Can the Mainstream Media Survive in Donald Trump’s America
The New York Times on December 21, 2019 (Photo by Lynn Woolley for WBDaily)
I’d been thinking about this very subject when I received an email from a professor of journalism at Marquette University inviting me to participate in a study on “news literacy.” The study was designed to learn about knowledge and skills used in the creation of news stories.
I wrote back and politely declined.
I think the problem with so-called journalists is not literacy, but bias. My short note to the professor ended up being an essay on what’s wrong with media outlets such as CNN, the three major networks, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Texas Tribune and Pro Publica.
You don’t need a major study to see that these sources have a far-left bias. The big question: can they heal themselves and survive with Trump in the Oval Office?
AUDIO: Random Samplings of a Logical Mind
What follows is my letter, verbatim, to the professor:
If I participate [in the study], I’d want to know more about how the results will be used. Is there a conclusion that’s looking for support data? Or is this a serious effort to establish the competency of “journalists” (which, admittedly is far below where it ought to be).
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Journalism has not been reliable for some time — due, in my mind, to the ideology that is taught in J-school. The Associated Press, for example, has become a left-wing propaganda outfit that I haven’t trusted in years. The Texas Tribune and ProPublica are both far left outlets that pretend to be journalistic; they are anything but.
I depend more on opinion writers than I do “journalists.”
CNN is tainted. MSNBC is a fading joke that may not survive. The three network evening newscasts are fine covering fires, but not reliable on much else. David Muir’s incompetent handling of the presidential debate has stained his career as an objective journalist. FOX News has a dividing line between its opinion hosts and its reporters. CNN has no such line. PBS ought to be defunded for dereliction of duty with public funds.
News Nation is, so far, a breath of fresh air. The Epoch Times news section is mostly dependable. The New York Times and Washington Post are part of the DNC.
Examples:
- January 6 was bad, a riot, but hardly an insurrection.
- The Russian Collusion hoax was a major embarrassment to most MSM, but so far, no apologies.
- Suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation was journalistic malpractice.
- The Mainstream media also hid the decline of Joe Biden from the people.
I would have similar criticisms of right-wing media, if there were any right-wing media.
There’s not, and so I do talk radio where I can set the record straight, at least to my audience in Austin. When I provide facts, they are facts. When I provide my opinion, the audience is aware. I critique both parties on an equal basis, though my own leanings are to the right.
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For example, Democrats tax-and-spend, but Republicans are far more likely to bring costly earmarks back to their districts. Both parties are disgusting when it comes to the spending addiction. My columns at WBDaily.com reflect that, unambiguously.
And God knows that few journalists know the proper way to write a news story: the meat in the opening line, the supporting data to follow in a logical way, with attribution and sources as necessary, and without over-dramatizing with a “short story” based on some unfortunate person’s experience. When newspapers do that, I yell out loud: “Just the facts!”
I suspect they are taught in J-school to inject lots of opinion (Donald Trump falsely claimed...), crusade for some left-wing form of justice, and use a short story about some illegal immigrant weeping in order to jack up the emotion.
Donald Trump makes false claims just as Joe Biden does.
Perhaps a balanced set of quotes from either side of the aisle would be preferable to flatly stating in print that Trump made false claims. That keeps the journalist from having egg on the face if/when Trump is proven right.
FISA courts, government spying on him, the Laptop from Hell — the media got all those wrong. And don’t try to tell me the 2020 election was perfectly fine. The Democrats used the pandemic to change the rules. As bad at the Capitol Breach was, the patriots there had a point. The thugs did not, and I have stated that Trump ought to have pardoned selectively.
I was cancelled some time back as an opinion writer for the Dallas Morning News. They bought hundreds of my columns, but then the paper cut back and turned leftward. They had no more use for commonsense ideas, well written, and well argued. They wanted to save the $200 per column that I made. The University of Texas is my alma mater and yet I have never been invited to lecture a journalism class, even though I can take a few airborne tomatoes. Curious, no?
And that’s the letter. Now, a few final thoughts:
If that sounded like a rant, it was so intended. Journalism is beyond sick. It’s dead. Something will have to change with Trump in the White House again, or traditional news powerhouses like CNN will start to die off. Already CNN has instituted more layoffs. MSNBC is being spun off from NBC News. Social media is where most people get their news. That’s right, from influencers and from memes.
It didn’t have to be this way. Right or wrong, Americans trusted Walter Cronkite. They trusted Huntley and Brinkley, Paul Harvey, and our major metropolitan newspapers. If you read it in the paper, it must be true!
But they blew that, and it was largely due to Trump Derangement Syndrome. Schools of journalism turned out left-wing crusaders instead of fact-based reporters. Somehow “journalism” became the word for using a news story to make a point, to achieve a political end. Reporting was no longer enough.
RELATED: ABC’s Jonathan Karl is only the latest Journalist to shill for Democrats
And so, as facts began to mingle with opinion, and as far-left journalists looked at the new reality in 2016 when Trump was first elected, they banded together to destroy him. They pushed the Russian Collusion narrative and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story and so on. They might have beaten Trump had they stayed with facts. They didn’t, and the rest is history.
Now we wait to see how many of them make it through the next four years.
The three fiction books by Lynn Woolley
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley.
Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
These books are nothing like the Mainstream Media!
