Over the past few years, a noticeable trend permeating the American mainstream media has been an egregious bias in political coverage. One of the more flagrant examples was the persistent concealment of President Joe Biden’s stark cognitive decline. This decline could undeniably compromise his ability to perform his role efficiently, a pertinent piece of information that the media glossed over to the detriment of the American citizen.
This very mainstream media was enthralled with the narrative that former President Donald Trump was a pawn in Putin’s hands, undermining national integrity to serve Russian interests. Curiously, these outlets were quite keen on trumpeting publications from unnamed ‘intel sources’ or ‘Justice Department officials’, that conveniently targeted Trump.
This tendency towards single sourcing, coupled with a negligence towards thorough fact-checking reveals a concerning complacency. It seems these outlets have been prioritizing the propagation of juicy narratives over the factual integrity and journalistic principles. An instance of this was their unhinged promotion of baseless allegations planted in the 2016 Steele dossier.
These outlets were also negligent in either recognizing or acknowledging that the contentious Steele dossier was largely funded by Hillary Clinton, Trump’s political rival. Clinton’s endeavours to deploy the dossier as a vehicle to discredit Trump during their presidential race was a scandal that was artfully overlooked by these outlets.
Perhaps one of the more prominent hypocrisies was their collective dismissal of the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop. It was apparent that this move was an attempt to appease the sitting administration, who presumably wanted to bury the story. The media strategically aligned themselves with the administration without regard to journalisticResponsibility in informing the public about potential controversies.
This ideologically triggered self-censorship poses a threat to the democratic values that the media should uphold. The portrayal of Trump as a threat to democracy was so entrenched in their narrative that they were willing to compromise their integrity to maintain it. The alarming resemblance to state-controlled media was lost on them.
Ironically, these very outlets express concern that President Trump has exerted his influence over the White House press pool to feature more diverse media outlets. Their contention seems to be misguided, insinuating that the inclusion of non-traditional outlets may obstruct transparency and hinder objective reporting.
This critique is rather hypocritical considering that Trump has been significantly more forthright with the press. His pattern of directly addressing press inquiries during his short White House term far outweighs the years spent avoiding them by his predecessor, Biden. Worse still, Biden’s evasion on queries even surpassed that of Vice President Kamala Harris, notorious for her reticence during her campaign.
Trump blew the lid off the canonical practice of shunning the press. Whether he was in the Oval Office, en route to the Marine One helicopter, or on Air Force One, the press was always invited to engage. During his national events, he encouraged the press to ask questions; a stark contrast from Biden’s reluctance to face unscripted questions.
But the mainstream media aren’t fans of this change. They bemoan the ‘softball questions’ from the new media entrants who do not conform to their strategy of antagonistic coverage. Perhaps they are oblivious to the laughable theatrics of Biden’s press conferences where questions were canned and answers were choreographed.
It seems this irony was lost on a White House reporter who commented on the ‘surreal’ nature of the new media’s questions. Evidently, they either failed to recollect or chose to ignore the stagnant interrogations at Biden’s press conferences. With the recollection of Harris’ laughable sit-down interview during the campaign, these criticisms become ever the more ridiculous.
It is apparent now that these mainstream outlets are suddenly uncomfortable sharing the platform with the new kids on the block. Their discomfort towards sharing news coverage may be reflective of their resistance to relinquish their unchallenged supremacy in defining the ‘truth’ or ‘facts’.
This is yet another tell-tale sign of their delusional self-appointed role as the sole adjudicators of reality. A reality that the public has grown weary of and have increasingly turned to alternative news producers, such as podcasts and online news systems.
The legacy media’s continued failure to represent Trump objectively, stretching over a span of a decade leaves little room for surprise in their path of decline. Faith in mainstream narratives and outlets has been gradually declining, and their overt political biases and behaviour as dishonest brokers are the main contributors.
In their pursuit to maintain political narratives and personal biases, they neglected to uphold the journalistic fidelity to truth and censorship. An upheaval is inevitable in light of the broken trust. As the saying goes, ‘What goes around, comes around’. The legacy media will now bear the consequences of their actions.