These Days, It's Conservatives Doing Real Journalism
Donald Trump is like alcohol; he has a way of revealing peoples’ true feelings.
And like that coworker at the holiday office party who finally tells everyone what he thinks of them, America’s mainstream media establishment has clearly had a few too many.
For decades, members of the media masqueraded as practitioners of objectivity, supposedly uninterested in politics or policy. But the truth always comes out, and when they could no longer conceal their bias we were assured that it was possible to pick sides privately while remaining objective professionally. Now, in the age of Orange Man Bad, everything is upside down and any semblance of objectivity is considered unethical, an accessory to the “crimes” of the current administration.
Consider a passage from CNN Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s book: “Neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t really serve us in the age of Trump.”
His colleagues clearly agree.
Take CNN’s Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter, who promoted the idea of censoring the President with a 10-minute delay during live events. Or Michael Grunwald, a writer for Politico who vociferously defended Joe Biden’s plagiarism of environmental groups’ websites, instead labeling it “agreeing”; or a front-page story from the New York Times demonizing the millions of viewers who regularly log on to hear right-leaning thinkers on YouTube.
Even longtime CNN host Larry King has admitted the news is broken, chastising his former network and bemoaning the media’s obsession with bringing down Trump. Former CBS Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan echoed King’s comments, albeit a bit more forcefully, earlier this year.
When the likes of King and Logan are sounding the warnings, you know things have gotten out of hand.
Luckily, however, a different type of “resistance” has found a foothold in America’s media landscape. While the mainstream press and pundits were busy handling public relations for the Democratic Party, right-leaning writers and outlets stepped in to perform the critical functions abandoned by their liberal peers. Which begs the question: where would Americans be without conservative media?
For starters we would be largely in the dark regarding the President’s numerous successes.
A study by the Media Research Center
found that throughout 2017 and 2018, the nation’s three largest
television networks cast the President in a negative light 90 percent of
the time despite an economy that is shattering expectations and
numerous accomplishments the left supposedly holds dear, such as prison
reform.
But it wouldn’t matter, as Trump may well be on his way out; the prosecutorial misconduct and conflicts of interest behind Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign meddling in the 2016 election would have largely gone unnoticed, increasing the possibility of successful impeachment.
It was the Wall Street Journal that broke the story of Mueller team member Peter Strzok’s anti-Trump emails and consequent reassignment.
But it was continuous, quality reporting by the likes of Julie Kelly and Mollie Hemingway that ensured such shenanigans remained in the conversation day in and day out. The mainstream media, suckers for police corruption stories, strangely looked the other way when the cops were on their side.
And while "The View" and cable news networks drooled over the anti-Trump rhetoric of Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer Michael Avenatti, who made 121 appearances on CNN and 108 on MSNBC during the Daniels saga, Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson were exposing his sordid past at the Daily Caller.
And if not for reporters like Robby Soave (who isn’t a traditional conservative but frequently highlights left-wing lunacy) and Ashe Schow, most would be clueless as to the degree to which college campuses have devolved into madness.
Joe Biden’s claims that the Obama administration was “scandal free” would have gone unquestioned. The fact-checkers that so valiantly examine Trump’s every word were strangely absent when it came time to critique their beloved Barack. Fortunately, the Washington Examiner and PJ Media picked up their slack.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still some good objective reporters out there. But they are an endangered species, vilified by their peers for upholding the once sacred ideals of the press. It’s precisely this scarcity that has enabled the rise of conservative media and requires the preservation of conservative thought in America’s marketplace of ideas, which is sadly in danger.
While liberals are quick to parrot “Fox News” as evidence that conservatives are given a fair shake, the cable news Goliath is still a gnat compared to the competition. In 2018 the network averaged 2.5 million viewers in prime time compared to the nearly 24 million who tuned in to the three major networks’ (the same ones that gave Trump 90 percent negative coverage) evening newscasts last November.
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that conservative ideas are not only being attacked by the left, but by supposed “conservatives” themselves.
Bill Kristol, George Will, Ana Navarro, and countless others claim the conservative mantle yet have overnight become anti-tax cut, pro-immigration pundits dominating the cable news circuit to hurl stones at the President alongside the liberals they once supposedly despised.
Add to this media monopoly the squeezing of conservative thought by the Big Tech oligarchy -- Twitter’s “shadowbanning” is well-known and Google is currently under fire for insisting they are the only company capable of stopping Trump’s reelection -- and you’re left with gross ideological imbalance.
Were today’s journalists actually interested in facts, this imbalance would be less of a crisis. But as it stands there is no true press in this country, and conservative writers and pundits are the only people salvaging what is left of the national conversation. In fact, given the circumstances, they may be the only true journalists in the country.
Critics will predictably pipe up with retorts such as “But they aren’t journalists, they are opinion writers!”
Many admittedly are, but so are their liberal counterparts. As Ted Koppel recently pointed out: “We have things appearing on the front page of the New York Times right now that never would have appeared 50 years ago. Analysis, commentary on the front page.”
The press’s decision to eschew facts in favor of feelings has left in its wake an opinion-only landscape, and conservative counterarguments are critical to ensuring the American public gets both sides of the story. It’s important to point out that while the mainstream media falsely claimed to be informing the American people, those they constantly mock were doing just that.
Not surprisingly, they remain ungrateful. In fact, Margot Cleveland revealed at the Federalist that USA Today’s opinion page has stopped accepting pieces that link to conservative sources.
It’s been said that alcoholics must hit rock bottom before they can kick the addiction. If only the same were true of the mainstream media, which bottomed out on November 9, 2016, yet somehow keep falling.
