Mainstream news swung too hard in the direction of opinion. It’s far, far worse and blatant and sensationalist on the right, less so, but still true, on the left. But even the centrist US-based media fell into the trap. It’s okay to report, and assess, analyze, and hold public officials to account. And it’s necessary to defend doing all of those things. But the centrist media has become too much like infotainment, and the left-leaning media is so politically self-aware and moralistic that it even turns me off, and I’m as liberal as can be.
If your system has it, I find BBC is a great option. You get actual news and very little opinion pieces. CNN is a go-to for actual breaking news (terrorism, earthquakes, etc.) but even as a political junkie the endless panel discussions are too much.
BBC is my go-to for most news. In fact, foreign sources generally are better. I find they don’t talk down to their audience and are focused on delivering their reporting rather than celebrating their reporting (the self-congratulations about breaking a story drive me crazy… just tell me the story!!)
The Guardian is also great. Obvious bias, but they treat their readers as intelligent people.
With the exception that the BBC is EXTREMELY biased when it comes to reporting on Israel, I would agree with you. But on that topic, you might as well be watching Al Jazeera than the BBC.
Exactly. If “news” were actually News,then it would be worth watching/listening. Listening to a supposed newscaster droning on about what they think about what is happening is of little interest. If I want an opinion,then I will read “So What”!
good information...I will assume you mean the facts and truth...will be almost impossible to find on the internet for two reasons:
1. The death of critical thinking in this country. People, over the last 30 years, look for sources who will confirm what they believe to be the truth. With the attention span of a fruit fly, the electorate has now pointed the gun at its own head.
2. The internet business model thrives on misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. there is no money to be made by publishing the truth. So far the only decent website for information and opinion is the Bulwark.
Those who want to be informed will have to rely on reliable sources such as the BBC and Al Jazeera. Think about that for a minute.
Chris, even you understand you are swimming upstream (pun intended).
By the way, all of this really began with the elimation of the Fairness Doctrine.
You are right, and I have tried to listen to Joe Rogan since my son listens to him and I found it painful. I listen to lots of podcasts, but his just felt unending and pointless. Maybe I should have listened longer but couldn't. But, it shows the siloing of how people are getting their news.
Traditional media (not just newspapers but also magazines and broadcast television) are in a downward spiral. Declining numbers of readers and viewers means declining revenue. Less revenue means smaller newsrooms. Less original reporting means smaller audience. And so on. One big downside to the plethora of new content providers is that few of them are doing any original reporting. Lots of aggregation and analysis and commentary, but few new facts.
Chris-this is most likely a question for Friday newsletter, if I get a chance I will ask again on Thursday. With the slow death of the mainstream media, who are you reading? Left, Center and Right? One person I think is invaluable is Heather Cox Richardson, her daily summary with footnotes is clear and concise.
Good question! We know that he reads Gabe Fleisher’s Wake Up To Politics and Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark, because he’s given both of them shoutouts, but the rest would be very interesting to know!
Chris, as of today, yes, that is how things are trending. But I can't fully agree, for two reasons (I was in the media, albeit a long time ago):
1) Media has always been cyclical; what was 'old' magically becomes 'new'.
2) All these new 'sources' have not yet proven that they can, or even want, to maintain.
Profitability is definitely an issue for the mainstream, but I think it's way too early to start writing obits. We'll see if these new cars can stay on the road....
I agree! When CNN came on the scene, it was so new and different! That can happen again. I also think the habits of younger adults may not be a permanent shift. They may well grow out of their consumption habits. Or get bored of them.
Totally on board with people getting their information from multiple sources. That's a good thing. The issue I have is that so many of the sources cannot be trusted. Many are liberal or conservative echo chambers, and worse, some are nothing more than agenda-driven misinformation engines.
Journalistic gatekeeping used to serve a valuable purpose. It kept the masses on the same page in terms of our shared reality. Now we live in different realities that mirror what we want to believe rather than objective truth.
It's scary, disheartening, and I'm not sure how it gets any better.
Good point. I knew a slew of old-time newspaper editors. They're now dead. We'd meet weekly for coffee and BS sessions. They had personal points of view, and they differed. But when it came to what stories were in their papers, like honest jurors, they deliberately set aside their own prejudices to the extent humanly possible, and printed the news - let the chips fall where they may.
