Feelings don’t care about facts.
We feel our reality and our facts in the 21st century. If the news doesn’t fit our biases and narratives, we ignore them and instead find a comforting media cocoon that gives us a 24-7 IV line of narratives and opinions that comport with our worldview. These isolated bubbles have been amplified by the wild, wild West nature of social media where any individual - for better or worse - can have a microphone and a global audience. Some, like Joe Rogan and Theo Von, use it to attract young men and inculcate them with right-wing contacts. Disinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant on WhatsApp and take root before they are debunked.
This is why we need establishment media outlets, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, to use their resources, trained journalists, and privilege to not sanewash the truth or entertain bad faith talking points purely for the sake of performing a “both sides” neutrality. Unfortunately, they failed. They were complicit, bent the knee, and decided democracy should die in darkness for the sake of ratings, access, money, and avoiding MAGA’s criticisms even though they see them as “the enemy of the people.”
Most American voters who had correct facts about the major issues voted for Harris. Those who didn’t voted for Trump. However, when they were blindly presented with Harris’s policies, they greatly favored them.
What explains this dichotomy and breakdown?
Dan Froomkin “blames the press” in part for failing to inform many Trump voters when it came to the reality of the economy, inflation, immigration and crime. Froomkin is the editor of Press Watch, an intervention for political journalists seeking to improve modern journalism and restore its eroding trust with the public. Corporate media is important and influential with 68% of Americans who say that broadcast news is either a major or minor source of their political news. It still sets the headlines. The right-wing still uses it to launder their extremist talking points to those outside the MAGA bubble.
In this Chai Talk, Froomkin digs deeper into how and why corporate media failed to properly cover the threat of Trump and the Biden Administration’s accomplishments. Believe it or not, there is still hope that they can improve and do better during the second Trump Administration.
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