What's Really Wrong With The Mainstream Media: Robert Reich

[appalachiablue]

- The Guardian, Dec. 9, 2021. -Ed. From favoring the status quo to indulging in false equivalence, the mainstream media engages in subtle, persistent biases.

- "The old labels “left” versus “right” are fast becoming outdated. Today, it’s democracy versus authoritarianism. Equating them is misleading and dangerous." -

I’m often asked how I keep up with the news. Obviously, I avoid the unhinged rightwing outlets pushing misinformation, disinformation and poisonous lies. But I’ve also grown wary of the mainstream media – not because it peddles “fake news” but because of three more subtle biases.

First, it often favors the status quo. Mainstream journalists wanting to appear serious about public policy rip into progressives for the costs of their proposals, but never ask self-styled “moderates” how they plan to cope with the costs of doing nothing or doing too little about the same problems. A Green New Deal might be expensive but doing nothing about the climate crisis will almost certainly cost far more.

Medicare for All will cost a lot, but the price of doing nothing about America’s cruel and dysfunctional healthcare system will soon be in the stratosphere. Second, it fails to report critical public choices. Any day now, the Senate will approve giving $778bn to the military for this fiscal year. That’s billions more than the Pentagon sought. It’s four times the size of Biden’s Build Back Better bill, which comes to around $175bn a year.

But where’s the reporting on the effects of this spending on the national debt, or on inflation, or whether it’s even necessary? Third, it indulges in false equivalence, claiming that certain Republican and Democratic lawmakers are emerging as “troublemakers” within their parties or that extremists “on both sides” are “radicalizing each other”...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/09/whats-really-wrong-mainstream-media

[gab13by13]

1. Occam's Razor,

The so called bastion of progressive views, MSNBC is owned by Comcast, which is owned and managed by Vanguard and BlackRock, Wall Street and Big Pharma. Keith Olbermann and Dylan Ratigan were fired when they had high ratings, so don't give me that they do it for money.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Both sides-ism for profit and jacked up permanent outrage, always for profit. . . . nt

[gab13by13]

3. They make their profit from ads,

You will never see msnbc news anchors push for single payer health care but you will see washed up football players and TV actors shilling for Medicare Advantage which was created to destroy Medicare

Bothsiderism is the agenda. Wall Street and Big Pharma own and manage msnbc and those people want to get their message out.

Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Martin Brashear, Dylan Ratigan were popular, they were making money for the network, but they were fired because they went against the Wall Street, Big Pharma narratives.

[Dustlawyer]

5. During the BP oil spill aftermath the producers for most of CNN and MSNBC told me

my boss at the time could no longer appear on their shows. The networks didn’t want stories on the spills impact because the major oil company advertisers didn’t want content relating to victims of the spill and threatened to boycott their advertising if they ran with it.

Ed Schultz did it anyway and was gone two months later. The big corporate advertisers use their ad dollars to control the content.

There are two root causes of most of this country’s problems. The first being campaign finance and the second is the media propaganda. Unless and until we address these root causes we will continue to spiral down.

[gab13by13]

6. Absolutely, spot on,

I listened to Sheldon Whitehouse a couple of days ago, he gets it. he said we need to get dark money out of politics. Heck we need to get legal money out of politics. A good case can be made that is why Manchin and Sinema don't vote with their caucus. Citizens United opened up the floodgates, it needs repealed but how? If we allow this new social media network of Trump's to exist, all kinds of unregulated foreign money will pour into it. Every dictator in the world will help fund it. What better prize for world dictators than to turn America into a dictatorship?

[BumRushDaShow]

14. "Citizens United opened up the floodgates, it needs repealed but how?"

Citizen's United basically neutered McCain-Feingold (the campaign finance law that was in effect at the time). Congress dropped the ball addressing whatever the SCOTUS had problems with and then not working on a new revised version of it that fixed the loophole that allowed unrestricted dark money to be funneled to big PACs, which continues unabated today. That law had also restricted party fund-raising, forcing transparency of what they did take in and shifed the unrestricted fundraising to outside groups, who can take in unlimited amounts of money without any need to reveal who contributed what.

