In the face of a propaganda assault upon America, the press and the media have failed.

[kentuck]

"Fair and balanced" really had no place when the assault began. They had a duty to tell the truth to the American people and to throw cold water on the attack upon the truth. They failed to take it serious enough. They failed to see the danger in it. There really was no "two sides to the story". By giving air time to the tweets and the lies, they were complicit with the propagandists.

We have finally arrived at our destination. There is talk of "martial law" and "rigged elections". The new President is not legitimate. They cheated. And so forth...

The media never gave the Republicans the responsibility and the blame they deserved. It was always, "the other side says" type of reporting. There is no other side when all they have is "alternative facts" and lies.

Our free press has failed us.

[Mr. Ected]

1. As long as the press is for-profit, it can never really be free

The truth is hidden behind dollar signs far too often.

[kentuck]

2. Yep.

Money for information.

[overleft]

28. First of all, know that the msm is owned by the same corporate capitolists that support right wing

causes. They are driven by three factors: profit, selling sensationalism. and their paid for agendas.

[olegramps]

30. The major networks and press have totally failed the citizens by not challenging the outright lies.

Their silence and timid response at best has provided the propagandist tacit approval for vicious lies day and after day 24/7.

[Atticus]

3. I know that and you know that because we choose to THINK for ourselves instead of

allowing others to fill our heads with their version of reality.

Sadly, millions seem to lack the spine to say "Hey, wait a minute---that's nonsense!" when told up is down and wrong is right.

[kentuck]

4. They know it but...

..they have to be reminded. That is where the media has failed. Otherwise, the truth remains buried in their subconscious, in my opinion.

[superpatriotman]

5. So have most of the political class

Including our side.

[The Wizard]

6. There was an incessant

attack on the "librul" media that started with Reagan. They successfully vilified liberals as enemies. Pox News legitimized Repubic propaganda. When they say they're "fair and balanced" they're saying all other news sources are lying. This is the language of a cult, and the Repubic Party as it is now constituted is a cult, a suicidal, violent death cult headed by a toxic sociopath.
By giving equal time to verified news and propaganda they have abdicated their journalistic responsibilities in favor of ratings. Pox and Rash Limbaugh have turned the political landscape into a poisonous mix of facts and alternative facts that only serves the propagandists of the bribing class.

[kentuck]

8. True.

FOX News pushed the "fake news" narrative incessantly.

[Hortensis]

7. Above all, many people have failed themselves. No blaming others

for our own dishonest and incompetent choices of what we expose ourselves to. On any day, there's far more good information out there than any of us could possibly take in.

And we've all received 12 years of universally mandatory education that taught us to read, attempted to teach us to look for truth and read critically, and is intended to prepare us for the responsibilities of citizenship.

It should not be news to anyone that media are owned by people with their own agendas, some very honorable, others extremely inimical to their intended victims' interests. They all respond to what we show we want from them. Responsibility for that starts and ends with us.

Right here on this forum are many who habitually marinate their brains in strongly biased and fact-loose sources and then bring deceits they find particularly pleasing here. Forum rules require us to give preferences for dishonest information a pass and only blame the sources, but responsibility remains with those who chose them.

[kentuck]

9. You are right, Hortensis.

"Responsibility starts with us."

"We" are really not that different from "them".

We tell ourselves, "I am only one person. What can I do?"

[Hortensis]

13. And you. If more people commit to making serious

choices in this time of great peril and national emergency, it'll change everything. Those who want liberal democracy that serves all the people are already a solid majority, we just have to act like we do.

We can't do anything about those who refuse to admit that their votes and failures to vote have consequences and don't connect their own choices to those consequences.

But we can get more serious about our own and up our act. For the foreseeable future, either dangerously corrupt and authoritarian Republican conservatives or Democrats will be elected to power. If it's not a Democrat, it WILL be a Republican. We just lost 13 house seats to Republicans due solely to successful manipulations by hostile RW and LW media and activists OF voters' own casual stupidity.

[uponit7771]

10. K&R, they think letters in front of someone's name is more important than Red Don's Coup Of Stupids

[kentuck]

11. I am beginning to think that it is not just a cult of Trump.

It is a cult of Republicanism. They value the "R" label more than they value life, it seems?

[uponit7771]

12. +1, and we'll see a crap ton of republicans flock back to doing Trump light as soon as then can

[JHB]

17. That's precisely what it is, and it has been deliberately cultivated since the 70s

It's been around longer, of course, but the 70s is when Movement Conservatives started harnessing it to get the numbers to push their pet agenda. Trump is the culmination of everything they have been fostering over the last near-50 years, and the he'll east won't go back in its pen of its own volition.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Nailed it. . . . nt

[malaise]

15. The media speaks for their billionaire owners

Most are supporters of Kila Con.

[beachbumbob]

16. ??? You are under the illusion that todays press and media give a fuck

[theaocp]

18. The pursuit for access has made them lapdogs.

The press needs to take pride in NOT having access. Call out those who WON'T come on their shows as the snowflakes they are. Don't worry, though. Donor class won't let that happen. Oh, no.

[Magoo48]

19. The media is corporate owned, regulated, and censored.

An investigative reporter can’t succeed even if so inclined.
Independent media, like Democracy Now, is nearly extinct. Since fewer and fewer people have ever experienced free press, it isn’t missed.

