Do you remember what the news, at least the news from the mainstream media, focused on a week ago? Sure you do, if you follow television and newspapers. The headlines were all about Donald Trump’s spate with the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and how Trump and these two talking heads had treated each other like tackling dummies on a football field.
Remember that? That crucial news was everywhere—television, newspapers, radio, and online.
Well, in the throes of this “major” news story that ate up so much airtime, what else was happening?
Remember that? That crucial news was everywhere—television, newspapers, radio, and online.
Well, in the throes of this “major” news story that ate up so much airtime, what else was happening?
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Protecting Access to Care Bill”, which limits most medical lawsuits to $250,000.
The House passed the “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act,” which would strip funds from sanctuary cities.
The House passed “Kate’s Law,” which would increase penalties on illegal criminal aliens who return to the country after deportation.
Meanwhile, the White House announced plans to overturn the former President Obama’s ruling against offshore drilling.
The stock market remains high.
The price of summer gasoline for vacationers is at its lowest levels in twelve years.
The US unemployment rate is at a sixteen year low.
Most of us probably heard nothing about some of these stories. And you know why?
Because our media is so eaten up by its hatred of Donald Trump that it can’t deliver the real news anymore.
Look, it doesn’t matter whether you are progressive, liberal, conservative, libertarian, communist, Republican or Democrat. It doesn’t matter whether you love or hate Donald Trump.
What should matter to you is that for years we’ve had the mainstream “news” media pushing its own agenda. They’ve fed us opinions rather than facts. Given all that is going on here and in the world at large, do we really care about a spat between President Trump and a couple of talking heads?
Here’s the real issue: news reporting and an agenda don’t go together.
A good many years ago, working free-lance for a conservative Catholic newspaper, I covered a national convention of various gay Catholic organizations in Charlotte, North Carolina. Some of the people at that convention wanted the Church to change its teaching about homosexuality; others were trying to lead chaste lives according to Catholic doctrine; a few advocated trying to reorient gays in their sexual preferences. I interviewed a number of people, wrote an article, and saw it published in the paper.
The result? Conservative Catholic readers attacked me because I didn’t take a “stand” in the article. Instead, I reported what people said to me, the stories they shared with me, and what the speakers said during the convention. Result: I was never asked to write another news story for that paper.
My point here is that with perhaps a few exceptions, our mainstream news media is in the toilet. It can no longer be trusted to report the actual news of the day. Consequently, we need to treat our national news outlets—CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and all the rest—as the Russians once treated Pravda under the Communists. Pravda, which means Truth in Russian, was the Communist’s party official mouthpiece, a source of information the ordinary Russian deemed a joke. If you were Russian, you had to read between the lines in Pravda to understand the real news, if you could find any real news at all.
The same situation, sadly, exists today in the United States of America, and has for at least twenty years. Reporters and editors either kill or soft-soap stories that might hurt a candidate they like or a political figure with whom they agree. On the same basis, editors pick and choose which stories to run on television or in the papers.
Advice as to how to correct the situation? Well, reporters could wise up, bury some of their prejudices, and start digging for some real facts instead of relying on hearsay and “an undisclosed source”. They could start calling politicians of both parties to account for their actions. They could educate Americans, who are by no means stupid, in the way the health care bill or social security affects them.
Not likely, eh?
The media present themselves as champions for truth and justice, but truth and justice are rarely the bottom line in a news corporation. What really counts with the media is money. Money, money, money. They contend, perhaps rightly, that ordinary people don’t want news about the budget, about possible war with North Korea, about a hundred such other stories. No—we want our news to be titillating: sex scandals, dirty deals, Russians hacking our voting machines. Budgets and taxes are boring. Scandal and slime sell.
One last observation: When I was a boy, Mrs. Mary Lou Shore, a Democrat, and my mother, a Republican, close friends, happened to meet each other while voting. My mother was leaving the polling place, and Mary Lou was going inside. “Well,” Mary Lou said, “here I go to cancel your vote.” Both women laughed.
Today that sense of civility and respect is as dead as telephone party lines and flattop haircuts. Politicians and the media are always screeching that America is divided today. Red states versus Blue states, progressives versus conservatives, Republicans versus Democrats, blacks versus whites, whites versus everyone else, men versus women.
Okay. I get it. Now let’s ask a question. Did all these divisive wars emerge full-blown of their own accord? Or was the hatred and distrust egged on by the media, by the stories they report, by the bias they bring to print and screen?
