Among the many firsts, last year's election gave us the gobsmacking revelation that most of the mainstream media puts both thumbs on the scale-that most of what you read, watch, and listen to is distorted by intentional bias and hostility.
For most of the media, bias grew out of the social revolution of the 1960s and '70s. Fueled by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the media jumped on the anti-authority bandwagon writ large.
Only two people now had a chance to be president, and the overwhelming media consensus was that it could not be Donald Trump.
Under the headline "American Journalism Is Collapsing Before Our Eyes," I wrote that the so-called cream of the media crop was "Engaged in a naked display of partisanship" designed to bury Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.
Day in, day out, in every media market in America, Trump was savaged like no other candidate in memory.
If you feel that way about Trump, normal journalistic ethics would dictate that you shouldn't cover him.
The Times media reporter rationalized the obvious bias he had just acknowledged, citing the view that Clinton was "Normal" and Trump was not.
Trump "Challenged our language," he said, and Trump "Will have changed journalism." Of the daily struggle for fairness, Baquet had this to say: "I think that Trump has ended that struggle.... We now say stuff. We fact check him. We write it more powerfully that false."
As we know now, most of the media totally missed Trump's appeal to millions upon millions of Americans.
Can the American media be fixed? And is there anything that we as individuals can do to make a difference? The short answer to the first question is, "No, it can't be fixed." The 2016 election was the media's Humpty Dumpty moment.
Nordstrom folded like a cheap suit, but Trump's supporters rallied on social media and Ivanka's company had its best month ever.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/2016-election-demise-journalistic-standards/
For most of the media, bias grew out of the social revolution of the 1960s and '70s. Fueled by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the media jumped on the anti-authority bandwagon writ large.
Only two people now had a chance to be president, and the overwhelming media consensus was that it could not be Donald Trump.
Under the headline "American Journalism Is Collapsing Before Our Eyes," I wrote that the so-called cream of the media crop was "Engaged in a naked display of partisanship" designed to bury Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.
Day in, day out, in every media market in America, Trump was savaged like no other candidate in memory.
If you feel that way about Trump, normal journalistic ethics would dictate that you shouldn't cover him.
The Times media reporter rationalized the obvious bias he had just acknowledged, citing the view that Clinton was "Normal" and Trump was not.
Trump "Challenged our language," he said, and Trump "Will have changed journalism." Of the daily struggle for fairness, Baquet had this to say: "I think that Trump has ended that struggle.... We now say stuff. We fact check him. We write it more powerfully that false."
As we know now, most of the media totally missed Trump's appeal to millions upon millions of Americans.
Can the American media be fixed? And is there anything that we as individuals can do to make a difference? The short answer to the first question is, "No, it can't be fixed." The 2016 election was the media's Humpty Dumpty moment.
Nordstrom folded like a cheap suit, but Trump's supporters rallied on social media and Ivanka's company had its best month ever.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/2016-election-demise-journalistic-standards/
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