[llashram]

20. miserably

[Kaleva]

21. It's a myth that MSM has a duty to tell the truth. It's our duty as citizens to search for the truth

[Turin_C3PO]

22. It's not that they have a legal duty

to tell the truth but in my opinion they do have an ethical duty to do so. If no major news sources are telling the truth, reporting facts, and engaging in honest investigation then we’re doomed to live in a world ruled by propaganda. The sad fact is that most people won’t go out of their way to seek the truth. It needs to be easily accessible and available.

[Maeve]

23. Democracy dies in darkness

Truth is light

[kairos12]

24. You couldn't find a mention of the martial law comments in the

NYT or WP. Yesterday. They are a disgrace.

Bothsiderism rules.

Even I they had mentioned it, they would have brought up Hillary's emails.

[badboy67]

25. MSM is a bad faith actor.

[bucolic_frolic]

26. Agree, press has become mere mouthpiece with a GOP filter

News is bought and paid for. I think this began when Jesse Helms threatened to take over CBS. Any instances of independent journalism crank up the opposition noise. Journalism becomes the enemy and they hunker down to survive.

[dalton99a]

27. Today's example:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/trump-pressure-campaign-overturn-election-449486
Inside Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election
No president has ever made such expansive and individualized pleas.
By ANITA KUMAR and GABBY ORR
12/21/2020 04:30 AM EST

It started with a phone call.

In mid-November, President Donald Trump rang Monica Palmer, the Republican chair of an obscure board in Michigan that had just declared Joe Biden winner of the state’s most populous county.

Within 24 hours, Palmer announced she wanted to “rescind” her vote. Her reasoning mirrored Trump’s public and private rants: The Nov. 3 election may have been rife with fraud.

... ...

“I hope both parties don’t learn, ‘Oh, this is how to do it,’” said presidential historian Gil Troy. “I hope both parties say, ‘Woah, we've been playing with fire. This is getting increasingly volatile. We have responsibilities as Americans citizens, let alone American leaders, to start lowering the temperature.’”

[hay rick]

29. Free means unconstrained, not duty-bound.

The free press is free to self-censor based on eyeballs and advertisers and they do. As important as what is reported and how it is reported it what is not reported. Our media is driven by consumers and those who would manipulate them for their own purposes, not by citizens and political leaders who seek to earn their trust and serve the greater good.

[BannonsLiver]

31. LOL

Oh boy.

[NoRoadUntravelled]

32. The failure of the press to do their job is the perfect example of Capitalism gone awry.

They continued to let propaganda and lies go unchallenged for the ratings they garnered. They played a significant role in the near take-down of Democracy by putting ratings before country.

Then there are the news stations that perpetrated the lies in the first place. Fox News' purpose was to denigrate any Democratic administration. There are newer versions of this in OAN and others. Why is it legal for entities that call themselves "news" stations to propagandize as they do?

[Ligyron]

33. The corporate media's purpose and mandate is to make money.

Their entertainment offerings largely reflect a liberal culture which is a significant majority of our population else no one would watch these shows and ratings, what they can charge for advertising and therefore profits ... would nosedive.

Yet oddly enough, most of the "news" they offer does not reflect or support the majority's worldview. It's not hard to see what's up with that.

[cry baby]

34. That's right. They've left the truth to be told by "history" and historians. nt

[mtnsnake]

35. The media seems to love planting ideas into Trump's head

Trump never knew what martial law meant until the media planted that phrase into his head after someone suggested the military rerun the election. Now all we're hearing on the news is martial law this, martial law that.

[NoMoreRepugs]

36. Well summarized Kentuck - "The free press has failed us."

[PatrickforO]

37. I have been saying for many years on here that we need a new Fairness Doctrine, but one

better fitted for this century than the one Reagan vetoed in 1987. To my mind, one of the biggest problems is the 'news' is beholden to ratings, i.e. profits for shareholders, instead of being sacrosanct - above all need for ratings or profits.

We have to take the profit motive out of the news.


And, you know, I honestly don't care if the articles were longer, more detailed either. This idea that we are all morons who cannot think past a couple of bullet points is not true.

Taking the profit motive out of some things is a GOOD idea:

- political campaigns
- healthcare
- prisons
- national parks and wilderness

[CrispyQ]

38. The media is only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own it. bumper sticker

This is why our side needs a marketing department. I just don't get why the party doesn't think messaging is crucial. The right has more successfully defined our side than we have.

[CaptainTruth]

39. To me their biggest failure was during the GW Bush administration.

Not reporting on who the PNAC was, what they wanted to do ("transform the Middle East" by military force), how they pushed to invade Iraq years before Bush become president (even writing 2 letters to President Clinton trying to convince him to invade), then filled Bush's administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton etc) & pushed ahead with their plan.

It was all there in writing yet the MSM ignored all if it.

To this day 99% of people don't know that Space Force was a PNAC goal. In 2000 they wrote that one of their "key positions" was:

"Control the new 'international commons' of space and 'cyberspace,' and pave the way for the creation of a new military service--U.S. Space Forces--with the mission of space control."

Bolton helped write that in 2000. Trump hired Bolton. Soon after Bolton started working for Trump, Trump miraculously had the idea for Space Force. Connect the dots, the media never did.