some who don't have a problem with all of this.
Where are the profits when t they're bleeding subscribers/viewers? I keep asking this. It's like they're more scared of angering Trump than losing an audience.
While listening yesterday to WAMU, the NPR station in DC, my jaw dropped when I heard a cheery morning host's voice narrating a sponsor promo for an upcoming concert at "the Trump Kennedy Center."
Sometimes I swear they'll read whatever gets shoved in front of them.
"Both sides-ism" has been out of control for years, but timidly regurgitating lies is a dereliction of duty. Stenographers is a good way to put it.
Bothsidesism has been my pet peeve since I tried to listen to NPR for a month back in 2010 because all my friends said they preferred it to the hip hop station I listened to It took one month before I threw up my hands, after they responded to a proposal Obama made to pay for two years of post-college education, not with several experts from community colleges or apprenticeship programs but by a rebuttal from a professional Obama hater with no background in education or workforce training. Every issue has two exactly equal sides according to NPR, and as a journalist myself, I know that's crazy. In some cases, there's a single truth while other issues have many possible sides.
Having been a secretary back in the day, I can testify that part of the job was making the boss sound more literate and often more rational and courteous than he [sic] was.
I learned in J-School back when that the role of the journalist was to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." When I see reporters today politely listening to b*llsh*t and outright lies, then thanking the liar and moving on, I am astonished. Lies un-interrogated and un-exposed become the truth.
I recall when the editor of the local daily spewed this crap and the publisher of a local Black newsletter who was also on the panel pulled the mic over to himself and said, "What you do is comfort the wealth and powerful and afflict the afflicted." It was so true. (That same daily is now basically a professional sports newsletter, all football all the time.)
Completely.
"Corporate journalism" is, or should be, an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Let's call it what it is: public relations.
Money is the obvious answer. Normal people can't understand how money overrules welfare of the people. Things, technology, business, politics all placed above the people. "Insurgency will rise when the bloods been sacrificed." Look out greed.
Incredibly disheartening the extent to which the 4th estate has played along with political malpractice. Ignorance is no defense. Learn about the separation of powers and report on the gross abuses of said powers.
I'm not sure it's all about money when it comes to places like NPR being mealy-mouthed. Most journalists try to be fair-minded, and the right has taken advantage of that to work the refs for decades now. The GOP and conservatives in general scream "liberal media" when someone reports a truth that is not flattering to them, so conservative Americans have been well trained to believe that facts are liberal and not to be trusted.
When I got my bachelor's in journalism, I'm pretty sure we never discussed the concept that all voices are not equal or that one "side" is not worth quoting if they're spewing hate or fiction. There was a time when people were a little more afraid of being caught lying in public forums, so we didn't have to be quite so on guard. I hope journalism schools are doing better these days.
Thank you for the article, I am tired of doom and gloom on CBS. I watch, PBS and MS Now at times. My main feed is Independent Journalism. May greed bite them in the fanny karmetically speaking.
I don't watch any of it, nor subscribe to any of the legacy "news" papers. I get about half a dozen substack newsletters and am assessing which ones to subscribe to. Some of them are very informative and well done.
"Boundary-pushing" and "reshaping" are my two most hated normalizing frames the so-called "mainstream" media uses constantly. The NYT newsletter this morning had a headline about Trump "remaking" America, state by state. "Remaking" isn't what he's doing. He's destroying American norms and the rule of law, not "remaking" by any definition.
Given Trump's bizarre behavior regarding the Nobel Peace Prize and Greenland, the mainstream news media severely damages its credibility now every day it turns a blind eye toward his obvious mental illness. This is way past the point of being a somewhat murky or partisan issue.
Yup. If you saw him homeless in the street, you'd write about his obvious mental illness and probable drug addiction (no one sleeps so little without being addicted to something). How do we have a press which can be brutally honest about the homeless, yet can't muster a basic factual description of the most dangerous person in the world?
Top leaders prefer profits above all and they believe especially since most of them are white that none of this will affect them. And frankly you also have some who don't have a problem with all of this.
Where are the profits when t they're bleeding subscribers/viewers? I keep asking this. It's like they're more scared of angering Trump than losing an audience.
Because everyone in legacy media is scared and corporate owned... the only hope is independent journalism.
While listening yesterday to WAMU, the NPR station in DC, my jaw dropped when I heard a cheery morning host's voice narrating a sponsor promo for an upcoming concert at "the Trump Kennedy Center."
Sometimes I swear they'll read whatever gets shoved in front of them.
Because media is for profit entertainment and have forgotten the important role of journalism in a democratic society.
Thank you Mark. You are right on. I used to watch Face the Nation. I know longer can. Margaret Brennan has become an appeaser.