You know, it’s really not that hard to distort the news that millions of Americans read, hear, and see around the clock every day.
I have long maintained that the real bias power of news media is not telling people what to think, but telling them what to think about.
That can be accomplished easily by ignoring some news, as the national liberal media complex did for two years over the self-incriminating evidence in Hunter Biden’s laptop to help his father win election.
Then, when it turned out to be true about the alcohol and drug-addled documentation of the president’s son. No apologies.
Media's attitude was shockingly different, however, toward the uncorroborated Steele Dossier that portrayed Trump in a disgusting, perverted light. They were all over that in detail because, hey, it’s big news, even though it was a fictional figment of Hillary Clinton’s doomed campaign.
When Democrats have unavoidable negative news, let’s say, hypothetically, they have a Senate candidate in New England with a Nazi tattoo and suspect relationships with women.
Liberal media will come late to the issue, which diminishes its reach by making it seem old, and bury the more lurid details deep in the story, where only the most conscientious readers go. That way, they can claim to have included them but virtually ensured obscurity to minimize political damage to their favored party.
Then they focus instead on Republicans “pouncing” on the news, as if that’s not standard practice in a two-party political system. Conversely, if President Trump has some good news, like surging growth in new jobs, media will quickly dismiss it and segue to something negative, like poll numbers.
Not everyone has the inclination or time to compare differing versions of news to ascertain a more genuine truth. So, they move on carrying the partial or distorted version in their mind.
Modern mainstream media have gotten really expert at news distortion, especially during the Donald Trump era. (He turned 80 today.)
Trump is the most accessible president in history for his own reasons and has been superb for their business and for consumer consumption of their products, both among his fans and enemies.
But media dislike Trump and miss no opportunity to find fault. The Founding Fathers gave independent media constitutional protections as the essential watchdogs of government.
However, they were supposed to be equal-opportunity watchdogs. It has not turned out that way in post-Watergate decades when newer generations of journalists discarded their traditional, albeit imperfect, objectivity.
Instead, they became advocates, allegedly fixing society’s wrongs by marketing story narratives, often distorted, that advanced progressive or liberal goals.
Simultaneously, media leaders sought too quickly to fix decades of neglect, promoting women and hiring minorities by shortening training and reporting apprenticeships. This led to scandals involving serial fabricated stories, adding to crumbling trust.
Gallup recently reported record-low trust in mass media. In fact, more U.S. adults now have no trust in media than have much trust.
As one result, recent media job losses have been in the thousands annually. Witness the Washington Post turmoil and staff resistance to changes initiated by ownership and editors.
This came to mind in recent days, witnessing the news and aftermath of Scott Pelley’s career suicide over at CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” Reminded me of the Vietnam War when Buddhist monks had gasoline poured on themselves in a public square and lit a match to protest something.
Pelley’s self-imposed martyrdom certainly captured attention.
The difference, of course, is that multi-millionaire Pelley remained alive after torching his new bosses in their first staff meeting, leaking the story, predictably getting fired, and then making himself easily available for lengthy interviews to justify his behavior.
There, he could expound to sympathetic listeners in like-minded media on his professional courage and sacrifice and the dangers of change posed by new owners in legacy media seeking more balance in coverage.
Unspoken is the simultaneous danger of this change to the comfortable and lucrative careers of people like Pelley, who’ve long been able to peddle their favored narratives, sometimes accurately, and been hailed as heroes by like-minded colleagues in their insular bastions of bias.
Last year, multi-billionaire David Ellison paid $8.4 billion to purchase CBS Global, including CBS TV.
Ellison appointed a new CBS News chief, Bari Weiss, creator of the Free Press site and a former N.Y. Times op-ed editor (picture below). And she, in turn, named a new executive producer, Nick Bilton, a former Times colleague, as part of a major shakeup to "60 Minutes"' operations.
