Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Thu 02/05/2026 View Wed 02/04/2026 View Tue 02/03/2026 View Mon 02/02/2026 View Sun 02/01/2026 View Sat 01/31/2026 View Fri 01/30/2026
1
2026-02-05 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
The Loss of Trust in Legacy Media
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2026-02-05 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1799 views ]  Top

1 Kass, like VDH, Mollie, Kurt, are all must-reads
Posted by Frank G 2026-02-05 05:19||   2026-02-05 05:19|| Front Page Top

2 In the 19th Century most papers started as party propaganda broadsheets. When it was discovered they could sell advertising and make money, the newspaper concept, as our fathers knew it, came into being. With alternate revenue streams now taking that function, its just returning back to it origins.
Posted by Procopius2k 2026-02-05 06:43||   2026-02-05 06:43|| Front Page Top

3 First time I read Kass was yesterday as I waited for a haircut (with what little hair I have). This is a long piece but well written with a rare insider's view of MSM, particulary in the days when Baraq Obama was being annointed

I'd like to believe in objective journalism but I'm afraid it's very hard to find. Most of the time we just have to extrapolate the truth from all the bull crap. I guess it helps to become old and cynical but I fear for all the young and naive who are so easily led down the garden path.

I remember arguing with a co-worker at the advent of the World Wide Web about how readers would now have an alternative to the liberal bias of the MSM. He trusted the establishment and expressed the establishment fear of free, independent journalist writing all kinds of wild stories unchecked by their publishers or editors. But I still think those free, independent journalists are our only hope.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2026-02-05 11:56||   2026-02-05 11:56|| Front Page Top

4 Journalistic integrity and objectivity, or at least a sometimes ragged representation of that ideal, are one of the institutional dinosaurs of the former United States culture.

Overwhelmingly Euro-centric, Christian and with a shared cultural national character (the days before the need for hyphenated descriptors and dual citizenship), we were a high-trust culture, with overall expectations of honesty, law-abiding behavior, oath-keeping and loyalty as reasonable behavior by our fellow citizens. America had a majority middle-class, government was reasonably limited, crime was the exceptional occurrence, our food and machine products were world-wide hallmarks of excellence and quality, and we felt great pride in our national character. We trusted the MSM and Hollywood as being honest and integral to our culture.

We saw those who immigrated here as future Americans who wished only to assimilate and become like us, sharing our national character and values, with fond memories perhaps of aspects of their past, but embracing our culture as their own.

Now, as we are rapidly evolving into a fragmented, low-trust culture, objective journalism has been replaced by advocacy with even the skimpy veneer of "journalist integrity" in tatters. Our nation in places has become merely a location on a map, many of the residents there as foreign as their names, the mixing bowl ideal has become the salad bowl, diversity is hailed as a "strength" despite all the evident to the contrary. Language and culture in large swaths of our urban cores are the hallmarks of pseudo-colonization more than assimilation.

The MSM has become more their voice than ours, the political goals of the left becoming the editorial filter of what Rachel Maddow, CNN, MSNOW and the NYT and WaPo say. The bias and partial truth are matched by the editorial omissions that are presented as reportage.

The rural, Red areas are vast and still have the remnant hallmarks of Americana, but the atrophy of trust is growing even there. The incessant drumbeat of revolutionary propaganda has deafened many, as the media becomes less trusted than even Congress! The loss of trust was long overdue, and rebuilding it is a daunting task at best.

Posted by NoMoreBS 2026-02-05 16:53||   2026-02-05 16:53|| Front Page Top

5 All true, NoMoreBS, except we’ve had seriously corrupt politicians since at least the Reconstruction period, of not earlier, accelerated when party machines became a thing in the big cities. For the most part our best went into business, not politics.
Posted by trailing wife 2026-02-05 20:45||   2026-02-05 20:45|| Front Page Top

21:59 Woodrow
21:57 Woodrow
21:38 trailing wife
21:01 trailing wife
20:45 trailing wife
20:38 trailing wife
19:59 Frank G
19:59 Frank G
19:55 Frank G
19:53 Frank G
19:39 Zenobia Creregum9017
18:35 DarthVader
18:25 chris
18:22 Skidmark
18:18 chris
18:17 Skidmark
18:10 magpie
17:08 NoMoreBS
17:03 Knuckles Grundy1702
16:53 NoMoreBS
16:16 Procopius2k
16:05 NoMoreBS
16:03 Skidmark
15:58 NoMoreBS
Merry-Go-Blog










Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com