Truth Beats TV: How Citizen Journalists Are Crushing the Corporate Press

Arrogant, shrill partisanship coupled with outdated technology has already sealed the fate for the legacy linear media.  You know, traditional television and newspapers.  People see through all the outright bias.  Technology has provided them a new pathway to secure information, and they are increasingly taking it every day.

This past week has been a tribute to the one-sided partisanship of these dinosaurs.  Some are saying the quiet part out loud.  No longer is there any pretense of being objective and impartial.  Recently fired ABC anchor, Terry Moran, took to social media on a late Saturday night to proclaim that President Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff, Steven Miller, were world-class haters.  He claims to have been sober when he did this.  Too bad.  Otherwise, he would at least have some sort of excuse.  

On his way out the door, Moran proclaimed his responsibility was not to be objective, but instead to be fair and accurate.  Americans of previous generations accepted the legacy media as the gatekeepers to information for two reasons.  Even allowing for a certain level of bias, the standard was providing the who, what, where, when, and how of things, acting as close as possible to being an impartial umpire calling balls and strikes.  The second reason was that there was little other choice to secure information from alternative sources.  They abused the first and are being run over by the second.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten was described as a powerhouse member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) when she resigned her position with the DNC.  She had served there for twenty-three (that’s 23) years!  During that time, her organization was constantly described as non-partisan.  Do you think, knowing of her role at the DNC, voters would have considered her views on closing down the schools during COVID differently?

Whoopi Goldberg of The View announced there was no difference in a woman living in the United States and Iran, if the woman was black.  Instead of asking if she had remembered to take her medications, other members of the program actually engaged her as though any sane person could take this craziness seriously.

After covering up for Joe Biden for years, the media has decided the Senate hearings on the worst scandal since Woodrow Wilson’s wife ran things is either a nothing burger or a Republican witch hunt.  This is after they treated the January 6 hearings as the Nuremberg Trials.  For those, the Democrats insisted on approving Republicans who would participate and would not allow them to call witnesses.  These Biden hearings have Democrats of their own choosing (as in Senators on the Committee) and do allow them to have witnesses.  Seen any reporting on how the Democrats continue their cover-up and refuse to seek the truth about this terrible circumstance?

Finding examples of outlandish reporting in the direction of progressive dogma simply requires a person to be awake on any given day.  However, there is no longer much reason for those outside the progressive echo chamber to waste energy “proving” how ridiculous they have become.  

It took time to be certain, but the onset of high-speed internet, coupled with social media, has equated to corporate media becoming obsolete.  Plus, each time they turn reality inside out to preserve and advance their twisted narrative over easily observed fact, they simply hasten the time they will be gone from the political landscape.  It has been reported that morale at CNN is really low.  No kidding.  They cannot even find a buyer as their parent company tries to sell them.

Author Glenn Reynolds recently nailed it on the head when he wrote, “truth wins as citizen journalists rise and media fades.”  Apparently, the public agrees.  On June 16, Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) reported that social media had overtaken television as Americans’ top news source.   

Are there bad actors out there?  Duh.  At the same time, overall, can you get a more balanced reporting of events than from the traditional media at this point?  By any reasonable measure, the answer is yes.  You have a better chance of sorting things out by staying current on Substack than by reading the New York Times.  That is just a fact.

Remember this: Changes in technology present huge challenges to legacy media.  Their own behavior has simply sped up their decline.  Time for a going out of business sale.  What do you think?