The fact is that the mainstream news organizations went all in against President Trump in the run-up to the 2024 election. There was no subtly to this at all; they abandoned any pretense of non bias to 'stop Hitler'. They failed miserably and burned whatever trust they had with one side of the electorate and the other side realizes that the news has lost most of their power, so they don't want to watch, either. Chris once famously tweeted that 'reporters do not root for a side'. Well, if that's the case, most of the people on TV news are not 'reporters' as they were undoubtedly and clearly rooting for a side. It's pretty hard to look at someone as an unbiased and accurate source of news after they spent months slanting the playing field.
You are confusing bother siderism with unbiased. Not the same. It's like when folks say no on has ever been investigated as much as Trump, as though that's some sort of evidence of unfairness. The fact is that no other president broke as many laws as Trump, hence the investigations. I know you won't hear this point. But I'm tired of Trumpers deciding that just saying things with confidence makes them true. It does not.
Anybody who looks at the mainstream media and thinks it's unbiased really isn't taking an honest look. And, no, I do not spend all my time watching Fox (never do, actually) because I don't like to be in an echo chamber. Even on this site, Chris gets a lot of flack for simply reporting instead of being an advocate for the Democratic side.
You would have a point if Trump, since at least 2015, hadn't been systematically grooming his acolytes not to believe anything negative about him from reporters. His self-serving propaganda brainwashed a lot of minds, and still does. Study Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor.
Perhaps the problem is that you're not willing to see it. Just because all the mechanisms are not yet in place doesn't mean we aren't headed down the path of Hitlerian autocracy. Seems to me you just edit out anything that doesn't fit your narrative, which is your bias. Maybe you should listen more to Trump and not blame the media that report it. His intentions are hardly subtle.
I’ve listened to 3 hour rallies of Trump and long interviews. I’m a student of history and have listened to the 30’s fascist speeches.... they are nothing alike. Take it from me. Hitler is a very aggressive guy who wants to start wars around the world, Trump is pretty much the opposite and wants isolationism/non-interventionism. Tariffs and tax cuts don’t fit into the fascist ideology at all either... what are you watching?
Intense nationalism, comingling of government and corporations, focusing attention on a scapegoat, dividing the people, threatening retribution and elimination of "enemies" using the power of the goverment, suppression of any expression of dissent, and the incessant lies. Trump has no equal at indecency, vulgarity, hatefulness and the demand for absolute submission. If you don't want to categorize that as dangerous authoritarianism, we'll just disagree. And that doesn't even touch on Trump's manifest mental illness.
I saw the raw number on the number of viewers for Fox, MSNBC & CNN yesterday and they are even lower than I thought. The % changes hide how few people actually watch. For the AC360 & Chris Hayes shows, it's under 75,000 a night. Fox is a lot higher but even then it's not that much. Clearly the audience isn't there anymore for evening political panels.
The difference is that Fox has an echo chamber delivery network - boosted exponentially by Elon Musk - to disseminate its propaganda. It seems most people are unconcerned with news reporting or accuracy. That Joe Rogan is now deemed essential for a Presidential win is an inescapable sign of decline.
Just how many $80 Substack subscriptions do I need to hold to be well-informed? I get the disaggregation caused by the 'net. But this is trending in a direction that's very unhealthy for democracy and encouraging ofmob rule.
I agree with you, Chris. Personally, the last few years we have watched less and less cable news, unsubscribed from the WAPO & NYT, as well as our local newspaper. Our local paper just didn’t have enough in it to make it worth while. We have been slowly building our consumption of news from independent journalism and media. During the debates this cycle, we watched on CNN but turned off afterwards as we just had no desire to listen to them. I was actually on your chat, Chris. For the record, we are seniors and not watching the cable news at all.
You are absolutely right Chris. One of the reasons social media journalism is growing is because of its editorial independence. As readers we can judge for ourselves what is a reasonable line of thinking and what is not. Even if we are left wing or right wing.
