The Press Has Officially Lost Its Grip On Reality

[Geee]

Issues & Insights

Journalists these days bemoan the adherence to “both sides” reporting. Too often, they say, it misleads readers into thinking there are two legitimate sides.

“I’m convinced that journalists — specifically those who cover politics — must keep a sharp focus on truth-seeking, not old-style performative neutrality,” wrote former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan.

Because, you see, democracy is at stake.

Sullivan didn’t need to preach this sermon, because the press has already been living by this credo.

 

The problem is that dumping “old-style neutrality” hasn’t made news coverage more accurate, it’s just led the news media even further into the swamp of hysterical partisanship.

It’s left them prone to hoaxes and forced them to issue countless retractions and corrections. Any story that makes Republicans look bad gets paraded around before lifting a fact-checking finger — from Russia collusion to Jussie Smollet to the supposedly racist Catholic schoolboys.

Immediately after the attack on Paul Pelosi, the press jumped to the conclusion that his attacker was some sort of MAGA nutjob. He’s hardly that.

Just as bad, the non-neutral, truth-seeking press does its level best to keep the public in the dark about any scandals (Hunter Biden, anyone?) and crises that make Democrats look bad — a challenge that gets harder by the day.

Truth, it turns out, now matters far less to the “truth-seeking” press than ever.