A Cesspool of Narcissistic Insular Self-Gratification': How the Mainstream Media Squandered the Public's Trust (and How To Win It Back)

[Valin]

The Washington Free Beacon

REVIEW: 'Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People' by Steve Krakauer
Andrew Stiles    
April 1, 2023

 

Steve Krakauer is a journalist and he's here to help.

That sounds almost as terrifying as a government bureaucrat offering assistance, per Ronald Reagan's famous quip. Perhaps even more terrifying given that Americans these days are more likely to say they trust the federal government than say the same about the mainstream media.

(Snip)

Uncovered is drawn from more than two dozen on-the-record interviews with prominent journalists and media personalities including Piers Morgan, John Roberts, Amy Chozick, Bob Ley, and Tucker Carlson, who claims to have heard Joe Biden's family say "out loud that he had dementia." Like a concerned relative orchestrating an intervention, Krakauer outlines several problems fueling the public's distrust of the "Acela Media"—elite institutions based in Washington, D.C., and New York.

They are geographically (and culturally) isolated from the vast majority of Americans. They are highly credentialed, prone to "egotism and self-absorption," loath to admit mistakes and correct them. They're just as lazy and incompetent as the rest of us, increasingly susceptible to perverse financial incentives. They've been absorbed into The Establishment, grown too cozy and incestually involved with the powerful figures they're supposed to be scrutinizing, too aloof and even hostile toward the public they're supposed to serve.

(Snip)

If the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem and asking for help, the Acela Media might never recover the trust they deservedly lost. Krakauer notes toward the end of the book that a media executive he greatly respects declined to be interviewed "because he believed the focus of the book was completely misplaced and misguided. According to this executive, the big story of the media's decline was one outlet and one outlet only—Fox News."

Only one bona fide member of the Acela Media, Morning Joe host Willie Geist, contributed a blurb for Uncovered. After making sure to note that he doesn't "always agree" with Krakauer's criticism, he suggested his "friends in the media would be smart to read this book." Which is why they almost certainly won't.

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Mar. 1 2023

[Valin]

One of (IMO) the most important Films made in recent decades. You want to see Why Donald Trump became President, and Why we see Trump Derangement Syndrome...Here ya go

 

Top  Comment
@locrynmurray4719
5 years ago
This is the one movie where I can never quite decide whether this ending is horrible or genius. On the one hand, it's ridiculously abrupt and it probably could have done with something after the shooting just to "play us out", as it were. On the other hand, it sums up the movie pretty damn perfectly. Howard Beale essentially became a gimmick. When the gimmick had run its course, it was disposed with and forgotten in very short order as such things always are. So I guess it's very fitting to end it all so quickly...

[SDwaters]

Never in my life did I expect to see so many institutions (media, medicine, DoJ, DoD, Treasury, etc.) squander their credibility so thoroughly, so fast.

To paraphrase James T. Kirk . . . "Beam us up Scotty; we're in a world of hurt down here!"

[Valin]

1 hour ago, SDwaters said:

Never in my life did I expect to see so many institutions (media, medicine, DoJ, DoD, Treasury, etc.) squander their credibility so thoroughly, so fast.

To paraphrase James T. Kirk . . . "Beam us up Scotty; we're in a world of hurt down here!"

I have been trying to come up with a major institution I have a great deal of confidence in.  I'll let you know when  find  one. don't hold lunch waiting.