We know propaganda when we see it. The downfall of Mika and Joe, both paragons of the left, demonstrate that Americans aren’t passive vessels. Willing to accept what they are told. The decline in mainstream media is due in part to this. It doesn’t explain the whole story though.
Lenin, Stalin and Hitler all came to understand that too. That’s why they built gulags and eliminated people to intimidate their own citizens instead. Putin does this today. And controls the media.
This is also a problem for Trump. Typically if a politician makes a bad policy decision, their poll ratings tank, so they adjust them to be more popular. Trump seems to be using unpopularity as an excuse for threats against his enemies. And use the media to encourage Americans to support him. That is ending badly for him already.
As long as Trump follows the law and the Constitution it will all be fine. If he doesn’t then that’s when American citizens will end up clashing with an out of control Trump Administration.
Sorry, this is off-base for many reasons. 1) Americans - those who are even paying any attention - clearly are not capable of reasonable thinking or discerning propaganda. One need only look at the [winning] Trump campaign strategy (They're eating the dogs! They're doing surgery for sex changes on children during the school day.) to see that. 2) Joe Scarborough is hardly a "paragon of the left." He was a conservative GOP congressman and holds many of those same values to this day. He just didn't support Trump. 3) Where's the evidence that anything is "ending badly" for Trump? From my vantage point he appears to sit atop all branches of government, with smooth sailing ahead to continue his assault on the rule of law and the environment, stacking of the judiciary, dismantling the administrative state, building an untouchable corporate oligarchy, enriching himself by dint of his position, threatening anyone who doesn't "come to heel," as Gaetz has said. 4) When has Trump ever followed the law and the Constitution? He has made a mockery of the legal process, somehow turning it into an indictment of those who do follow the law. Now he has a hand-selected Supreme Court that has literally proclaimed him above the law, allowing virtually no recourse for opposition. How do we clash with that?
"As readers we can judge for ourselves what is a reasonable line of thinking and what is not." I don't know that this statement is true for the vast majority of people out there. When we can't agree on what a fact is, I think we're going to be left with opinions about opinions and nothing more. Eventually people are going swing back to wanting actual real information, data, facts...what we called news. At least I hope so.
Fundamentally, the longtime business model of mass media is broken. The advertising market is too fragmented to support the cost of professional, fact-checked journalism. The same fragmentation, but of content providers, enables consumers to pick their sources, which means that they will choose those whose viewpoints seem attractive to them, with confirmation of their priors being the biggest motivator. All that causes content creators to cater to, rather than challenge, prejudice. I don't see how this gets fixed. Given the significant cost of full access to varied viewpoints, responsible civic engagement becomes less likely.
1) While I get news orgs need to monitize their web sites, I have cut off the NYT and WaPo (for example) simply because they went behind the paywall. I didn't read enough of their content to justify a subscription, but I did add to click counts, until they sealed the wall.
2) My wife went on a news boycott after the election. Not because she needed a break from news writ large, but literally because she is currently triggered by the image and voice of the President-elect. So, she accepts that I still absorb news, and trusts me to pass on to her news she should know. And, she regularly asks me "what does Chris Cellizza say/think about...?"
3) I accept that people don't trust big news orgs as much as before (and maybe never again). I accept that the new model you describe is happening. What I wonder is, how do "news influencers" get legitimized? What will be the mechanism to ensure that gullible people aren't being fed bad information (which, of course, is part of what big orgs are already no longer being trusted for, I suppose)
4) Lastly, a number of years ago I read an article in Inc mag. It was during a period of it being an employer's market. The article implored employers to not get cocky and exploit employees today, because someday the pendulum would swing back in employees' favor, and employers that exploited would be remembered, and sorry (have trouble hiring). Perhaps that idea could be expanded to the upper 1%, and maybe as trust in institutions wanes, the rich will have to find new ways to get the average consumer to buy what they're selling.
Mainstream news swung too hard in the direction of opinion. It’s far, far worse and blatant and sensationalist on the right, less so, but still true, on the left. But even the centrist US-based media fell into the trap. It’s okay to report, and assess, analyze, and hold public officials to account. And it’s necessary to defend doing all of those things. But the centrist media has become too much like infotainment, and the left-leaning media is so politically self-aware and moralistic that it even turns me off, and I’m as liberal as can be.
