Nudderwords, he's gonna keep doing what he's been doing and expect different results.[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Frankly, I had no problem with unbalanced coverage during the 2016 cycle. Our job first and foremost is to educate the public and help them make informed decisions. Trump was and is a dangerous man ideologically, and so many in the media abandoned any concerns about bias in order to portray him as the threat he is.
All of this culminated on Election Day, where despite the media's best efforts, Trump emerged victorious. A lot of people vilified the media, saying they missed the Trump phenomenon or didn't act soon enough to stop him.
So where does this leave journalism? In a world where cold hard facts and truths were rejected by a plurality of Americans, and many Americans actively detest journalists, what role does the media have in our electoral process and society on the lam?
But then I remembered the now-famous words of Michelle Obama: "When they go low, we go high."
America went low, so in response, journalists need to let their aspirations to objectivity go. We need to recognize that our role has fundamentally, permanently changed. We failed over the last two years to educate the electorate largely because we were afraid of disobeying our "fair and balanced" oath.
| Boy howdy, we watched youse guys struggle with that fear of being unbalanced the entire campaign... |
| American press did neither candidate any favors. They should have been much harder on Hillary and more objective on Trump. Instead of doing their jobs, they took dictation from the left and hammered the right. And they hammered Trump much the way they were hammering white voters. It is hard even for dumb white guys not to notice, but easy to remedy at the voting booth. It is being said that now that a Republican is in the White House, journalists will go back to reporting the news and publishing facts. But with this crowd of stenographers, I doubt they would know an objective fact if it was spray painted on their desks. Have you read how military news is reported these days? Can they tell an armored personnel carrier from a tank? An air superiority aircraft from a ground interdiction aircraft? They ignore what they are told to ignore in exchange for access. It is hard to break a bad habit like that, but I have every faith they won't, even unto their very demise. |
| Adapt or die, Darwin says. |