Not often are we presented with a perfectly binary option to issues in the political realm. The question of Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity is an exception to that notion. In the runup to the election (and even well before), the majority of Americans had observed that the man’s mental health was in decline; the overwhelming majority of journalists in the legacy media claimed that it was not. The matter is no longer disputed; so, the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question is obvious:
Were legacy media journalists covering up the truth and therefore malicious propagandists, or were they simply unable to detect the truth, making them incompetent dolts?
When thinking of our institutional journalists I’m put in mind of the Wizard at the end of the Wizard of Oz. He’s been unveiled as a fraud and now’s he’s floating away in a balloon; untethered and unable to control the device, he shouts to the crowd “I can’t come back; I don’t know how it works!” Well, at least the Wizard had a unique charm, as well as the character to own his mendacity, traits that no one is assigning to the reporters, editors, and publishers that together are the puzzled and puzzling members of our legacy media.
“Puzzled” because they can’t understand why a majority of people have lost faith in them; “puzzling” because the reason is so obvious.
Norah O’Donnell, Andrea Mitchell, Bob Acosta, Joy Reid, Lester Holt, Don Lemon, Ruth Marcus, Mehdi Hasan, Chris Wallace, have all quit or been fired from their jobs. (There are a host of others, but a finite life span demands brevity and the list continues to grow.) The fact is, their employers no longer wanted them, and the imperative context is the boss doesn’t let someone go who is doing a great job and making the company money, full stop.
These “journalists” captained shows or wrote for newspapers that bled viewers and readers and therefore money because they were reflexive and predictable in their jobs. Name any political issue and all viewers, listeners, or readers of those mentioned, even those who are like-minded, however unconsciously, knew, within parameters, what the “take” would be. Those parameters would be: macro, that which will reflect badly on America; and micro, that which will reflect badly on Republicans. And within those parameters exists what I’ll label a floor: Ignore everything unfavorable to Democrats. Because the template never varied, the flaw is obvious: When you can only look left, you miss what’s on the right.
This flaw has existed but has been disguised for decades; however, now, due to alternative media, Donald Trump, and a febrile and reckless Trump Derangement Syndrome, the disguise has been ripped away, exposing a distorted and malignant image, one bent on reflecting to the world its own mephitic center. Examples of the flaw abound, however the determination to deny it by those affected and accused in this particular instance has led to the explosion of a cottage industry of defense and excuse, flourishing like mushrooms sprouting through cow paddies after a spring rain.
books written, and denials issued to explain what happened and why. In unison, mainstream journalists have determined with solemn passion that they were incompetent dolts; “incompetent” because they missed the story; “dolts” because they allowed themselves to be duped and conned by Biden’s handlers and the Democratic Party.
However, why should the rest of us assume that self-admitted incompetent dolts who missed one huge story will somehow get its corollary right? Moreover, and to my mind infinitely worse, this narrative of events — that they missed the story because they were deceived — is an insult to the public’s intelligence in that it demands that we accept that they innocently whiffed on what was painfully obvious to the entire world. In other words, belief in what they are peddling makes us part of their incompetence! It’s their expectation that we are to be willing accomplice to our being duped by them! Outrageous.
That outrage, coupled with experience, leads to the other possibility: That being that the journalists in legacy media were complicit in the cover-up of Joe Biden’s eroding cognition. Of course, they can’t admit to this because, to them, it makes everything worse. It proves, charitably speaking, that they are dishonest, which, in turn, deepens our mistrust. As a result, they’ve chosen what, again to them, is the less bitter pill, summed to: We are incompetent dolts. (By the way, in this reasoning they are mistaken; the path to redemption begins with honest confession.)
To review: A gross and flagrant error was indisputably made, and there are two possible interpretations,
First, and the one that’s being pled in lockstep is “We just missed it;” further refined into “We just missed it because it was hidden from us, and we are the innocent fools and tools of Democratic Party apparatchiks. It’s their fault, what can you do about it?” To which the obvious and evident response has been and remains: not listen to you.
Second, the error was deliberate. This means our legacy media lied and continues to lie to us; we know they are lying, and they know we know they are lying. This is the behavior of a thug in that the subtext is “Yeah, so what? What are you going to do about it?” To which, the obvious and evident response has been and remains: not listen to you.
In either case, what is emphatic truth is that legacy media journalists are either incompetents or liars. I’ll let them choose, but why should the rest of us tune in?
For a moment let’s put aside criticism and proffer a bit of advice. Honesty, as in admitting complicity in the cover-up, followed by further honesty in reporting, would, more quickly than is commonly imagined, regain news consumers.
From illegal alien crime, to Biden administration censorship, to fraud and waste uncovered by DOGE and a score of others, there are news stories still in need of exposition by institutional media. (Imagine an unbiased 60 Minutes exposé on what DOGE has uncovered! I know, but we can dream.) Mainstream media journalists can tell these stories and regain relevance, or ignore them and continue the slide into irrelevance. At present, just as the quality of Biden’s acuity is no longer argued, inarguably people are ignoring formerly trusted news sources.
Legacy media can come back, but its exponents have to remember how things work.
KH Cutts is an actor, screenwriter and political analysis dilletante.
Image: Gage Skidmore
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