Steve McCann – The conjoined Democratic Party and mainstream media’s despicable character assassination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh combined with the two-year single-minded determination to destroy the Trump presidency by any means possible has irretrievably awakened a preponderance of the citizenry. In a recent poll, 70% of all Americans and 90% of Republicans have lost faith in the self-styled mainstream media. They are imploding due to the self-inflicted destruction of their credibility and integrity, which has exposed the fraud this cabal has carried out over the past 85 years. The damage done to this nation and its citizenry is incalculable.
There have many frauds perpetrated on the American people. Perhaps the most notable, and consequential, was the media persuading an overwhelming majority of citizens that journalism is not only a noble profession, but one that always strived to be fair and balanced. Journalism, in this or any nation, has never been fair and balanced. Nor has it been afforded the exalted status of a profession, as the definition of a profession is an occupation that involves prolonged training and formal qualifications. Journalism encompasses neither.
Prior to the 1930s, there was no pretext of fairness, as the reporters of the day worked for newspapers that openly and unabashedly advocated for a political party or an ideology while reporting minimal national news via telegraph and wire services (after 1848).
Newspapers were the primary and sole source of news for 150 years after the nation’s founding. In 1926, the first national radio network was established, known as NBC, or the National Broadcasting Company. By 1934, two additional networks had begun airing news and entertainment to an ever growing national audience.
Thus, the citizenry began to increasingly rely on the news as aired on radio. In 1925, less than 19% of all homes had a radio; by 1941, that number had increased to 75%. This growth prompted the passage of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), thus placing de facto control of the electronic media under the federal government and greatly limiting competition. Three networks essentially had a national monopoly on the dissemination of news broadcast over the airwaves in the 1930s and ’40s.
It was then when the issue of fair and balanced reporting began to be bandied about and the so-called journalists in the broadcast media found it necessary to initiate the mantra that their “profession” was the epitome of credibility and integrity. All the while, nearly all, together with their cohorts in the print media, were unabashedly and stealthily promoting Franklin Roosevelt and the bulk of his big-government policies – marking the beginning of the cozy relationship between the media and the Democratic Party that exists to this day.
By the late 1950s, television assumed the role of being the dominant source of news for Americans. In 1960, nearly 90% of all homes had at least one television. However, the same three networks that controlled news on the radio also monopolized the dissemination of news on television. As an unintended consequence of this market hegemony and the near instantaneous and graphic nature of news reporting on television, newspapers began an inexorable and precipitous decline – thus relegating the major-market, and more liberal, papers to essentially being an arms-length partner and the investigative arm of the electronic media.
Many television reporters and anchors assumed celebrity status, as they were in the homes of Americans on a daily basis. As such, their credibility was rarely if ever questioned. The term “mainstream media” began to be used by the television networks and their allies in the print media to further enhance their image of impartiality and believability.
While there were a few news anchors and reporters who tried to be impartial, the majority were not. Walter Cronkite was portrayed and feted as “The Most Trusted Man in America.” Yet he almost single-handedly, along with his cadre of reporters, convinced the populace that a significant victory by the American Army in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive, was an overwhelming defeat and embarrassment, thus denigrating the valor of the soldiers and turning public opinion against them. Across the spectrum, his reporting, abetted by what stories the network chose not to cover, skewed significantly toward the Democrats and liberalism. This approach to presenting the news was essentially the same on all three networks and replicated by their collaborators in the print media.
On a national basis, the American people, unable to receive any alternative broadcast media until the mid-1990s, were gulled into believing that journalism and the media did indeed strive to be fair and balanced. This was an ideal scenario to dramatically assist the left in the indoctrination of the citizenry into slowly but surely accepting liberal orthodoxy – a tactic that has, for the most part, succeeded.
Despite the proliferation of talk radio, Fox News, and the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s, the mindset of unquestioningly accepting the image the mainstream media promoted still prevailed among far too many, allowing the denizens of the dominant media continued believability and access to virtually every American home.
Therefore, the preponderance of the current generation of so-called mainstream journalists, more ill educated and steeped in left-wing ideology than their predecessors, had a platform to unabashedly promote leftist social and economic policies. Also, unlike their predecessors, they no longer attempted to hide or obfuscate their agenda or bias, as the goal of transforming America was within reach – until the election of 2016, a catastrophic event that precipitated a renewed determination by the American left to obliterate conservative and Republican opposition by any means possible. The mainstream media would be the spear-carriers in that effort.
In their anger and retaliation, far too many mainstream reporters, editors, anchors, and columnists exhibit an inability to generate an original thought or comprehend basic concepts, hence fabrications, innuendo, and “fake news” are the hallmark of the mainstream media today. Further, they are much more impatient than those who preceded them – thus, the herd mentality in the despicable reporting on Judge Kavanaugh, the distorted coverage of Donald Trump, and the determination to foment tribalism and resentment.
These overt actions are why Americans, as polling reveals, have become increasingly suspicious of the mainstream media and are searching for alternative sources of news. The current state of anxiety and bitterness throughout the nation can be laid primarily at the feet of the media as they took advantage of their monopoly of the electronic platform available to them to promote and give cover to the left while proactively and falsely declaring their objectivity and integrity – thus perpetrating the greatest fraud in American history.
SF Source The American Thinker Oct 2018