If your system has it, I find BBC is a great option. You get actual news and very little opinion pieces. CNN is a go-to for actual breaking news (terrorism, earthquakes, etc.) but even as a political junkie the endless panel discussions are too much.
BBC is my go-to for most news. In fact, foreign sources generally are better. I find they don’t talk down to their audience and are focused on delivering their reporting rather than celebrating their reporting (the self-congratulations about breaking a story drive me crazy… just tell me the story!!)
The Guardian is also great. Obvious bias, but they treat their readers as intelligent people.
With the exception that the BBC is EXTREMELY biased when it comes to reporting on Israel, I would agree with you. But on that topic, you might as well be watching Al Jazeera than the BBC.
Exactly the point I was about to make, GreatDarkSpot.
Exactly. If “news” were actually News,then it would be worth watching/listening. Listening to a supposed newscaster droning on about what they think about what is happening is of little interest. If I want an opinion,then I will read “So What”!
good information...I will assume you mean the facts and truth...will be almost impossible to find on the internet for two reasons:
1. The death of critical thinking in this country. People, over the last 30 years, look for sources who will confirm what they believe to be the truth. With the attention span of a fruit fly, the electorate has now pointed the gun at its own head.
2. The internet business model thrives on misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. there is no money to be made by publishing the truth. So far the only decent website for information and opinion is the Bulwark.
Those who want to be informed will have to rely on reliable sources such as the BBC and Al Jazeera. Think about that for a minute.
Chris, even you understand you are swimming upstream (pun intended).
By the way, all of this really began with the elimation of the Fairness Doctrine.
Agreed. I try to get a lot of my news from overseas sources. More fact-based. Less biased (though there is a Eurocentric bias that can't be avoided).
Yes to BBC.
Always been in my rotation.
The dumbing down of America has entered an echo chamber loop of disinformation and right-wing propaganda.
You are right, and I have tried to listen to Joe Rogan since my son listens to him and I found it painful. I listen to lots of podcasts, but his just felt unending and pointless. Maybe I should have listened longer but couldn't. But, it shows the siloing of how people are getting their news.
Traditional media (not just newspapers but also magazines and broadcast television) are in a downward spiral. Declining numbers of readers and viewers means declining revenue. Less revenue means smaller newsrooms. Less original reporting means smaller audience. And so on. One big downside to the plethora of new content providers is that few of them are doing any original reporting. Lots of aggregation and analysis and commentary, but few new facts.
Chris-this is most likely a question for Friday newsletter, if I get a chance I will ask again on Thursday. With the slow death of the mainstream media, who are you reading? Left, Center and Right? One person I think is invaluable is Heather Cox Richardson, her daily summary with footnotes is clear and concise.
Thanks!
Good question! We know that he reads Gabe Fleisher’s Wake Up To Politics and Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark, because he’s given both of them shoutouts, but the rest would be very interesting to know!
Chris, as of today, yes, that is how things are trending. But I can't fully agree, for two reasons (I was in the media, albeit a long time ago):
1) Media has always been cyclical; what was 'old' magically becomes 'new'.
2) All these new 'sources' have not yet proven that they can, or even want, to maintain.
Profitability is definitely an issue for the mainstream, but I think it's way too early to start writing obits. We'll see if these new cars can stay on the road....
I agree! When CNN came on the scene, it was so new and different! That can happen again. I also think the habits of younger adults may not be a permanent shift. They may well grow out of their consumption habits. Or get bored of them.
Totally on board with people getting their information from multiple sources. That's a good thing. The issue I have is that so many of the sources cannot be trusted. Many are liberal or conservative echo chambers, and worse, some are nothing more than agenda-driven misinformation engines.
Journalistic gatekeeping used to serve a valuable purpose. It kept the masses on the same page in terms of our shared reality. Now we live in different realities that mirror what we want to believe rather than objective truth.
It's scary, disheartening, and I'm not sure how it gets any better.
So true!
Good point. I knew a slew of old-time newspaper editors. They're now dead. We'd meet weekly for coffee and BS sessions. They had personal points of view, and they differed. But when it came to what stories were in their papers, like honest jurors, they deliberately set aside their own prejudices to the extent humanly possible, and printed the news - let the chips fall where they may.
