Over the years, I've tried to understand the mindset that led Movement Cons to regard the corporate news in this country as liberal. After being exposed to Faux News, I could see on an intellectual level that if they perceived this as "fair and balanced," no wonder the mainstream media looked like liberal apologia to them. But it's only been in the last few months that I really understand, on a gut, emotional level, what they have felt for all these years.
More after the jump...
I have been something of a news junkie ever since I got my first desk job in 1996. I would listen to NPR religiously every morning and every evening on my commute. I would read both the mainstream and the activist media online. I consider it my civic duty to be an informed citizen so I can be fully engaged, and I have genuinely enjoyed listening to and reading about the political and economic events which shape our lives in this nation, and the world.
But I can't do it any more. Since the 2004 election, I can't listen to the mainstream media any more. It's simply too depressing. After 9/11, I had a PTSD-related need to avoid the news, but I'd gotten better. This is entirely different. It's not a panicked fear that I feel, it's outrage. And not just at the criminals and fools who are running our country, but also at the tools and fools in the media who won't or can't call a spade a spade.
We have reached a terrible point in our history where simply reporting the pronouncements of our government officials without illustrating their deceit is tantamount to complicity in their deciet; where "balance" and "truth" bear little resemblance to each other; where the only honest journalism is muckraking journalism.
Whenever I hear a dispassionate report about the latest public statements from this administration, I have to restrain myself from yelling at the radio "How can you just repeat their lies without pointing out the facts?! When one side is lying, and the other side isn't, you are covering for the liar when you don't report the facts! Balance is not fact, when the facts are not balanced! You asshole!"
So now I have found that I get all my news and analysis from DailyKos.com and the Daily Show and Air America's internet stream and EmphasisAdded.com and Salon.com. And that's when I realize that I have reached a strange kinship with the wingnuts. We both understand that simply reporting the "he said, she said" of the political discourse, without pointing out why one is objectively right and the other is objectively wrong, is -- paradoxically -- biased.
So ditto-heads, I feel your pain. Ich bin ein wingnut. I and my kind have been radicalized. And now that are, we're becoming motivated and organized the same way you were. It's not just a political bent, it's a life. So I hope you've enjoyed your moment in the sun, because we're gonna make sure it's over real soon.