Lately I've noticed a lot of finger pointing at the news media for the rise Der Fuhrer Trump. The argument goes that the media has failed to properly grill Drumpf on the details of his proposals, his flip-flops, his hate speech, and on and on.
The flaw in that logic is this: news media is now a business. Journalism is now a business. Les Moonves said it best on February 29, 2016 when referring to The Donald Duck's candidacy, "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite have been dead and gone for a long time. With the rise of the Internet as the place voters turn for news has come the abandonment of journalism. Who needs to pay smart people to interpret complex issues when I can just check my Facebook wall for the wisdom of my college roommate's brother? He's got internet access, he must know what's going on. Media outlets practicing authentic, true, unadulterated journalism are as rare as high school students learning Latin. Audience, ratings, followers, and subscriptions are all that matter in the hellscape that passes for modern news coverage. (Note: Journalism historically was supported by a paying audience and advertisers. The Internet has vacuumed away both leaving journalism to run on the vapors of public funding or the largess of philanthropy.)
And so the news media gave Trump air time because he draws crowds. He activated angry whites and won a plurality of GOP votes in the primaries and that draws viewers, audience, and followers. His performances incite, excite, and titillate so let him phone it in, just so long as he draws viewers/audience/followers/subscribers. I no more blame the media for this than I blame my local gas station for raising the price of fuel when light sweet crude prices spike: they're both businesses struggling to turn a profit. Period, full stop.
Now all that sounds very cynical, I know, but I had a front row seat to the collapse of a true journalistic institution that served America well since the 1920's: NEWSWEEK. I sold advertising in the last issue. The cover read #LASTPRINTISSUE. That institution collapsed because they refused to abandon journalism so advertisers and readers abandoned them.
That experience, preceded by 25 years in the print and online media world taught me these lessons. This is why the only place you'll find authentic journalism (liberal or conservative or centrist) is through outlets that don't have to depend upon market support for survival such as NPR/PBS or BBC. (And don't point to the WSJ; their readers, by and large, get their companies to pay for their subscriptions because it's a "must read" for business.) However, if the scourge of a Trump presidency is visited upon our great nation, I'd expect him to disappear NPR in short order. Why fund public journalism? Let the market decide. They're doing a bang-up job already!
That experience, preceded by 25 years in the print and online media world taught me these lessons. This is why the only place you'll find authentic journalism (liberal or conservative or centrist) is through outlets that don't have to depend upon market support for survival such as NPR/PBS or BBC. (And don't point to the WSJ; their readers, by and large, get their companies to pay for their subscriptions because it's a "must read" for business.) However, if the scourge of a Trump presidency is visited upon our great nation, I'd expect him to disappear NPR in short order. Why fund public journalism? Let the market decide. They're doing a bang-up job already!
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