Donald Trump loves quoting and praising authoritarians, strongmen, and dictators. He’s not original or unique with his talking points.
For example, he references Stalin and refers to the press as the “enemy of the people.” He has openly encouraged violence against the media and journalists who are critical of him and urged his MAGA brownshirts to beat them up, even going so far as to say he’ll pay their legal bills. In the past 10 years, we’ve seen an alarming rise in threats against the fourth estate. Cesar Sayok, a man radicalized by right-wing media, is currently in jail after sending functional pipe bombs to several Trump critics, including journalists.
Now, Trump has all the power and MAGA controls the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and right-wing dominates the entirety of the media landscape. FOX is pulling in record numbers. The most viewed YouTube channels mostly belong to right-wing fanboys. Check out the Top 20 Podcasts and you’ll see a rogue’s gallery of right-wing apparatchiks. Sinclair Broadcasting, another right-wing corporation, is gobbling up local news stations. Speaking of local news, it’s increasingly an endangered species with papers folding across America.
Meanwhile, our establishment, legacy media outlets have decided to bend the knee to bad faith right-wing attacks and sanewash Trump’s lies, incompetence, and criminality for the sake of access, power, ratings, and money.
How can the press and those who are still beholden to facts, truth, and democracy in an age of disinformation, conspiracies, and echo chambers still do their job and be incentivized not to trade their ethics and standards in favor of pleasing an authoritarian who has promised to punish them?
It’s going to be a long, uphill journey, but there is a path and it’s worth taking according to veteran journalist, White House reporter, and author Brian Karem who’s had a front-row seat to the media’s capitulation to Trump. He also has the bruises and scars from resisting Trump for the sake of reporting the truth and asking the tough questions that need asking.
He joins me on The Left Hook today to audit the failures of the current media landscape and gives solutions on how the rest of us can still try our best to save the Fourth Estate and stay committed to the truth where lies, rage, and disinformation drive the clickbait and ratings.
Grab a chai and give us a listen!
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