It is now taken as settled science that the media largely—and this is a professional, expert term—sucks. The reasons for that are well-known and also settled, accepted science. Who would dare be a science denier? The media suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, they hate America and Americans and they’re among the self-imagined elite who think themselves better than everyone else. They’re not. They’re mostly white but think white people racist. They’re congenital liars and have no idea what a sincere apology might be. Actually, they’re pretty clueless on the whole sincerity thing. They’re the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, yet some of them weakly continue to deny that.
Graphic: CNN Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Wikimedia Commons.org. CC A-SA 23.0 Generic.
They think they’re smarter than everyone else, particularly those Flyover Country Deplorables. The Deplorables have less evocative terms for where they live, like South Dakota, Kansas or Iowa. They don’t care about what the self-imagined elite think about them. They’re content and mostly want to be left alone.
Considering that—and I could fill a book with additional reasons—it’s no surprise sane Americans have turned to a few cable networks like Fox, and to the Internet for conservative blogs and podcasts. Watching cable news of late inspired an epiphany: I know why people are really fleeing from broadcast news.
The sources of my enlightenment were the Israeli attacks on Iran and the shooting of several firemen near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. One wouldn’t think those events had anything in common, but oh, they do.
In both stories, we were treated to news anchors interrupting regularly scheduled programming for “breaking news.” I watch little TV, so if my regularly scheduled programming is going to be broken, I want some real breaking news I need to know right that second. However, as John Belushi used to say: “but noooooooooooo!”
Instead, taking the Idaho incident as an example, talking heads announced they knew only the most superficial “facts” about whatever was happening, which was a “fast-breaking” incident. Then they cut to another on-the-scene, or talking-to-someone-closer-to-the-scene who told us it was a fast-breaking situation that was very serious and about which we knew little or nothing, but we were sure something was happening.
The talking head in New York then spent ten minutes or so talking with that sort-of-on-scene person both agreeing they didn’t know much, and it was a fast-breaking situation which might go this way or that way, but they were certain it was going to go some way, and when it did, they’d bring it to us live.
They could have easily, and as informatively, said that in a 20-second blurb, noting they’ll have more when they actually, um, had more, but that’s not how breaking news is done these days.
If a crime is potentially involved as it was in Idaho, they’ll bring in Joe Obvious, a former detective from Major Leftist City. Joe will agree it’s a fast-breaking situation that is very dangerous. He’s sure the police are working diligently to contain the situation, which is very dangerous, and it could turn out to be one thing or another thing, but it’s going to be something, and we’ll know what it is when we know what it is.
Rather than returning to one of the few regularly scheduled programs I watch, they continue to talk to each other about how little they know, peppered with brief interviews of people who have that deer in the headlights look about how little they know about what is going on.
They knew the Israelis were bombing Iran, and it would have implications, and talked about what the Israelis might be bombing and what the implications might be, on and on and on.
And when a day or so has passed and there is more to report, they usually get most of it wrong, and most of them don’t correct what they misreported.
Why do they do that? In the past, being first with a story mattered, but there wasn’t a 24-hour, minute-by-minute news cycle then. Now being first might be a matter of seconds. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather get the whole, accurate story a bit later, unless we’re involved in a massive nuclear exchange with the Chinese or Russians. That’s one they probably couldn’t screw up too badly. Not for long anyway.
So sure, they lie, hate us, are political hacks and are utterly untrustworthy, but interrupting the few at least partly informative and entertaining shows available to tell me, what they don’t know but might know at some time in the future is the real story.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.