The American media has been pathetic for at least a generation now, but the cable news revolution has completely destroyed any semblance of credibility that they may have had left.
In ways big and small, these despicable peddlers of drivel and dreck have actively worked to divide Americans, to inflame their worst passions, and to add nothing but vitriol, bitterness and anger to our civic discourse.
There are numerous examples of the television news media in this country working actively to divide people along race, class, social, and—most egregiously—political lines. The most obvious way that they have done this may, at first glance, seem like basic fairness, but given a bit more consideration, it can clearly be seen as naked irresponsibility. On cable news, the dominant segment in modern times has been the panel discussion. We, your benevolent information peddlers, invite two or more individuals with opposing views to come on air and hash out their difference; except rarely do they have anything to say to each other that could possibly penetrate the other side’s bubble and often they resort to yelling like children. These panels often feature people who’s voices, in a truly great society, would be forever consigned to the margins—people who should never be taken seriously because they serve simply to heighten tension and ratchet up hate for their own aggrandizement. The media doesn’t care that these panel discussion bring a lot of heat but almost no light. They only care that it makes them money. They don’t care that these self-indulgent shouting matches simply highlight and encourage discourteousness and all its concomitant maladies. They only care that the “little” people seem to enjoy them.
Of course, we are all familiar with the rampant false equivalencies that proliferate in the 21st century media environment. Chuck Todd, a college dropout who likely would never have risen to near the apex of NBC news if he were of any other race (another favorite pastime of the American news media is reveling in white privilege), once famously said that it was not the media’s “job” to call out Republican lies. What Chuck did not give voice to, but what his entire professional existence bespeaks, is the idea that “balance” in the modern media is more important than truth (to all but Fox News). Therefore, “both sides do it” is the constant refrain of a media too bewildered by reality to actually report on or clarify it.
The media, in perhaps the final, twisted apotheosis of an egregious twenty-year march to the dark side since the rise of Fox News, has propped up the candidacy of Donald Trump since the beginning. A candidate who did not have the financial backing to run ads throughout the primaries didn’t need to, because a political press more concerned with entertainment than with their role as a Constitutionally acknowledged check against tyranny did not care to ask hard questions of this clownish, ignorant, incoherent buffoon. Instead, they ran clips of his ranting and raving and smugly chuckled as he said one vile and disgusting thing after another. They never asked him to answer for the racism that fueled his calls for the duly elected President’s birth certificate and college transcripts. They barely scoffed when he degraded the heroism of John McCain, a man with whom it is easy to disagree, but who nevertheless endured horror with courage on behalf of his misguided country.
Today, Donald Trump, despite the bullshit put out by his campaign, and the excuses offered by the putrid denizens of his shitty little political party, called for violence against the opposing nominee. The press owns this as much as Trump, the Republican Party, and the wretches of common morons who support this childish, megalomaniacal madman.
