The State of the Media Is Not Good

The state of media in 2022, to borrow from Gerald Ford the President, isn’t good.

As the House Republican leader during Nixon’s Nixon era, Ford was happy to sail along politicalally in 1973. He was Kevin McCarthy in his time.

In October, out of nowhere, the Department of Justice announced that it was looking into corruption allegations against Vice President Spiro Anew. Agnew quit after much back-and forth. Nixon had the constitutional power to appoint an alternative to the Congress and appointed Ford the vice president.

Nixon was forced to resign less than one year later in August 1974 after the Watergate scandal. In a flash, Gerald Ford became the 38th president in the United States.

Ford was due to give his State of the Union Address as president in January. Ford began his speech by recalling the time he was a freshman House Member in 1949, and then listening to Harry Truman’s State of the Union address. Ford recalled that Truman specifically said the State of the Union in 1949 was “good.” Now, after two major political scandals had roiled the country resulting in the resignations of both the president and vice president, Ford said of himself: “Today, that freshman member from Michigan stands where Mr. Truman stood, and I must say to you that the state of the union is not good.”

When one looks at the state of media in 2022, it is easy to recall the Ford moment. It is safe to say the news media is not in its best form on the first day.

This space was last week’s result in a series of polls that showed Americans have lost faith in the media.

There was an issue in 2021 of The Wall Street Journal the paper’s editorial board had a similar take. The headline in the WSJEditorial was as follows:

The Conformity Crackup in 2021
Political-media consensus was incorrect from Covid lockdowns down to crime and police officers

According to the editors,

In this year, the American media and politics were exposed for their mistakes like never before.

We mean the political consensus and media convergence that quickly forms around an issue. It then consolidates itself, regardless of any competing information or arguments. This isn’t a conspiracy in any formal sense; there are no organized calls or Zoom meetings.

These are about shared political values and preferences, which lead people to the same conclusion about an event. The reporters and commentators of the major progressive media—the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, The New York Times, the Atlantic, and more—all then reinforce what they now like to call the “narrative” of a story.

Politicians and the press feed the narrative with leaks and the stories they pursue—or, as important, what they don’t pursue. Because of the potential cost to ostracism and lost career opportunities, disagreement is not common but almost non-existent.

That last point should be mentioned. WSJJames Bennet was remembered. The New York TimesHe had the courage – and the nerve to quit his job as opinion editor. Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton ran an Op-Ed calling for troops to manage the violence in American cities following George Floyd’s murder.

Bennet wasn’t the only one. Over at The Philadelphia InquirerStan Wischnowski was the senior editor and resigned as a result of his boldness in suggesting that buildings also matter amid the chaos caused by the burning of buildings. Like the staff at The, left-leaning members of the TimesWischnowski was expelled, and the revolt continued.

Also, the 2020 resignation by the TimesBari Weiss, Op-Ed staff writer and editor. Weiss sent a scathing resignation to A.G. Sulzberger. In it, she stated, among others, the following:

It was my belief that history’s first draft should be written by journalists. The reality is that history can only be made to suit the narrative.

…Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule two: Do not risk submitting a story against your narrative. Rule three: Do not listen to any editor or publisher that urges you against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you’ll be hung out to dry.

Take all this together, plus the insistent on truth-free left-wing narratives and intolerance of dissenting views and it is clear that there is something seriously wrong with American media.

CNN was a difficult place to be in the past year. L’affaire Cuomo, plunging ratings and, incredibly, not one but two producers facing legal woes for trafficking in pedophilia.

But it would be a mistake to think that CNN’s ratings problems are somehow those of CNN alone. As all the polls show, trust levels in the media are low across the board.

Now the question is, can mainstream media regain the trust of American citizens?

The thought here is that the answer, sadly, is a “no.” Why? Why? Because, beyond the media, every institution – academia, the legal field, mainline Protestant churches, etc. – is consumed by the same problem. The current liberal narrative is what dominates their attention, rather than what it really should be.

2022 is certain to be an unpredictable and wild year. The recent Virginia election clearly demonstrated that Americans don’t like the country’s leadership.

That includes, without doubt, a severe unhappiness about the American media.

This is to say that the media landscape is currently not in its best state as 2022 approaches.