I'm a broken record, but the corporate media is hugely complicit in our current authoritarian nightmare, imo. I used to regularly do media campaigns, calling out corporate media when necessary, when I was a national political/social justice organizer, and also wrote about it.
I want to come up with an easily doable, national campaign so that we can all call out the media on their complicity. It's a way to bring increased awareness to the public, and to give us another concrete thing we can do to peacefully resist.
So what can we do about it. Specifically to corp. media to which we have access? I subscribe to WaPo and the NYT and regularly call both out for mealy-mouthed normalizing. What else?
I dumped the NYT after the 2016 election. Enough was enough. My WaPo sub ran out earlier this year: the unsourced Biden bashing did it, and by the time we got to Bezos quashing the staff's endorsement of Harris-Walz, I was 110% sure I'd done the right thing. I've been subscribing to the Guardian (US and UK editions) for several years, and (since I'm in MA) I'll keep on subscribing to the Boston Globe as long as they keep offering cut-rate subs (no way am I paying $27+ a month). Between them and my (many!) Substack subscriptions, I stay pretty well informed -- better informed, IMO, than I would be if I relied on WaPo and the NYT.
Basically, the Guardian is all you need to stay basically informed. I'm eying a few Substack newsletters that are more news roundups than batting around "takes" on Trump's latest or What Mamdani's Win Means for Democrats.
I've never subscribed to The NY Times and awaiting for my WaPo subscription to run out.
I pick my Substacks mostly according to my particular interests. Legal commentary is near the top, with the economy close behind, along with learning what the anti-democratic right is up to. I read Lucian Truscott because he's an excellent writer and he knows more about the military than I ever will. Etc. There's such an incredible wealth of excellent, well informed writing out there that it's hard to understand why the MSM is so anemic -- without wondering about the influence of their corporate sponsors.
The Times' notorious sane-washing of the insane Mr tRump encounters constant and vigorous pushback from its readership, as witnessed in thousands of *published* readers' comments rubbishing euphemism abuse as practiced by the rewrite desk...so, the NYT isn't really getting away with it, EXCEPT as it concerns tRump himself, who only occasionally offers pro forma attacks upon the paper, and hasn't as yet demanded the head of Sulzberger or Joe Kahn.
Its good for people to give feedback on reported material. Done as well, and with massive subscriber loss, but it did nada with WaPo. I wouldn't expect the corrupt to upset their own apple cart. Published comments are nice but only done because they *don't* feel worried.
I’m so tired of the weasely euphemisms, designed more to confuse than enlighten, ie, tell the unvarnished truth. Thank god for Substack and its wonderful, brave writers. The small independent outlets are where we get the slippery truth.
And of course this barely scratches the surface of their travesties. As the Columbia Journalism Review reported more than 8 years ago, and I can still recite every chapter and verse, in 2016, the NY Times ran more front-page stories about Hillary's emails (a story they basically fabricated out of thin air) in the 6 days before the election than they ran about every policy issue COMBINED in the 69 days before the election. They ran FIVE TIMES more stories about the Clinton Foundation, insinuating problems while acknowledging down in paragraph 25 that "there's no evidence of wrongdoing but the optics aren't good"—optics they were creating, than about the corrupt Trump Foundation which had its charter pulled for its many violations such as bribing Florida attorney general Pam Bondi with an illegal campaign contribution to drop an investigation of Trump "University." Meanwhile, the A-rated Clinton Foundation continues its good work.
Then there were the lavishly adoring "human interest" profiles of women in the Trump circle such as Hope Hicks and Ivanka, turning them into beautiful, kind, intelligent heroines who would "humanize" Trump. I still wonder what they would've written if Hillary had been elected and made Chelsea a "senior advisor." And Chelsea, with a doctorate in foreign policy from Oxford, would've been qualified!
The problem, of course, is intrinsic: our larger media outlets are either owned by corporations or by billionaires with huge corporate interests. So those outlets will cloak truth with innuendo in order to prevent any economic damage that might otherwise accrue to their owners.
Keep calling this out! The media has definitely stopped being the fourth estate. Thank heaven we have a great bunch of independents: MTN, Aaron Parnas, Jim Acosta, Katie Phang, Rick Wilson and Lincoln Square, Zev Shalev, Dean Blundell, Olga Lautman, Adam Mockler, Legal Af and crew; these are just a few I’m subscribed to.
Yes, a thousand times yes! It was bad enough in 2016–17 when the mainstream media treated Trump as a curiosity. (1) The NY Times in particular had seen Trump and his father in action for *decades*; and (2) the trajectory of the GOP at least since Gingrich, but more accurately since Reagan and even more accurately since Nixon's "southern strategy," was out there in the wide open.
