Thursday open thread: The media is broken, part infinity

The other day, it was revealed that CBS News had hired Donald Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney as a contributor. Needless to say, we were all apoplectic. However, it got worse:

CBS News’s decision to hire former Trump administration official Mick Mulvaney as a paid on-air contributor is drawing backlash within the company because of his history of bashing the press and promoting the former president’s fact-free claims.

But a top network executive seemed to lay the groundwork for the decision in a staff meeting earlier this month, when he said the network needed to hire more Republicans to prepare for a “likely” Democratic midterm wipeout.

“If you look at some of the people that we’ve been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms,” CBS News’s co-president Neeraj Khemlani told the staff of the network’s morning show, according to a recording of his comments obtained by The Washington Post. “A lot of the people that we’re bringing in are helping us in terms of access to that side of the equation.”

Ah, yes. The golden chimera of "access". Of course, networks feel no such need to hire liberal / Democratic pundits in the face of a Democratic blue wave. (No, I'm not saying we're in for a Republican wave in November. Just making the comparison.)

And what good is this access? What if—hear me out—Democrats win in November? According to polling, that's as likely as a GOP win. Access to get regurgitated talking points? That's journalism? Can you imagine Edward R. Murrow, or Walter Cronkite, or Ed Bradley selling out their souls for access? This is another signpost that journalism in this country is dead. It's not about reporting truth. It's not about exposing malfeasance. It's all about the precious "content". It's about keeping the 24/7 news cycle churning with fresh things over which to be outraged. 

The fact of the matter is this: All of our media is complicit. Even our darlings at MSNBC. Liberal, conservative, centrist: they all operate under the paradigm of validating GOP talking points and being hyper-critical of the Democrats. They've been so slapped up the head by the right wing in this country working the referees that they'll bend over to prove they're not "liberal". As if being liberal is a crime against humanity. Here's the thing: facts do have a liberal bias. That's just how it is. Conservatism as it exists today in this country operates in a Looney Tunes alternate reality. It's not moored to observable phenomena. From critical race theory to transgender rights, conservative discourse offers nothing of value to how people live their lives. It exists only as sauce for their bigoted geese. And this is the worldview the media needs to "access". They are no longer tribunes of the people; they're maidservants to the quarterly reports. 

Bully for you, CBS. You've driven another nail into the coffin of American democracy. But your profits will be stellar.