{"id":30353,"date":"2023-12-04T10:45:34","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T18:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=30353"},"modified":"2023-12-04T10:46:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T18:46:34","slug":"cowardly-for-profit-journalism-is-bringing-trumps-fascism-back-to-our-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/12\/04\/cowardly-for-profit-journalism-is-bringing-trumps-fascism-back-to-our-door\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowardly For-Profit Journalism Is Bringing Trump’s Fascism Back to Our Door"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Trump<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Supporters of former US President Donald Trump gather near his residence at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 9, 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by Giorgio VIERA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For voters to make intelligent decisions about candidates, they must be well-informed. Sadly, that is very much not what is happening today in America. If we don’t confront this crisis, democracy itself will pay the price.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

THOM HARTMANN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 02, 2023 Common Dreams<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over at his excellent Substack newsletter <\/a>, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich asks the question that\u2019s probably on the minds of many: \u201cWhy are so many people prepared to vote for Trump?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, there have been at least seven national polls conducted by reputable organizations in the past few weeks and not a single one shows Biden beating Trump in a 2024 matchup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reich cites the many crimes, lies, and outright fascistic statements attributed to Trump, followed by the considerable list of Biden\u2019s accomplishments, and then offers a poll asking if people say they\u2019re voting for America\u2019s first true wannabee dictator because of ignorance, anger\/fear, racism\/xenophobia, or Biden\u2019s age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All are no doubt significant factors, but I believe the largest variable in Americans\u2019 willingness to say they\u2019ll vote for Trump is far simpler: the consequence of yellow journalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not talking about a simple left\/right bias, a political preference held by reporters or publishers and editors of the nation\u2019s major media outlets. While there\u2019s a strong case to be made for billion-dollar corporations and multimillionaire media personalities having a preference for low taxes and deregulation, for example, the bias I\u2019m referencing has to do with spectacle <\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generations ago, we referred to newspapers that emphasized scandal and celebrity intrigue as \u201cyellow journalism.\u201d The phrase dates back to the 1890s when William Randolph Hearst bought, in 1895, the Journal <\/em>, a New York newspaper that he used to successfully compete with Joseph Pulitizer\u2019s then-dominant New York World <\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hearst hired away from Pulitzer\u2019s papers a number of famous writers along with Richard Outcault, then arguably the nation\u2019s most famous cartoonist, who penned the wildly popular series called The Yellow Kid <\/em>. Between Outcault\u2019s draw and Hearst\u2019s emphasis on celebrity and sensationalism, from the 1890s until the WWII era, \u201cyellow journalism\u201d dominated <\/a>the American media scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It quite literally took World War II to push public demand for real news and serious reporting \u2014 and a new emphasis on fact-based reporting and substance over flash \u2014 back into media dominance. It birthed what became the era of Walter Cronkite and Catherine Graham, with honest, credible reporting on everything from Nixon\u2019s Watergate crimes to the horrors of the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cronkite competed with Huntley and Brinkley based on the quality of their reporting and the credibility of their sources, as did the nation\u2019s major and even regional newspapers and radio news networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I trace the modern era of yellow journalism to the 1990s, when the nation was transfixed by Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr\u2019s relentless and pornographic pursuit of Bill Clinton\u2019s affair with Monica Lewinsky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Reagan ended enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, radio and TV stations were no longer burdened by the requirement to \u201cprogram in the public interest\u201d to maintain their broadcast licenses; all three major TV networks moved their news divisions \u2014 which had universally been losing money because of the requirement for \u201creal news\u201d \u2014 under the arm of their entertainment divisions, where they remain to this day and have now become significant profit centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rush Limbaugh\u2019s 1988 national syndication and Rupert Murdoch\u2019s 1996 Fox \u201cNews\u201d set the tone for this era\u2019s new yellow journalism, frontloading \u2014 as did Hearst back in the day \u2014 personality, celebrity, and scandal over the boring details of policy, debate, and the consequence of congressional and presidential decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cyellow\u201d of this era\u2019s \u201cyellow journalism,\u201d I\u2019d argue, more accurately means \u201ccowardly,\u201d now that nobody remembers the cartoon of the 1890s. And, unlike the 1890s when there were still papers engaging in serious journalism, today\u2019s yellow journalism is