Luckily for America, there are enough sober conservatives out there to drive them home.
And like that coworker at the holiday office party who finally tells everyone what he thinks of them, America’s mainstream media establishment has clearly had a few too many.
For decades, members of the media masqueraded as practitioners of objectivity, supposedly uninterested in politics or policy. But the truth always comes out, and when they could no longer conceal their bias we were assured that it was possible to pick sides privately while remaining objective professionally. Now, in the age of Orange Man Bad, everything is upside down and any semblance of objectivity is considered unethical, an accessory to the “crimes” of the current administration.
Consider a passage from CNN Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s book: “Neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t really serve us in the age of Trump.”
His colleagues clearly agree.
Take CNN’s Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter, who promoted the idea of censoring the President with a 10-minute delay during live events. Or Michael Grunwald, a writer for Politico who vociferously defended Joe Biden’s plagiarism of environmental groups’ websites, instead labeling it “agreeing”; or a front-page story from the New York Times demonizing the millions of viewers who regularly log on to hear right-leaning thinkers on YouTube.
Even longtime CNN host Larry King has admitted the news is broken, chastising his former network and bemoaning the media’s obsession with bringing down Trump. Former CBS Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan echoed King’s comments, albeit a bit more forcefully, earlier this year.
When the likes of King and Logan are sounding the warnings, you know things have gotten out of hand.
Luckily, however, a different type of “resistance” has found a foothold in America’s media landscape. While the mainstream press and pundits were busy handling public relations for the Democratic Party, right-leaning writers and outlets stepped in to perform the critical functions abandoned by their liberal peers. Which begs the question: where would Americans be without conservative media?
For starters we would be largely in the dark regarding the President’s numerous successes.
A study by the Media Research Center
found that throughout 2017 and 2018, the nation’s three largest
television networks cast the President in a negative light 90 percent of
the time despite an economy that is shattering expectations and
numerous accomplishments the left supposedly holds dear, such as prison
reform.But it wouldn’t matter, as Trump may well be on his way out; the prosecutorial misconduct and conflicts of interest behind Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign meddling in the 2016 election would have largely gone unnoticed, increasing the possibility of successful impeachment.
It was the Wall Street Journal that broke the story of Mueller team member Peter Strzok’s anti-Trump emails and consequent reassignment.
But it was continuous, quality reporting by the likes of Julie Kelly and Mollie Hemingway that ensured such shenanigans remained in the conversation day in and day out. The mainstream media, suckers for police corruption stories, strangely looked the other way when the cops were on their side.
And while "The View" and cable news networks drooled over the anti-Trump rhetoric of Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer Michael Avenatti, who made 121 appearances on CNN and 108 on MSNBC during the Daniels saga, Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson were exposing his sordid past at the Daily Caller.
And if not for reporters like Robby Soave (who isn’t a traditional conservative but frequently highlights left-wing lunacy) and Ashe Schow, most would be clueless as to the degree to which college campuses have devolved into madness.
Joe Biden’s claims that the Obama administration was “scandal free” would have gone unquestioned. The fact-checkers that so valiantly examine Trump’s every word were strangely absent when it came time to critique their beloved Barack. Fortunately, the Washington Examiner and PJ Media picked up their slack.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still some good objective reporters out there. But they are an endangered species, vilified by their peers for upholding the once sacred ideals of the press. It’s precisely this scarcity that has enabled the rise of conservative media and requires the preservation of conservative thought in America’s marketplace of ideas, which is sadly in danger.
While liberals are quick to parrot “Fox News” as evidence that conservatives are given a fair shake, the cable news Goliath is still a gnat compared to the competition. In 2018 the network averaged 2.5 million viewers in prime time compared to the nearly 24 million who tuned in to the three major networks’ (the same ones that gave Trump 90 percent negative coverage) evening newscasts last November.
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that conservative ideas are not only being attacked by the left, but by supposed “conservatives” themselves.
Bill Kristol, George Will, Ana Navarro, and countless others claim the conservative mantle yet have overnight become anti-tax cut, pro-immigration pundits dominating the cable news circuit to hurl stones at the President alongside the liberals they once supposedly despised.
Add to this media monopoly the squeezing of conservative thought by the Big Tech oligarchy -- Twitter’s “shadowbanning” is well-known and Google is currently under fire for insisting they are the only company capable of stopping Trump’s reelection -- and you’re left with gross ideological imbalance.
Were today’s journalists actually interested in facts, this imbalance would be less of a crisis. But as it stands there is no true press in this country, and conservative writers and pundits are the only people salvaging what is left of the national conversation. In fact, given the circumstances, they may be the only true journalists in the country.
Critics will predictably pipe up with retorts such as “But they aren’t journalists, they are opinion writers!”
Many admittedly are, but so are their liberal counterparts. As Ted Koppel recently pointed out: “We have things appearing on the front page of the New York Times right now that never would have appeared 50 years ago. Analysis, commentary on the front page.”
The press’s decision to eschew facts in favor of feelings has left in its wake an opinion-only landscape, and conservative counterarguments are critical to ensuring the American public gets both sides of the story. It’s important to point out that while the mainstream media falsely claimed to be informing the American people, those they constantly mock were doing just that.
Not surprisingly, they remain ungrateful. In fact, Margot Cleveland revealed at the Federalist that USA Today’s opinion page has stopped accepting pieces that link to conservative sources.
It’s been said that alcoholics must hit rock bottom before they can kick the addiction. If only the same were true of the mainstream media, which bottomed out on November 9, 2016, yet somehow keep falling.
Luckily for America, there are enough sober conservatives out there to drive them home.
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