The unfortunate thing about it though is that big corporations AND big unions were against McCain-Feingold, and I expect they were "paired" that way in terms of restrictions as a compromise to even get that passed back then.

[c-rational]

19. +1

[appalachiablue]

20. ++ The truth, 2 huge factors. What a shame about

Ed Schultz, I enjoyed his show and topics; he tried. And he didn't last too long after that experience..

[calimary]

4. The cost of doing nothing!!!

I hope everybody tattoos those five words PERMANENTLY on their hearts, minds, and tongues!!!

Figuratively speaking, of course.

OMG! That is IT!!!!!!!!

“The cost of doing nothing”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I swear! THERE’S your one-stop-shopping retort to the nonstop whiny-ass complaining, lying, misinformation-spreading, fault-finding, and the ever-reliable republi-CON obstruction disease!

Plant OUR OWN “seeds of doubt”! Punch lethal holes in the enemy’s entire foundational construct.

Plant that gnawing little doubt, water and feed it with relentless repetition, and watch it grow!!!!!

PLEASE pass this on! We have to start doing this en masse. Collectively. And inevitably, corrosively! Many hands make light work, and many voices make a mighty loud noise!

PLEASE consider passing this on!

[gab13by13]

8. Yesterday Steve Schmidt said exactly what you are saying,

it was a quote by Churchill and I can't remember the exact quote but it amounted to good people doing nothing become complicit, become enablers.

[calimary]

10. Sorry I missed that.

Whenever I see that former deviously dedicated individual on camera, I find myself glad - and relieved - that he’s come over to our side.

[Wounded Bear]

13. Actually, it is usually contributed to Edmund Burke...

[George II]

7. I hope EVERYONE memorizes that second sentence:

"The old labels “left” versus “right” are fast becoming outdated. Today, it’s democracy versus authoritarianism. Equating them is misleading and dangerous."

There is no room in today's society and politics for purity and all-or-nothing politicians. It's more like they're FOR democracy or FOR authoritarianism.

To embarrassingly borrow an expression from the second bush administration - "if you're not for us you're against us". If you're not for democracy you're against democracy.

[gab13by13]

9. Don't be embarrassed, it gets the point across.

It is even good to substitute the word America in place of democracy, that works too.

[Puppyjive]

11. Drug Dealers

Mainstream media are nothing more than glorified drug dealers. They never talk about the drug commercials ever. It's taboo. Disgusting if you ask me. I want to go back to 1/2 hour news in the evening and 1/2 in the morning. Get rid of 24 hour opinion shows.

[gab13by13]

12. I thought it was bad when they advertised that blue pill,

now they are advertising butt perfume.

[Lonestarblue]

15. I posted a comment yesterday that I think Biden needs a media manager.

Someone who looks at every action being taken and determines how to get the story out to more people. The action then was the return of land Trump had confiscated to build his wall. That was such a missed opportunity because it could have emphasized the emotional and historical ties that land owners have to their land, with many families owning their lands since the days of the Spanish land grants when Texas was part of Mexico. It was an opportunity to connect midwest farmers whose farms have been in their families for generations with families along the border and perhaps make them think about how wrong it is to take land to build walls that don’t work.

Since then, I’ve tried to think of a person who could fill that role. It’s clear that Jaime Harrison, one of the most invisible heads of DNC ever, is not that person. I don’t know who the person is, so I’m throwing this question out to the community. I plan to write a communication to President Biden (which may never be shown to him by a staffer but it’s worth the effort), laying out the need for such a person and offering some names. I thought of Jen Psaki, but I see this role as more behind the scenes organizing and creating a focus, and she is so excellent at what she does. Likewise, Stacy Abrams would be good, but she’s focused on her race for governor. Perhaps it needs to be someone from the ad industry or a corporate media pro who is used to getting positive news coverage. Thoughts?

[deelee]

17. I'm so tired of still hearing TFG every freakin' day

Sometimes days go by and I hear nothing from President Biden. But every, and I mean every, day I hear something from the piece of crap. This is a big problem - even without Twitter he's in the news and his opinions are being thrust upon us, staying in the spotlight, while the current president apparently lays low.