Never going back. Every Democrat in the nation should watch this in its entirety.
And get angry.
https://youtu.be/HNcmo-K5Xsg
The fact is that the mainstream news organizations went all in against President Trump in the run-up to the 2024 election. There was no subtly to this at all; they abandoned any pretense of non bias to 'stop Hitler'. They failed miserably and burned whatever trust they had with one side of the electorate and the other side realizes that the news has lost most of their power, so they don't want to watch, either. Chris once famously tweeted that 'reporters do not root for a side'. Well, if that's the case, most of the people on TV news are not 'reporters' as they were undoubtedly and clearly rooting for a side. It's pretty hard to look at someone as an unbiased and accurate source of news after they spent months slanting the playing field.
You are confusing bother siderism with unbiased. Not the same. It's like when folks say no on has ever been investigated as much as Trump, as though that's some sort of evidence of unfairness. The fact is that no other president broke as many laws as Trump, hence the investigations. I know you won't hear this point. But I'm tired of Trumpers deciding that just saying things with confidence makes them true. It does not.
Anybody who looks at the mainstream media and thinks it's unbiased really isn't taking an honest look. And, no, I do not spend all my time watching Fox (never do, actually) because I don't like to be in an echo chamber. Even on this site, Chris gets a lot of flack for simply reporting instead of being an advocate for the Democratic side.
You would have a point if Trump, since at least 2015, hadn't been systematically grooming his acolytes not to believe anything negative about him from reporters. His self-serving propaganda brainwashed a lot of minds, and still does. Study Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor.
Trump is a transactional, egotistical asshole. He isn't Hitler. The fact that the press can't seem to make this point is their failure.
Perhaps the problem is that you're not willing to see it. Just because all the mechanisms are not yet in place doesn't mean we aren't headed down the path of Hitlerian autocracy. Seems to me you just edit out anything that doesn't fit your narrative, which is your bias. Maybe you should listen more to Trump and not blame the media that report it. His intentions are hardly subtle.
I’ve listened to 3 hour rallies of Trump and long interviews. I’m a student of history and have listened to the 30’s fascist speeches.... they are nothing alike. Take it from me. Hitler is a very aggressive guy who wants to start wars around the world, Trump is pretty much the opposite and wants isolationism/non-interventionism. Tariffs and tax cuts don’t fit into the fascist ideology at all either... what are you watching?
Intense nationalism, comingling of government and corporations, focusing attention on a scapegoat, dividing the people, threatening retribution and elimination of "enemies" using the power of the goverment, suppression of any expression of dissent, and the incessant lies. Trump has no equal at indecency, vulgarity, hatefulness and the demand for absolute submission. If you don't want to categorize that as dangerous authoritarianism, we'll just disagree. And that doesn't even touch on Trump's manifest mental illness.
I saw the raw number on the number of viewers for Fox, MSNBC & CNN yesterday and they are even lower than I thought. The % changes hide how few people actually watch. For the AC360 & Chris Hayes shows, it's under 75,000 a night. Fox is a lot higher but even then it's not that much. Clearly the audience isn't there anymore for evening political panels.
The difference is that Fox has an echo chamber delivery network - boosted exponentially by Elon Musk - to disseminate its propaganda. It seems most people are unconcerned with news reporting or accuracy. That Joe Rogan is now deemed essential for a Presidential win is an inescapable sign of decline.
Best keep in mind that news "influencers" are just that, not news reporters. By definition the intent is to affect, not to inform.
Just how many $80 Substack subscriptions do I need to hold to be well-informed? I get the disaggregation caused by the 'net. But this is trending in a direction that's very unhealthy for democracy and encouraging ofmob rule.
Yeah, there really needs to be a substack bundle. Having a $5 floor per month gets expensive quickly.
I agree with you, Chris. Personally, the last few years we have watched less and less cable news, unsubscribed from the WAPO & NYT, as well as our local newspaper. Our local paper just didn’t have enough in it to make it worth while. We have been slowly building our consumption of news from independent journalism and media. During the debates this cycle, we watched on CNN but turned off afterwards as we just had no desire to listen to them. I was actually on your chat, Chris. For the record, we are seniors and not watching the cable news at all.
