Hi — Mark Jacob here, contributor at COURIER.
I sometimes wonder why journalists are so polite to people who are actively trying to destroy journalism.
The Trump regime threatens reporters, smears news outlets as enemies, and works to eliminate independent oversight. Yet too often, mainstream media respond with deference, false balance, and an almost ritualistic refusal to say plainly what’s happening.
In this piece, I look at how corporate caution, profit motives, and fear of retaliation have pushed major outlets into a dangerous middle ground — one where authoritarian behavior is normalized and the public is left unprepared for what’s at stake.
Thanks for reading,
Mark Jacob
I sometimes wonder why journalists are so nice to the people who want to destroy them.
Republicans who run the government seem determined to wipe out independent oversight, to turn journalism into an obsolete job like lamplighter or video store clerk.
Trump rewards media suck-ups and punishes legitimate journalists. He accuses TV networks of “treason” and threatens to pull their broadcast licenses. The Pentagon evicts reporters for refusing to accept draconian rules. The FBI searches a reporter’s home and seizes her computers, phone, and smart watch. And for a decade, Trump has smeared news outlets as “enemies of the people.”
Yet time after time, mainstream media give these authoritarians a platform to lie to the American people, often unchallenged. One of the media’s motives is based on a misguided principle: They think the marketplace of ideas will sort things out and it’s their job to present “both sides.” They believe that makes them fair; I think it makes them stenographers.
What’s more alarming and not at all principled is corporate media’s triangulation. They want to make their news truthful enough to keep an audience that’s attractive to advertisers while preventing it from being so truthful that it ticks off center-right customers and gains the negative attention of Trump and the tech-financial oligarchy behind him.
As one legacy outlet, CBS News, has become an organ of the dictatorship, its viewership numbers have slipped. There is a financial danger of being too Trumpy. But other major outlets know if they go the other way – if they state the dangers of the regime in frank terms – they will be punished with frivolous lawsuits, regulatory harassment, and a lack of access.
So we get news from an absurd patch of middle ground. Major media know Trump is building a dictatorship, but they’re unwilling to tell the public that Trump is building a dictatorship.
This cynical pursuit of profit at the expense of public awareness is unacceptable. In our democracy, journalists stand in a privileged position, with freedom of the press specifically protected in the Constitution. They have a duty to inform the electorate.
I’m not saying all journalists must be pro-democracy. In a free country, they’re allowed to be communists or fascists or whatever they want, if they do it nonviolently (which fascists generally don’t, since they thrive on violence and abuse of power).
But whatever their ideology, responsible owners of major news outlets should be honest with their audiences about what’s at stake. Their outlets shouldn’t normalize corruption and use soft language for hard truths, such as National Public Radio referring last week to the Trump regime’s “willingness to push the boundaries of the law” when the regime is way, way beyond the boundaries.
What’s especially mystifying about mainstream media’s behavior is that they’re tying the rope for their own noose. If they aren’t willing to accept a basic duty of journalism – to warn the public about dangers to their well-being – they ought to at least be selfish enough to worry about dangers to the well-being of their own industry.
Trump is trying to turn them into fascist functionaries, and they ought to be alarmed about that – unless they don’t care what they broadcast as long as they get paid for it.