Neither has broadcast news experience, which seems to be a plus for the new owner seeking change. It was a plus, too, in 2016 when voters sought change by electing a president with no political experience. Because in the minds of many still, the old ways (and people) are no longer working.
At his first staff meeting June 1, Bilton warned that the old broadcast industry that spawned “60 Minutes” 58 years ago has changed: “Broadcast is an ice cube that is melting, OK?” Then, he added reassurance: “The show is going to stay exactly as it is for now.”
Pelley, who had ignored several attempts to meet with Bilton and Weiss, immediately stood and interrupted:
"(Weiss) is murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that….She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job."
Other than that, the initial staff get-together seemed to go smoothly.
The following day, Pelley was fired from his $7 million-a-year job.
As Karl Rove put it succinctly, “Pelley, like many others in the elite media, is out of touch.”
Pelley professes surprise that he was fired after using the all-hands meeting to hijack his new boss' first assembly and inform him, “You will never be welcome here.” Feigned shock is the standard stagecraft response when media are accused. Who, me? You can’t be serious!
When I began my professional journalism career in the 1960s, CBS was the best TV news operation. It had Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Charles Collingwood, Richard C. Hottelet, and others. And it had the resources and imagination to excel in enterprise.
The legendary Edward R. Murrow had hired them during World War II initially for CBS Radio News, which recently shut down. Notably, they all came out of traditional journalism reporting jobs, such as services or newspapers.
Eventually, local TV news began producing more experienced news readers to move up the career ladder with the desired attributes for the time in voice, appearance, gender, race, and the all-important Q-rating, a measure of familiarity and likeability. Never mind long experience in real reporting.
Television is an amazing apparatus. I say this as someone whose childhood included some years without it before TV became a ubiquitous presence in 97 percent of U.S. homes.
When it was quite new, the few people with a set invited neighbors over to see the magic box with one or two channels operating, in black and white, from dawn until 11 p.m. with the National Anthem at both ends.
Television has become an amazing instrument enabling anyone to witness historic broadcast firsts from a live homicide (Lee Harvey Oswald, Nov. 24, 1963), to the first Moon Walk (July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin).
TV has changed politics forever. The first televised presidential debate played a major role in electing John Kennedy in 1960, and the last one ended Joe Biden’s political career.
TV also has a strange power to create goofy human behavior. Have you noticed what happens at football games when a crowd sees the camera pointed at them?
It’s an amazing marketing tool, too, although I’ve never understood what desirable quality comes with “As Advertised on TV.”
I‘ve used television to promote books. Years ago, on the "Today Show" set for my first network interview, I instantly regretted asking Bryant Gumbel how many people would be watching. “About nine million,” he said.
“CBS This Morning” had a full-scale buffet for waiting guests. A woman approached me with a full glass. I asked, What’s this?
“Champagne.”
It’s 6:45 in the morning!
She winked. “It loosens up guests.”
Perhaps you, too, have noticed media’s habit of automatically disputing many Trump moves. Last year, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, this put American media in the apparent position of rooting against the nation’s military.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth noted this to reporters:
"You cheer against Trump so hard. It’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad."
Then, there was the general absence of point-blank media coverage of Joe Biden’s obviously failing mental and physical conditions, especially in the scary latter stages of his term when he sought to run again.
Chuck Todd, the former NBC host, provided a refreshingly candid explanation for that:
"The only thing I can chalk it up to is this — whatever you want to call it — this fear that some members of the media had sometimes that they would be perceived as helping Trump if they somehow diminished Biden."
Whatever happened to just reporting the facts honestly and letting the chips fall wherever?
That’s actually the same sort of concern that Pelley expressed during his screed at Bilton, that Bari Weiss was putting her thumb on the scale of "60 Minutes" reports to help Trump. As if that crew hadn’t been doing the same thing for Democrats for years.
Recall the disastrous, chaotic, and lethal U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. With a straight face, Joe Biden called it an “extraordinary success.”
Do you remember all the really tough media questioning of Biden about that mess?
No, you don’t. They let him skate.
