The sad fall of the mainstream media
Well, that didn't take long.
Earlier yesterday, a federal judge issued an temporary injunction against the Trump White House, ordering that access to the White House grounds be restored to CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, after it had been revoked earlier in the week. As you can see from the graphic, CNN was still barred from witnessing Chinese president Xi Jinping's arrival at the state dinner held in his honor.
What I'm about to write is nothing new to any regular reader of this site. The media hounded President Joe Biden and his administration for four years. It picked at every possible thing. The criticism went into overdrive when Pres. Biden pulled out of Afghanistan and took away the media's lovely war. From that point on, mainstream outlets did everything they could to tear down and destroy the Biden presidency.
Part of this is because the administration didn't leak. It wasn't a constant churn of chaos like Donald Trump's first go-round. Aides weren't leaking salacious stories. Star reporters weren't getting book deals. Journalists were forced to work; the problem is, they had been so accustomed to four years of manna from heaven under Trump that they had forgotten how to do journalism. Do not get in between Maggie Haberman and a publishing deal.
When Trump was ushered back into office, you heard a song of jubilation from the media. "We're back," and such other drivel. Drama returned. Journalists could again pretend to be tribunes of the public. Book deals immediately began to flow, and copy generated by the ream. Media thought that the public, out of necessity, would return to it in droves, needing their media betters to explain the troubled times they themselves had helped create.
Imagine their surprise when their viewership and readership kept declining. We did not, in fact, flock back to them, desperate for their "analysis". YouTube blossomed with alternative sources of reportage, like Meidas Touch. Fired reporters like Katie Phang set up shop on their own, and did better journalism then their mainstream peers. The television and print landscape continued to splinter, and consumers were not forced to consume the product which cable news networks were providing. We didn't actually need them. The media bet that we would turn back to them; it is a bet which they have lost spectacularly, with the consequences being reduced staff and revenue.
On my TV, none of my programmed favorite channels are news channels, except for C-SPAN; and even then I only watch it on the weekends when they have all sorts of interesting programming from author talks and book fairs. You might find this unbelievable from a man who runs a political website, but I don't obsess over the news. The first news app I usually open in the morning is BBC Sport, not BBC News. I haven't watched election night coverage since Barack Obama's first triumph, and most likely never will again. I dropped watching the then-MSNBC when its on-air "talent" made it their mission to sink Pres. Obama's Affordable Care Act. And I'm as well-informed, if not more so, than people who still watch cable or broadcast news.
The media needs to reflect deeply on why liberals, their natural audience, feel alienated from them. They need to own up to their roles in our current morass. And the Paramount / Warner Bros. merger will only exacerbate this decline. When there are thousands of YouTube channels like this one doing far better analysis than the talking heads on CNN or Sky News, why would anyone tune in to them?
Of course, the rub is that the Big Boys still have the resources that a YouTuber doesn't, and those YouTubers rely on that reporting. But they take that reporting only as the beginning. And they dispense with the notion that you have to give apologists for the regime equal airtime. The press has a special place in our constitution. Its role should be, paramount, to protect and defend democracy. Instead, they are glad-handers and pettifogging careerists. I well remember former New York Times editor Dean Bacquet declaring at the beginging of Trump 1.0 that his paper would "not be part of The Resistance". Which is fine. Reporting should be done without fear or favor. But the media instead entered into a sordid relationship with the Trump White House, and not only was it not "the resistance", but was oftentimes nothing but a clearinghouse for press releases. They were called "stenographers" for a very good reason.
Democracy needs a vibrant press. Look at places like Russia to see what happens when it doesn't exist. If Democrats gain both houses of Congress in November, and if they hold onto those gains and win the presidency in 2028, near the top of the agenda must be a wholesale re-examination of media ownership laws, and the breaking up of conglomerates like Sinclair Broadcasting. Media mergers must be undone. And the social media space has to be regulated so that the companies running them are held accountable for disinformation promulgated on their sites. This won't fix everything—robust civics education must be required in every high school. But it will be a start to repair all the damage done over the past five and more decades.