Digby has a characteristically readable post detailing the trajectory of their disillusionment with the press (including the so-called "liberal" papers -- hardy-har-har -- like the Washington Post and NYT) which ends with a seeming assessment of the problem and suggestion for how we can get the press back on track:
This is fifteen long years of watching the Times and the rest of the mainstream media buckle under the pressure of GOP accusations that they are biased, repeatedly take bogus GOP manufactured scandals and run with them like kids with a brand new kite, treat our elections like they are entertainment vehicles for bored reporters and generally kowtow to the Republican establishment as the path of least resistence. I waited for years for them to recognise what was happening and fight back. It didn't happen. And I began to see that the only way to get the press to work properly was to apply equal pressure from the opposite direction. It's a tug of war. They were not strong enough to resist being dragged off to the right all by themselves. They needed some flamethrowers from our side pulling in the opposite direction to make it possible for them to avoid being pulled all the way over.
No doubt a desire not to have to listen to the screeching of irrational Republican harpies has played some role in the miserable failures of the fourth estate. Similarly for the line one sometimes hears about how reporters have bent over for the Republicans in order to retain their precious access to the mouthpieces of power -- and don't forget the incredible lure of the Washington Cocktail Party. But honestly, does anyone think these sorts of considerations explain the phenomena? Get real, liberals.
The comment thread on Digby's post has lots of alternative suggestions, but my own views on the matter coincide with commenter anna's:
it is a corporate media. it does what is best for the corporatocracy. plain, simple, and really fucking scary.
There it is: the plain, simple, and really fucking scary truth. THE SAME CORPORATIONS THAT PROFIT FROM REPUBLICAN POLICIES OF ENDLESS WAR AND DECIMATION OF SOCIAL GOODS AND RIGHTS IN SERVICE OF CORPORATE PROFITS ARE THE SAME CORPORATIONS THAT OWN (EITHER DIRECTLY, OR INDIRECTLY VIA ADVERTISING REVENUE) THE MEDIA.
A second-grader could 2 and 2 together here. I think it's really interesting that those who expend so much effort in observing the present tattered state of the press in the U.S. so reliably fail to observe the obvious causal and constitutive explanations here.
More generally, it seems to me as if progressive criticisms of the present tattered state of the nation are similarly blind as to the obvious mechanisms of Corporate Capitalism (again, there isn't any point in qualifying CorpCap as "unregulated" -- the obvious mechanisms of power and influence guarantee that any capitalist system will eventually become unregulated).
Failure to recognize the basic fact of the malignant tendencies of a state run by and for Corporate Capitalism means that the majority of progressives are just shouting into the wind. Their suggestions for how to improve things uniformly fail to hit the target. But the specific failure of progressives to recognize and specifically address the fact that Corporate Media is not EVER going to be on board with the progressive agenda plays a key role in the ineffectiveness of general strategies for implementing this agenda.
No amount of "reframing" the Democratic party as the party of "common sense", of the grassroots, of the really brave or really patriotic people, or whatever, is going to make one small bit of difference if Democrats (or other progressives) can't get the word out. Nor is there any chance that our problems will be solved as soon as some Bill Clinton Redux rides into town to save the day, given that the Corporate Media sets the agenda for presentation of that person, and has come to full realization of just how much it can get away with, either directly by way of lies and distortion (as with Al Gore's non-existent "lies" about inventing the internet, and Howard Dean's isolated-mike-feed-in-a-roaring hall "scream"), or indirectly by publicizing Republican talking points and smear campaigns (against Kerry, Hillary, whoever).
You don't believe me? Look at what has happened -- or rather, what hasn't happened -- in the last 5 years.
Progressives need to wake up to our real enemy. It's not Republicans (except indirectly): it's Corporate Capitalism.
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