the thing you have to understand with the American political media is that they learned *nothing* from the Trump years. zero. zip. they had absolutely no ability to self-criticize and were actively hostile to the very notion
I keep telling people that we will NEVER get out of this without the Fairness Doctrine back in place. Without it, media outlets get to pick our leadeship.
We disagree though I would have agreed in my younger days. At some point, when the same “instinct” is displayed over and over, it is a conscious strategy.
Counterpoint: the habitual, unaware zit-picker is not engaging in a conscious strategy of zit-picking. To my eye, "over and over" can look pretty automatized and unchosen.
I'm not sure where I fall on the press' habit of dicksteppery, though.
That is a poorly reasoned analogy. WAPO and NYT are considered two of the leading political newspapers in the world. They know exactly what they’re doing because they spend hour upon hour every day analyzing what they’re printing. They support illiberal outcomes.
It seriously makes me feel insane... and not in a cynical lol kinda way but in a very real the world is upside down and I dont know whats real kinda way
Trump's attacks on the press gave them the ability to cloak themselves in self-righteousness without changing anything about the way they structured coverage
It's bizarre how people's human rights are being removed every month, and a few billionaires are driving the planet into flames for their short-term economic benefit, and newspaper publishers and editors seem to think, "Our biggest problem is not bending over for enough to oligarchs/oil interests."
And they’re typically owned by people or entities that prefer right wing fiscal policies, as WaPo clearly is, and disagree more in terms of approach than substance with popular right wing leaders like Trump.
Readers: Hey, NYT and Maggie Haberman, why are you obsessively focusing on Hillary’s emails?
NYT: OH, SO I GUESS WE CAN’T EVER PRINT A NEGATIVE STORY ABOUT A DEMOCRAT, HUH?
Readers: That is absolutely not what anyone said.
tbc not necessarily on a conscious level, but they are incentivized to act(and kinda feel) this way by how the business has become structured economically/ideologically
You are giving them far too much credit. They’re power hungry game hounds who just want to wrap their lips around the most powerful dick they can find. Sure, some of them are stupid. But Chuck Todd just wants fame. Doesn’t care who he hurts to get it.
Of course they learned: they learned that they make a lot more ad revenue when right-wing crazies get media attention and when content pisses people off. Selling ad slots is all they care about. Commercial “news” is fundamentally antisocial and incompatible with the goal of informing people.
I think they learned people like Trump makes them money. Unfettered capitalism doesn't necessarily value democracy. The press in America is mostly just businesses in a capitalist society.
my experience very strongly of the political media management class is that they value status much more than money - media is a money-losing enterprise, for the most part.
Are we to assume the financial situation of some print outlets represents the entire media economic landscape? I have a hard time believing that broad of a generalization holds, and that media outlets are somehow immune to profit incentives.
they're not immune to profit incentives but the day-to-day decisions that produce stuff like the NYT political coverage are at several removes from them, and people's beliefs about how news is monetized are generally extremely wrong
if the NYT cared primarily about profit institutionally it would be a games and recipes website; instead they spend enormous amounts of money on stuff, good and bad, that does not earn money
If someone tells you the owner is 'hands-off' it just means they successfully selected someone who will publish what they want without direct supervision.
At the risk of sounding like that guy, I don't think it's a question of them learning anything. I think it's a question of whose water they are carrying and billionaires don't mind Trump. They'll avoid taxes, get cheaper labor with anti union government and are rich enough to avoid consequences.
They learned nothing from the Trump years because they internalized the wrong lessons from the Bush years. (and, honestly, the Clinton years, re: militias, Limbaugh/Gingrich, etc.)
So true. I watched with growing horror as they failed to tell the truth about candidate Trump, and it has simply got worse since then. Your country and mine are doomed, in different ways, by their political media.
Comments
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R40009.pdf
I'm not sure where I fall on the press' habit of dicksteppery, though.
NYT: OH, SO I GUESS WE CAN’T EVER PRINT A NEGATIVE STORY ABOUT A DEMOCRAT, HUH?
Readers: That is absolutely not what anyone said.
If someone tells you the owner is 'hands-off' it just means they successfully selected someone who will publish what they want without direct supervision.