ubiquitous across the media consumed by the majority of Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a consequence, a September <\/a>Wall Street Journal <\/a><\/em>poll <\/a>found that 52% of voters today claim that Trump \u201chas a strong record of accomplishments\u201d but only 40% say the same for Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now the researchers are beginning to weigh in, documenting how 21st century yellow journalism has altered our political landscape and led to the rise of the ultimate scandal\/celebrity\/personality spectacle: Donald Trump and his fascist cult followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Columbia Journalism Review <\/em>, arguably the premiere watchdog of American news reporting, just published a scathing indictment of political coverage in The New York Times <\/em>and The Washington Post <\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because these newspapers are so widely read and respected, they tend to set the agenda and tone for most other reporting in the United States, and what the Review <\/em>found was shocking <\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cBoth emphasized the horse race and campaign palace intrigue, stories that functioned more to entertain readers than to educate them on essential differences between political parties. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the numbers, of four hundred and eight articles on the front page of the Times during the period we analyzed, about half\u2014two hundred nineteen\u2014were about domestic politics. A generous interpretation found that just ten of those stories explained domestic public policy in any detail; only one front-page article in the lead-up to the midterms really leaned into discussion about a policy matter in Congress: Republican efforts to shrink Social Security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf three hundred and ninety-three front-page articles in the Post, two hundred fifteen were about domestic politics; our research found only four stories that discussed any form of policy. The Post had no front-page stories in the months ahead of the midterms on policies that candidates aimed to bring to the fore or legislation they intended to pursue. Instead, articles speculated about candidates and discussed where voter bases were leaning.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is the exact same type of yellow journalism \u201creporting\u201d that led up to the 2016 election and brought us Donald Trump as president, and is a clear echo of the days of Hearst\u2019s New York Journal <\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not just selective reporting of the news of the day with a heavy tilt toward the GOP (or, more correctly, a steady refusal to report on the accomplishments of Biden and Democrats).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another factor that Hearst played on heavily and has come to dominate what passes today for journalism is the inversion of expectation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As any comedian can tell you, an involuntary laugh response comes when a person thinks they know what\u2019s coming next and is then, instead, surprised by the unexpected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cI just flew in from New York,\u201d Red Skelton used to famously say, deadpan. \u201cBoy, are my arms tired!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In his 1941 book American Journalism. A History of Newspapers in the United States through 250 Years, 1690 to 1940 <\/a><\/em>, Frank Luther Mott famously noted the hallmark of Hearst\u2019s time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWhen a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s yellow journalism era, reporters are far more interested in \u201cman bites dog\u201d stories than in examining the factors and history that may have provoked that bite, or even covering in any detail the frequency of dogs biting people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest example comes from an in-depth analysis done by Media Matters <\/em>comparing Hillary Clinton\u2019s private comment about Trump\u2019s followers being \u201ca basket of deplorables\u201d and Trump\u2019s very public proclamation, literally echoing Hitler, that some of us are \u201cvermin\u201d who he intends to \u201croot out\u201d and eliminate from American society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clinton is a reasonable and thoughtful politician and former diplomat, so her \u201cdeplorables\u201d comment was seen by our yellow press as \u201cman bites dog.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, on the other hand, is a sadistic fascist whose call for the extermination of his political opponents could reasonably be expected: \u201cdog bites man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data proves the thesis, as Media Matters <\/em>notes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMedia Matters reviewed the nationally syndicated broadcast news shows \u2014 ABC\u2019s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS\u2019 This Morning, Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC\u2019s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press \u2014 in the first week after each remark.
\u201cWe found that those programs aired 54 minutes of coverage of Clinton’s \u2018deplorables\u2019 comment but just 3 minutes regarding Trump’s \u2018vermin\u2019 remark.
\u201cABC News aired 20 minutes of \u2018deplorables\u2019 coverage across 13 segments and 3 teasers, but devoted only a single minute of coverage to the \u2018vermin\u2019 comment, during an interview with the network\u2019s chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl, about his new book.
\u201cCBS News provided 13 minutes of \u2018deplorables\u2019 coverage across 11 segments and 3 teasers, compared to 1 passing mention of the \u2018vermin\u2019 remark on Face the Nation that comprised less than 30 seconds.