As a much younger person I struggled to understand why so many Germans fell for Hitler. I totally got how disastrous the punitive Versailles treaty had been for ordinary, working Germans, but Hitler was so *obviously* anti-democratic and looking for scapegoats. From the onset of Reagan I started to get it, but I also got that what was driving the Reagan reaction was racism and misogyny, not economic desperation. And no one put the brakes on it!
The fact that they *still* don't get it boggles my mind. They don't get why Zohran Mamdani convincingly won the NYC Democratic primary, or why he was cross-endorsed by an opponent who happened to be Jewish. It seems they are so locked in to their obsolete view of the world that they can't see what's right in front of their eyes.
I suspect it's even worse than that. If they were really "state media," I'd almost get it (if I didn't know anything about the 1st Amendment). But I'm coming to believe that it has much to do with hyper-cautious conservative ownership coupled with the temptation of working journalists not to alienate their indispensable reliable insider sources.
I don't think corporate ownership is hyper cautious as much as beholden and complicit (see Bezos, WaPo. Sinclair Broadcasting, Murdoch). Seems that many working journalists have been fired, resigned, off working where they are less constrained by dark corporate overlord direction. Many have been threatened - most recently in the interview about "leaking" around the Iran bombings, the reporters will be asked, etc. Feels like pages will be pulled from the Roy Cohn, McCarthy playbooks - coming soon.
It probably is worse than State Media, Susanna.
In any case - it's not good - for democracy, this country, other countries.
Thank you so much for saying the obvious. It's disgusting and absolutely unacceptable but The NY Times has a history of this. Let's collab in the future Mark. Please send me a DM.
Nailed it! I taught Editing for 38 years, wrote about headlines and headline writing, and more. I am appalled by what makes it to paper and screen these days.
Wow. Just Wow. Your article is such a clear, compelling indictment of today’s news media letting the country down through its failure to simply describe reality instead of obfuscate with phony euphemisms and confusing gobbledygook. Thank you.
Well all this has yet to be litigated or otherwise deemed "wrong", except in your opinion. So unless the NYT has a crystal ball, they have to report facts on the ground today.
Thanks for continually naming this.
I'm a broken record, but the corporate media is hugely complicit in our current authoritarian nightmare, imo. I used to regularly do media campaigns, calling out corporate media when necessary, when I was a national political/social justice organizer, and also wrote about it.
I want to come up with an easily doable, national campaign so that we can all call out the media on their complicity. It's a way to bring increased awareness to the public, and to give us another concrete thing we can do to peacefully resist.
👏👏👏👏👏
So what can we do about it. Specifically to corp. media to which we have access? I subscribe to WaPo and the NYT and regularly call both out for mealy-mouthed normalizing. What else?
I dumped both Washington Post and the New York Times. They can continue writing this garbage, but I'm not going to pay for it.
I dumped the NYT after the 2016 election. Enough was enough. My WaPo sub ran out earlier this year: the unsourced Biden bashing did it, and by the time we got to Bezos quashing the staff's endorsement of Harris-Walz, I was 110% sure I'd done the right thing. I've been subscribing to the Guardian (US and UK editions) for several years, and (since I'm in MA) I'll keep on subscribing to the Boston Globe as long as they keep offering cut-rate subs (no way am I paying $27+ a month). Between them and my (many!) Substack subscriptions, I stay pretty well informed -- better informed, IMO, than I would be if I relied on WaPo and the NYT.
Basically, the Guardian is all you need to stay basically informed. I'm eying a few Substack newsletters that are more news roundups than batting around "takes" on Trump's latest or What Mamdani's Win Means for Democrats.
I've never subscribed to The NY Times and awaiting for my WaPo subscription to run out.
I pick my Substacks mostly according to my particular interests. Legal commentary is near the top, with the economy close behind, along with learning what the anti-democratic right is up to. I read Lucian Truscott because he's an excellent writer and he knows more about the military than I ever will. Etc. There's such an incredible wealth of excellent, well informed writing out there that it's hard to understand why the MSM is so anemic -- without wondering about the influence of their corporate sponsors.
I agree. Mainstream media COULD be more diverse and accurately informative. but it seems like they just don't want to.
I just subscribed to the Guardian as well. I'm glad I did.
Yup
Thank you. People need to see & hear this kind of thing the mass media's duplicity is an abomination.
The Times' notorious sane-washing of the insane Mr tRump encounters constant and vigorous pushback from its readership, as witnessed in thousands of *published* readers' comments rubbishing euphemism abuse as practiced by the rewrite desk...so, the NYT isn't really getting away with it, EXCEPT as it concerns tRump himself, who only occasionally offers pro forma attacks upon the paper, and hasn't as yet demanded the head of Sulzberger or Joe Kahn.
Its good for people to give feedback on reported material. Done as well, and with massive subscriber loss, but it did nada with WaPo. I wouldn't expect the corrupt to upset their own apple cart. Published comments are nice but only done because they *don't* feel worried.