You are absolutely right Chris. One of the reasons social media journalism is growing is because of its editorial independence. As readers we can judge for ourselves what is a reasonable line of thinking and what is not. Even if we are left wing or right wing.
We know propaganda when we see it. The downfall of Mika and Joe, both paragons of the left, demonstrate that Americans aren’t passive vessels. Willing to accept what they are told. The decline in mainstream media is due in part to this. It doesn’t explain the whole story though.
Lenin, Stalin and Hitler all came to understand that too. That’s why they built gulags and eliminated people to intimidate their own citizens instead. Putin does this today. And controls the media.
This is also a problem for Trump. Typically if a politician makes a bad policy decision, their poll ratings tank, so they adjust them to be more popular. Trump seems to be using unpopularity as an excuse for threats against his enemies. And use the media to encourage Americans to support him. That is ending badly for him already.
As long as Trump follows the law and the Constitution it will all be fine. If he doesn’t then that’s when American citizens will end up clashing with an out of control Trump Administration.
Sorry, this is off-base for many reasons. 1) Americans - those who are even paying any attention - clearly are not capable of reasonable thinking or discerning propaganda. One need only look at the [winning] Trump campaign strategy (They're eating the dogs! They're doing surgery for sex changes on children during the school day.) to see that. 2) Joe Scarborough is hardly a "paragon of the left." He was a conservative GOP congressman and holds many of those same values to this day. He just didn't support Trump. 3) Where's the evidence that anything is "ending badly" for Trump? From my vantage point he appears to sit atop all branches of government, with smooth sailing ahead to continue his assault on the rule of law and the environment, stacking of the judiciary, dismantling the administrative state, building an untouchable corporate oligarchy, enriching himself by dint of his position, threatening anyone who doesn't "come to heel," as Gaetz has said. 4) When has Trump ever followed the law and the Constitution? He has made a mockery of the legal process, somehow turning it into an indictment of those who do follow the law. Now he has a hand-selected Supreme Court that has literally proclaimed him above the law, allowing virtually no recourse for opposition. How do we clash with that?
"As readers we can judge for ourselves what is a reasonable line of thinking and what is not." I don't know that this statement is true for the vast majority of people out there. When we can't agree on what a fact is, I think we're going to be left with opinions about opinions and nothing more. Eventually people are going swing back to wanting actual real information, data, facts...what we called news. At least I hope so.
Fundamentally, the longtime business model of mass media is broken. The advertising market is too fragmented to support the cost of professional, fact-checked journalism. The same fragmentation, but of content providers, enables consumers to pick their sources, which means that they will choose those whose viewpoints seem attractive to them, with confirmation of their priors being the biggest motivator. All that causes content creators to cater to, rather than challenge, prejudice. I don't see how this gets fixed. Given the significant cost of full access to varied viewpoints, responsible civic engagement becomes less likely.
I have 4 thoughts from this:
1) While I get news orgs need to monitize their web sites, I have cut off the NYT and WaPo (for example) simply because they went behind the paywall. I didn't read enough of their content to justify a subscription, but I did add to click counts, until they sealed the wall.
2) My wife went on a news boycott after the election. Not because she needed a break from news writ large, but literally because she is currently triggered by the image and voice of the President-elect. So, she accepts that I still absorb news, and trusts me to pass on to her news she should know. And, she regularly asks me "what does Chris Cellizza say/think about...?"
3) I accept that people don't trust big news orgs as much as before (and maybe never again). I accept that the new model you describe is happening. What I wonder is, how do "news influencers" get legitimized? What will be the mechanism to ensure that gullible people aren't being fed bad information (which, of course, is part of what big orgs are already no longer being trusted for, I suppose)
4) Lastly, a number of years ago I read an article in Inc mag. It was during a period of it being an employer's market. The article implored employers to not get cocky and exploit employees today, because someday the pendulum would swing back in employees' favor, and employers that exploited would be remembered, and sorry (have trouble hiring). Perhaps that idea could be expanded to the upper 1%, and maybe as trust in institutions wanes, the rich will have to find new ways to get the average consumer to buy what they're selling.