The Rising Tide of Anti-Journalism
We’re witnessing an odd transformation in the media world. Increasingly, the debate within mainstream media institutions is what must not be written about, reported, or discussed.
Apparently the staff of the New York Times cannot abide the presence of a heterodox voice such as Bari Weiss. New York magazine no longer has room for Andrew Sullivan. A staff walkout led to Stan Wischnowski, the top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, departing the paper, days after the paper ran an article with the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.” None of those figures would meet many definitions of “right-wing” or “conservative.” But they dared dissent from the hard Left in one way or another and thus became targets of the “cancel culture,” a phenomenon that its most ardent adherents insist doesn’t exist, a prototypical example of gaslighting if there ever was one.
Major institutions of American journalism have decided that certain viewpoints must not be expressed within their pages, and certain factions and narratives must not be questioned, challenged, or opposed. Certain arguments must not be heard, certain supporting evidence must not be examined; certain ideas are simply too dangerous or malevolent to be brought to a wider audience. We are instructed that the very expression of them in any form makes certain staffers “feel unsafe” and thus must be treated as akin to a physical assault.
This is not the pursuit of knowledge; this is the avoidance of knowledge. This is not curiosity; this is an ironclad certainty that everything that is needed to be known about any given subject is already known. This is not informing the audience about what is going on in the world; this is making sure they don’t hear what is going on in the world, because it might run counter to a preferred narrative.
Whatever you want to call what these institutions are doing now, this is not journalism. This is anti-journalism.
Apparently, the new purpose of an opinions and editorial section is to reassure and soothe, not challenge or provoke. Shortly after internal outrage about Tom Cotton’s op-ed led to the ousting of James Bennet as the acting editorial-page editor of the New York Times, Katie Kingsbury, a deputy editorial-page editor, told the staff of the opinion section, “any piece of Opinion journalism — including headlines or social posts or photos or you name it — that gives you the slightest pause, please call or text me immediately.”
The editors of these institutions would probably insist that the internal hostility toward certain viewpoints within their own walls never influences how they cover stories or how they see Americans and the world — an utterly implausible claim that is another textbook example of gaslighting. But the attitudes and consequences of cancel culture have far-reaching ramifications for how we discuss what matters in America — or whether it gets discussed at all. A new survey of 2,000 Americans finds that 62 percent of them say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.
National Review today represents what the mainstream media wants to believe it is. We have vehement dissent within our pages. You’ve probably noticed that Conrad Black and Jay Nordlinger don’t agree in their assessment of the president. John Fund is convinced Sweden has the right approach to the coronavirus, John McCormack isn’t. We have atheists and the religiously devout, libertarians and populists, free-traders and protectionists. You see a wider range of opinions and more vigorous debate of issues within the ranks of a self-identified conservative magazine than in most “mainstream” institutions — reflecting that they are nowhere near “mainstream” anymore.
Maybe you love everything you read here. Maybe you’ve objected to or strongly disliked something you’ve read here. But if you’re reading this, you probably appreciate something that many “mainstream” journalism institutions have chosen to abandon. Right now, powerful forces want this kind of institution to wither away and die and the future of public debate in the United States to be limited by the ever-growing censorious veto of the perpetually outraged.
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Thank you for publishing “The Rising Tide of Anti-Journalism” article by Jim Geraghty! Aside from non-MSM outlets such as The Epoch Times and One America News Network, Mr. Geraghty did a terrific job illuminating the sad state of todays’ “Free Press” here in the United States.
It is refreshing to read a truthful article about a subject that has become a lightning rod of anger and frustration amongst everyday Americans in which the MSM has increasingly become more of a puppet of the Socialist Left that the Democratic Party has become, rather than the objective news outlets that should be expected. The MSM has literally devolved into nothing more than a U.S. version of the Soviet Pravda newspaper as it spreads lies, misinformation, disinformation, selective truths, etc.
The MSM is no longer holding the government accountable; instead allowing Democrat corruption, misdeeds, Destructive agendas, anti-Semitism and anti-American rhetoric and the like to be openly displayed with awful hostility and then be splashed about in publications and on TV as if these things are good for our Country.
You have personalities such as Don Lemon speaking “his truth” rather than THE truth; Rachel Maddow brazenly promoting lies and anti-Trump rhetoric as fact; MSNBC, CNN and all the rest openly supporting a coup against the President of the United States with gleeful abandon! The MSM is encouraging acceptance of the BLM movement despite the known fact that its leaders are Marxists, and they want nothing less than the complete destruction of our great Republic…which is completely mind-boggling, by the way. They call the recent riots “peaceful protests,” and have yet to tell the full story of George Floyds’ death; instead giving only what feeds their racist, hateful narrative.
If the MSM actually held ALL politicians accountable, then the sad state of politics that is now within the United States would likely not exist. The President would not be relentlessly attacked about, well, everything under the sun—even when he has done nothing wrong. The American people would actually see the good things President Trump has accomplished (despite the horrific opposition he faces every day), and they would likely see the sovereignty of the United States as paramount to maintaining our freedoms.
Anyhow, Thank you for that article! I appreciate those words immensely, as well and Mr. Geraghtys’ opinions!
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