THE MAINSTREAM (AND NOT-SO-MAINSTREAM) MEDIA COULD BE DOING MORE — LOTS MORE — TO SAVE DEMOCRACY. HERE ARE SOME IDEAS AND MUSINGS…
’Tis the time of year for “year-end reflections.” Things we did, didn’t do or could have done if we weren’t so busy doing things that we didn’t have to do but thought we had to do because we thought other people were doing them so we had a FOMO, ya know?
But I digress.
I’d like to focus the limelight on our vaunted Fourth Estate. Many of the year-end newsletters I am currently mulling…sifting…wading…no, mucking through are extolling their successes and “breakthroughs” this past year (besides maintaining their endless drumbeat of funds solicitations). Many, including The New Yorker, are calling 2023 — I’m paraphrasing here — “the year we finally got real about Trump, the Republican Party and MAGA.”
Really? I’ve been “real” about Trump since I first laid eyes on the bollocks doppelgänger forty-seven-plus years ago during the New York City Bicentennial Celebration of 1976 (long story). ANYONE who can even unartfully reason and think critically knows who and what Trump is and represents. For the media to post articles and “ruminations” what they missed or didn’t “get right” about Trump and the rise of MAGA at the expense of the former GOP is not only egotistical and self-serving, it’s revealing in demonstrating how low, puerile and inane the media — writ large — has gotten.
It’s an assault on not only common sense, but our collective sensibilities and intelligence. I’m weary of being talked down to, as if, “Hey, we’ve got to give everyone a chance to redeem themselves, even Trump! (or Jim Jordan) (or Matt Gaetz) (or Fox News) (or…or…or…)
Spare me.
OK, then. You NOW have gotten the message. Nearly three years since January 6, 2020. Nearly eight years since January 20, 2016. And nearly thirteen years since DJT’s “birtherism” debacle. All of which you dutifully covered as if it were real news, important news, “equal time to all voices” news.
So, I’m supposed to reward you now with my undivided attention?
Not so fast.
You’ve got to do some other things first; let me illuminate and elucidate by providing some ideas:
Yeah, I know there aren’t any Cronkites, Murrows, Brinkleys or “next-gen” Woodwards and Bernsteins out there. If there were, I think at least one or two would have come to the fore. In the event I’m wrong (it wouldn’t be the first time) and if there are a few hiding in the bushes, it would probably be because now the totally corporatized media have stymied or stifled them. Kept them in their place, so to speak.
So, all you media types — publishers, editors, anchors, journalists, copywriters, and whatever-you-call-yourselves now — have you considered…
· I love ya ProPublica — we need more of you, and your ilk. Be that as it may, Until such time as the MSM gets “religion,” how about the rest of you non-ProPublica-types cogitate over bucking the trend or the “conventional wisdom” or the “prevailing opinions/ethos” of staying in your respective lanes and busting out all Woodward-y and Bernstein-y and glom onto these MAGA m*therf*****s like a remora with mommy issues? Where’s Julie Brown when you REALLY need her?
· Does the concept of “yellow journalism” ring a bell? The original brand? No, I wasn’t around either, but y’all know about those heady days of all the competing papers back in the late 1800’s where the likes of Pulitzer and Hearst were fighting for the eyeballs and minds of unsuspecting consumers, no? WELL, YOU’RE KINDA DOING IT AGAIN! Your collective sensationalism and hair-on-fire narratives, takes, spins and “angles” on the same things day after day after bloody day is doing NOTHING to stanch the stench of Trump and his spawn. Try to understand that your collective purpose is to inform, not enrage the “choir” you’re preaching to. Maybe, just maybe for once just forget about the algos and the SEO’s and the Google AdWords thingies and go back to just informing us.
· Perhaps banding together on an ad hoc basis to fight this ever-burgeoning menace of authoritarianism, misrepresentativeism, white nationalism, billionaire bullshitism and all other forms of anti-democratism? Take out some full-page ads and/or buy some prime-time TV slots — all of you, TOGETHER. Put down your Bloomberg Terminals for a minute, stop looking at your respective share prices, and goddammit, fight for the common good! OUR common good!
· There are a lot of good journalism-related advocacy organizations out there fighting for us. Good. I love you all. I support many of you financially as best I can. But you’re invisible to the average news consumer. For many reasons (most of which are not your fault) you’re not appealing to the MAGA consumer. Maybe there is a way to get these former humans back from their zombie-like state but, until that day comes, you advocacy types have got to find ways to wheedle your way into their dark world of conspiracy theories, lies, fake news and perversion. Maybe you get out into the public sphere at the local level and invite the public to join in, rather than just inviting us to donate money?
· Knowing that you are in the world of the “24-hour news cycle, stay on a story until fruition. The ubiquitous “Morning Joe rant” shouldn’t be your angle the next day. Your “angle” the next day should be to keep digging until you get to the head of the snake. You see, I don’t care that Roger Stone can’t pay his bills or that Rudy Giuliani declared BK faster than one of Trump’s rapey escapades. Yeah, those things are news, but they’re not headlines. And we need more headlines than, “Jack Smith is Uncomfortable About…” (Yeah, you wrote that).
· Stop writing books with the “behind the scenes” and “insider information” you’ve artfully hoarded away from telling us instead of informing us in real time as this data and information originally became known to you. I’m NOT going to buy your book of “revelations” that could and should have been your bylines twelve or eighteen months previously…you know, like when you actually incorporated your nascent journalistic skills for a scoop?
When you think about it, especially the democratic ideal of equality and representation, then your corporate-minded, make-money-at-all-costs business models don’t really fit into that concept, do they? All your competitive juices are going into who’s gonna be first, and who’s gonna be the most consumed. THAT’S where (and when) you lost us.
Hell, I know the days of eagerly opening up the newspaper which was thrown onto our front porches are long gone. I know that Look, Life and The Saturday Evening Post magazines are far and away in the rearview mirror <sigh>, but you can bring back the joy, the anticipation, the heady feeling of providing an unique service to us…the collective public…rather than prostituting yourselves tabloid-ingly for a few extra clicks.
Hey, remember US? The ones you email constantly for funds, respect and support? Start doing something to earn it.