Take a step back and imagine that for one year the media—and I include all talk shows as well, from The View to Rush Limbaugh— reported the news fairly, accurately, and dispassionately. Imagine that for one year all the screaming, all the imprecations, all the fake news and slanted coverage, all the ad hominem attacks were banished. Suppose the news reported—well, just the news.
Who knows?
We might wind up treating one another as civilly as we once did.
The House passed the “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act,” which would strip funds from sanctuary cities.
The House passed “Kate’s Law,” which would increase penalties on illegal criminal aliens who return to the country after deportation.
Meanwhile, the White House announced plans to overturn the former President Obama’s ruling against offshore drilling.
The stock market remains high.
The price of summer gasoline for vacationers is at its lowest levels in twelve years.
The US unemployment rate is at a sixteen year low.
Most of us probably heard nothing about some of these stories. And you know why?
Because our media is so eaten up by its hatred of Donald Trump that it can’t deliver the real news anymore.
Look, it doesn’t matter whether you are progressive, liberal, conservative, libertarian, communist, Republican or Democrat. It doesn’t matter whether you love or hate Donald Trump.
What should matter to you is that for years we’ve had the mainstream “news” media pushing its own agenda. They’ve fed us opinions rather than facts. Given all that is going on here and in the world at large, do we really care about a spat between President Trump and a couple of talking heads?
Here’s the real issue: news reporting and an agenda don’t go together.
A good many years ago, working free-lance for a conservative Catholic newspaper, I covered a national convention of various gay Catholic organizations in Charlotte, North Carolina. Some of the people at that convention wanted the Church to change its teaching about homosexuality; others were trying to lead chaste lives according to Catholic doctrine; a few advocated trying to reorient gays in their sexual preferences. I interviewed a number of people, wrote an article, and saw it published in the paper.
The result? Conservative Catholic readers attacked me because I didn’t take a “stand” in the article. Instead, I reported what people said to me, the stories they shared with me, and what the speakers said during the convention. Result: I was never asked to write another news story for that paper.
My point here is that with perhaps a few exceptions, our mainstream news media is in the toilet. It can no longer be trusted to report the actual news of the day. Consequently, we need to treat our national news outlets—CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and all the rest—as the Russians once treated Pravda under the Communists. Pravda, which means Truth in Russian, was the Communist’s party official mouthpiece, a source of information the ordinary Russian deemed a joke. If you were Russian, you had to read between the lines in Pravda to understand the real news, if you could find any real news at all.
The same situation, sadly, exists today in the United States of America, and has for at least twenty years. Reporters and editors either kill or soft-soap stories that might hurt a candidate they like or a political figure with whom they agree. On the same basis, editors pick and choose which stories to run on television or in the papers.
Advice as to how to correct the situation? Well, reporters could wise up, bury some of their prejudices, and start digging for some real facts instead of relying on hearsay and “an undisclosed source”. They could start calling politicians of both parties to account for their actions. They could educate Americans, who are by no means stupid, in the way the health care bill or social security affects them.
Not likely, eh?
The media present themselves as champions for truth and justice, but truth and justice are rarely the bottom line in a news corporation. What really counts with the media is money. Money, money, money. They contend, perhaps rightly, that ordinary people don’t want news about the budget, about possible war with North Korea, about a hundred such other stories. No—we want our news to be titillating: sex scandals, dirty deals, Russians hacking our voting machines. Budgets and taxes are boring. Scandal and slime sell.
One last observation: When I was a boy, Mrs. Mary Lou Shore, a Democrat, and my mother, a Republican, close friends, happened to meet each other while voting. My mother was leaving the polling place, and Mary Lou was going inside. “Well,” Mary Lou said, “here I go to cancel your vote.” Both women laughed.
Today that sense of civility and respect is as dead as telephone party lines and flattop haircuts. Politicians and the media are always screeching that America is divided today. Red states versus Blue states, progressives versus conservatives, Republicans versus Democrats, blacks versus whites, whites versus everyone else, men versus women.
Okay. I get it. Now let’s ask a question. Did all these divisive wars emerge full-blown of their own accord? Or was the hatred and distrust egged on by the media, by the stories they report, by the bias they bring to print and screen?
Take a step back and imagine that for one year the media—and I include all talk shows as well, from The View to Rush Limbaugh— reported the news fairly, accurately, and dispassionately. Imagine that for one year all the screaming, all the imprecations, all the fake news and slanted coverage, all the ad hominem attacks were banished. Suppose the news reported—well, just the news.
Who knows?
We might wind up treating one another as civilly as we once did.