It’s quite possible to take a cursory glance at the media and not even realize that a major event, a deal between the US, Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, had even happened.
That’s because the media keeps catering to its core audience of lefty crazies hoping that Mueller will reverse the 2016 election for them. That’s the audience that has poured money into dinosaur properties like the New York Times and the Washington Post.
And as a result, the media tends to give short shrift to major stories when they don’t easily plug into a conspiratorial Trump narrative.
Had the media chosen to report on the NAFTA deal, the angle would have no doubt involved an Ivanka Trump trademark in a foreign country or a Trump property, implying corruption (without ever proving it), rather than its impact on ordinary Americans.
And that’s another example of the toll of fake news.
It’s not just that the media continually subverts democracy, damaging trust in civic institutions and undermining confidence in the elections that it claims to be trying to protest from Russian trolls on Facebook, but it sucks the oxygen out of real news.
The new NAFTA agreement and the China trade truce should have been major stories. Instead they’re buried under a mass of Mueller conspiracy theories.
The media likes to claim that it’s performing a public service of some sort. But lies, conspiracy theories and hit pieces are not a public service. Pandering to the worst elements for power and profit is not a civic duty, it’s a civic assault.
Leave a Reply