One of the first mistakes by the media...

[thucythucy]

11. Like institutional racism, there is so much else in our society that favors affluent white men.

Everyone who was anyone in publishing knew Trump didn't write The Art of the Deal--it was ghost written from first to last page. It's widely known now the man is practically illiterate. So his initial fame as a "best selling author" was entirely bogus.

Similarly, "The Apprentice" was a con from beginning to end. Scripted and heavily edited to give the appearance that Trump was some kind of business genius, everyone involved in that show had to know Trump's image was phony.

It goes on from there. The "media"--that portion of networks and corporate owned press--let so much pass from the get-go that would have disqualified any woman candidate, any person of color, and no doubt any progressive. Howard Dean's candidacy was ended because of one three second outburst into a microphone. John Kerry--a decorated war veteran--was skewered for "I was for it before I was against it" while Trump was able to get away with dozens of "flip flops" that would have doomed any Democrat.

You would think those in the media would have caught on when he started labelling them "the enemy of the people." I'd like to think that in a former time this would have prompted at the very least a full-court critical press, and perhaps even a boycott of Trump pressers (particularly since his "press conferences" were little more than self-aggrandizing campaign events).

The media consolidation that began in the Reagan era, together with changes in the marketplace (especially the internet) have gutted most independent media. Those outlets that remain--The NY Times, the Washington Post, the NY Daily News--have to compete with less and less resources for a dwindling population of functionally literate consumers. In addition, the end of the Fairness Doctrine (again under Reagan) has led to the proliferation of hate radio--possibly the single most dangerous development in our media landscape.

The days when a network like CBS would stand behind a Dan Rather or a Walter Cronkite as they took on LBJ and Nixon, or the New York Times would stand behind a David Halberstam, let alone a William Shirer or Edward Morrow, are long gone.

Those days won't come back until we wrest control of the mainstream media or some major portion of it from the control of the uber-wealthy.

A return to the tax policies of Eisenhower/JFK would be a start. The fewer billions sloshing around in the pockets of people like the Murdochs the less capital they have to continue to buy up what still passes for independent media.

Otherwise we're going to be stuck in this reality indefinitely.