I’m so tired of the weasely euphemisms, designed more to confuse than enlighten, ie, tell the unvarnished truth. Thank god for Substack and its wonderful, brave writers. The small independent outlets are where we get the slippery truth.
And of course this barely scratches the surface of their travesties. As the Columbia Journalism Review reported more than 8 years ago, and I can still recite every chapter and verse, in 2016, the NY Times ran more front-page stories about Hillary's emails (a story they basically fabricated out of thin air) in the 6 days before the election than they ran about every policy issue COMBINED in the 69 days before the election. They ran FIVE TIMES more stories about the Clinton Foundation, insinuating problems while acknowledging down in paragraph 25 that "there's no evidence of wrongdoing but the optics aren't good"—optics they were creating, than about the corrupt Trump Foundation which had its charter pulled for its many violations such as bribing Florida attorney general Pam Bondi with an illegal campaign contribution to drop an investigation of Trump "University." Meanwhile, the A-rated Clinton Foundation continues its good work.
Then there were the lavishly adoring "human interest" profiles of women in the Trump circle such as Hope Hicks and Ivanka, turning them into beautiful, kind, intelligent heroines who would "humanize" Trump. I still wonder what they would've written if Hillary had been elected and made Chelsea a "senior advisor." And Chelsea, with a doctorate in foreign policy from Oxford, would've been qualified!
The Times has always tended to the right, regardless of their reputation in the so-called heartland. They confuse liberal Manhattan with the paper.
The problem, of course, is intrinsic: our larger media outlets are either owned by corporations or by billionaires with huge corporate interests. So those outlets will cloak truth with innuendo in order to prevent any economic damage that might otherwise accrue to their owners.
Shame on them. But it's just as simple as that.
This is a super-good roundup of journalistic failures. Hats off to you.
Keep calling this out! The media has definitely stopped being the fourth estate. Thank heaven we have a great bunch of independents: MTN, Aaron Parnas, Jim Acosta, Katie Phang, Rick Wilson and Lincoln Square, Zev Shalev, Dean Blundell, Olga Lautman, Adam Mockler, Legal Af and crew; these are just a few I’m subscribed to.
Yes, a thousand times yes! It was bad enough in 2016–17 when the mainstream media treated Trump as a curiosity. (1) The NY Times in particular had seen Trump and his father in action for *decades*; and (2) the trajectory of the GOP at least since Gingrich, but more accurately since Reagan and even more accurately since Nixon's "southern strategy," was out there in the wide open.
As a much younger person I struggled to understand why so many Germans fell for Hitler. I totally got how disastrous the punitive Versailles treaty had been for ordinary, working Germans, but Hitler was so *obviously* anti-democratic and looking for scapegoats. From the onset of Reagan I started to get it, but I also got that what was driving the Reagan reaction was racism and misogyny, not economic desperation. And no one put the brakes on it!
The fact that they *still* don't get it boggles my mind. They don't get why Zohran Mamdani convincingly won the NYC Democratic primary, or why he was cross-endorsed by an opponent who happened to be Jewish. It seems they are so locked in to their obsolete view of the world that they can't see what's right in front of their eyes.
It’s all just State Media now, in service of the regime?
I suspect it's even worse than that. If they were really "state media," I'd almost get it (if I didn't know anything about the 1st Amendment). But I'm coming to believe that it has much to do with hyper-cautious conservative ownership coupled with the temptation of working journalists not to alienate their indispensable reliable insider sources.
I don't think corporate ownership is hyper cautious as much as beholden and complicit (see Bezos, WaPo. Sinclair Broadcasting, Murdoch). Seems that many working journalists have been fired, resigned, off working where they are less constrained by dark corporate overlord direction. Many have been threatened - most recently in the interview about "leaking" around the Iran bombings, the reporters will be asked, etc. Feels like pages will be pulled from the Roy Cohn, McCarthy playbooks - coming soon.
It probably is worse than State Media, Susanna.
In any case - it's not good - for democracy, this country, other countries.
The lipstick on a pig trick is getting old for America, trump.
Thank you so much for saying the obvious. It's disgusting and absolutely unacceptable but The NY Times has a history of this. Let's collab in the future Mark. Please send me a DM.
Nailed it! I taught Editing for 38 years, wrote about headlines and headline writing, and more. I am appalled by what makes it to paper and screen these days.
Thank you!
Wow. Just Wow. Your article is such a clear, compelling indictment of today’s news media letting the country down through its failure to simply describe reality instead of obfuscate with phony euphemisms and confusing gobbledygook. Thank you.
Well all this has yet to be litigated or otherwise deemed "wrong", except in your opinion. So unless the NYT has a crystal ball, they have to report facts on the ground today.