\u201cAnd NBC News spent 21 minutes of airtime on the \u2018deplorables\u2019 comment across 11 segments, compared to 2 minutes on \u2018vermin\u2019 \u2014 one a passing mention, the other an interview in which Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker read the comment <\/a>to Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and asked her, \u2018Are you comfortable with this language coming from the GOP front-runner?\u2019 (McDaniel declined to comment.)\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cable news (CNN, Fox \u201cNews,\u201d and MSNBC) wasn\u2019t much different:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOn CNN, there were 553 mentions of \u2018deplorable\u2019 compared to 70 for \u2018vermin.\u2019
\u201cOn Fox News, there were 513 mentions of \u2018deplorable\u2019 compared to only 9 of \u2018vermin.\u2019
\u201cAnd on MSNBC, there were 596 mentions of \u2018deplorables\u2019 compared to only 112 of \u2018vermin.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The reporters at Media Matters <\/em>then turned their attention to the nation\u2019s five largest newspapers by circulation: \u201cthe Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post \u2014 in the first week following each remark.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, they found the pattern repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LA Times <\/em>published 3 articles about Clintons \u201cdeplorables\u201d comment, two on the front page. But not even one single article during the week after Trump mentioned \u201cvermin\u201d made any reference whatsoever about his remark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times <\/em>had seven articles about Clinton\u2019s comment, four on the front page; like the LA Times <\/em>, there wasn\u2019t a single news story mentioning Trump\u2019s \u2018vermin\u2019 comment during that time period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wall Street Journal <\/em>similarly ignored Trump\u2019s comment altogether, but ran 8 articles about Clinton\u2019s faux pax <\/em>, four of them on the front page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington Post <\/em>at least mentioned Trump\u2019s comment once, on page A2 (including it in the headline), but gave Clinton\u2019s remark 9 stories, one on the front page, with five using the word \u201cdeplorables\u201d in the headline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA Today <\/em>covered Clinton\u2019s comment in 2 news articles but, like three of the other four papers completely ignored Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far as I can tell there\u2019s been no similar analysis of Obama\u2019s leaked comment about Pennsylvania voters in areas that had been deindustrialized by Reagan\u2019s neoliberal free trade policies and the GOP\u2019s destruction of the trade union movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s not surprising then they get bitter,\u201d Obama told <\/a>a closed-door group of donors, \u201cthey cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The coverage at the time almost completely ignored the context of Obama\u2019s remarks and, instead, focused on the \u201cman bites dog\u201d of a Black politician criticizing rural white voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Tuesday, Trump demanded \u201cthe government\u201d must \u201ccome down hard\u201d and \u201cpunish\u201d MSNBC because Lawrence O\u2019Donnell criticized him on-air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any other democratic nation a leading politician calling for the censorship or punishment of a media outlet would be front page news. Here in America, it was only covered by Deadline <\/em><\/a>, a newspaper that covers Hollywood, and on Lawrence\u2019s own show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, while our economy in many ways is doing better than it has since the 1960s, there\u2019s virtually no mention of that in the media, either. It doesn\u2019t bleed, so it doesn\u2019t lede.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, The Wall Street Journal <\/em>reported <\/a>last week:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOnly 36% of voters in a new Wall Street Journal\/NORC survey said the American dream still holds true, substantially fewer than the 53% who said so in 2012 and 48% in 2016 in similar surveys of adults by another pollster.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Not only has this era\u2019s yellow journalism facilitated the rise of a fascist demagogue and his cult; it has altogether warped Americans\u2019 view of objective reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To paraphrase Clinton\u2019s 1992 campaign, the answer to Reich\u2019s plaintive question about why more voters are going for Trump than Biden regardless of the realities in the fact-based world: \u201cIt\u2019s the media, stupid.\u201d (With the highest respect for Reich.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s almost a cliche these days to complain about the \u201cinfotainment\u201d we see in TV and radio \u201cnews\u201d reporting that has come about in the wake of Reagan ending enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, but to see this same type of horserace coverage passing as news on the front pages of the nation\u2019s largest newspapers is, frankly, a crime against our democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For voters to make intelligent decisions about candidates, they must be well-informed. Sadly, that is very much not what is happening today in America, and our era\u2019s yellow journalism bodes ill for the 2024 elections and the future of our democratic republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can be done about this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1983, President Reagan directed the DOJ, FTC, and SEC <\/a>to essentially stop enforcing our nation\u2019s antitrust laws. As a result, our media has been massively consolidated and is more driven by corporate boardrooms\u2019 profit considerations than any thought about the future of our nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, today more than half of all our country\u2019s local newspapers are owned <\/a>by a handful of New York-based hedge funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, America\u2019s media is not immune to pressure and demands from the public. Most media organizations allow for comments on their articles, letters to the editor, or simply private, typically email, feedback from readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Toqueville famously highlighted <\/a>the critical importance to our democracy of a free and independent press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that our nation\u2019s massive media corporations have failed so tragically in their obligation to inform the public and hold power to account, that job falls to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THOM HARTMANN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of “The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream” (2020); “The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America” (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporters of former US President Donald Trump gather near his residence at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 9, 2022.  (Photo by Giorgio VIERA \/ AFP) For voters to make intelligent decisions about candidates, they must be well-informed. Sadly, that is very much not what is happening today in… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30354,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30353\/revisions\/30354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}