It's not just that the facts need to get out - it's that the content needs to be heard. The authoritarians have experts at getting their content heard and believed - even if it's BS. They're entertaining and they play off emotions. That's what works today. The person needed for the job you mention has to be a media marketing sensationalist. The bad guys are flush with people like that, shysters, hucksters, etc. - entire networks dedicated to this cause.

[Snoopy 7]

16. don't forget your history

There was a reason the republican Party took apart the fairness act and other television rules.
1. they can smear anyone they want e.g. as long as they are of the Democratic Party
2. if they say something about the Democratic Party they don't need the Democratic Parties opposing view
3. they can own as many news forms, radio- tv- newspapers, as they want and no one can stop them
4. they can CONTROL the CONTENT as they see fit
5. they can pay over exuberant salaries so they can control the content or else the moderator looses
their job and they loose the luxuries they have become accustomed to living with
6. prior to the regan era the US media was owned by over 5K different owners now it's owned by
basically 5 conglomerates who regulate EVERYTHING YOU HEAR on the "NEWS.
7. due to #6 there is not "liberal" media on television and on over 50K radio stations it's all a conservatives
point of view
As far as MSMBC I can't tell you how many times I have walked by while my wife is watching it and said the host/s are or were repubulican. The commentators are all repUbulican. I know there are a few Democratic Party/Progressive Party (what used to be the Democratic Party until the party moved so far right) personnel but it is much fewer than the number of republians that are on MSMBC lineup. I wish the republicans who keep coming to the Democratic Party would stop because they don't like what their party is doing would have done what I kept saying since the days of regan "don't come over here stay and fix your party". Now we have so many republicans that there only one party in the US- the republican lite party (Democratic Party) & the crazy republican party...

[hadEnuf]

18. All off the media outlets are compromised by right wing influence and money one way or another.

There are no bastions of Progressivism. Even NPR and PBS seem to have toned down the truth to appease the GOP from eliminating their funding.

People still think that "you can't say it on TV if it isn't true", which is why Fox News invents "the truth" for their audience every single day. The days of some sort of fairness or balance in media are long gone. For real. The rules have changed. Whoever can yell the loudest and get their propaganda out there wins. People are only going to listen to the truth if it is screamed louder than the lies and is backed up by a media machine that repeats it day and night.

We are a mix of several generations that have been brought up with radio, TV and now social media and we are addicted to them. Laws and policies were put into effect early on by people who saw the huge potential for these mediums to be exploited for nefarious purposes but the right has since worked around or have outright eliminated these safeguards. The rules have changed and we need to beat them at their own game now.

[BeckyDem]

21. K&R

Thank you for posting.

[Paladin]

22. Today's daily shitting on Biden from the "liberal" New York Times:

"Why the Biden Presidency is such a disappointment" by Corey Rubin.

Meanwhile, over in this morning's hyper-rightwing Drudge Report, the following headline appears: "Biden delivering fastest recovery in history?"

That's where things are at, now.

[appalachiablue]

23. Good illustration, what a mess, no wonder some

some people are confused, ignorant and resort to simple but biased and lethal sources.

[Trust_Reality]

24. Referring to the original post: SO TRUE

[ymetca]

25. Operation Mindfuck

got out of control, once the Internet arrived in full, cinematic force.

The Powers That Be (a cabal of bored inheritance babies and hedge-fund billionaires?) are all trying desperately to rein it in to their dubious profiteering purposes.

Meanwhile, a Doofus Nozzlehead wants to glue the delusion into our brains with a 3-D "Metasphere".

Now that everybody's playing the misinformation game, our "reality" is starting to look like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel.

It's just a matter of time before we'll be seeing ads for UBIK everywhere.

Ah, the Days of Perky Pat!

The boredom market is over-saturated with dystopian memes.

Meanwhile, an actual dystopia is creeping in everywhere.

"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

[Uncle Joe]

26. I missed this one

and posted a dupe.

Robert nailed it.

Thanks for the thread appalachiablue.

[appalachiablue]

28. No problem UJ, there's a ton of info here- a good thing!

[traitorsgalore]

27. He nails it with this quote:

"The old labels “left” versus “right” are fast becoming outdated. Today, it’s democracy versus authoritarianism. Equating them is misleading and dangerous."

[appalachiablue]

29. I know, the exact issue..