A koi pond.

A koi pond was all it took on Monday to reaffirm the oft-proven belief that the mainstream media is not a societal organism to be trusted. The long and short of it is that CNN, one of the mainstream media sources on the block, reported that Trump disrespectfully dumped fish food from a box into a koi pond while hanging out with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The footage showed by CNN was deceptively edited. It showed Trump dumping his food into the koi pond with a smile on his face. What it didn’t show was Abe doing the same thing first.

Consider this:

CNN took the lowest road possible by editing an already available video of Abe then Trump dumping their food, and trying to pass off an easily disprovable edited video featuring Trump being idiotic, disrespectful, and callous all in the same go.

Now we all know CNN has been throwing something of a prolonged temper tantrum since Trump’s election, but what’s sad is that they’re not the only network. The big dogs, ABC, CBS, and NBC have also been throwing every accusation they can possibly dream up at anybody with an R next to their name, not just since Trump’s election, but since time immemorial.

Even before Trump’s 2016 victory, the Media Research Center found that 91 percent of Trump’s campaign coverage was negative. The problem hasn’t gotten any better. NBC reported roundaboutly on its own bias by pointing out a report that found Trump is receiving three times more negative news than Obama.

Even the New York Times was caught swimming in their own muck recently when an editor confessed to the paper attempted to sway people from Trump during the election.

But the news doesn’t have to be about Trump. Pick a cause Republicans or the right, in general, are fond of, and you’ll find a slime-filled mire of biased employees and reporting. A top CBS legal executive was caught celebrating the Las Vegas shooting because she figured that a country music concert must have been filled with Republicans. CBS was later caught trying to falsely paint the NRA’s self-defense insurance as “murder insurance,” by interviewing anti-gun groups and not actually reaching out to the NRA at all for the facts.

All this to say that the media is obviously filthy with leftism, and we’re reminded of that daily…possibly even hourly. Even NPR’s former CEO — now not so much a leftist anymore — straight up confessed this recently.

So we know they’re biased. The writing is on the pixelated wall in big, bold red font.

Their reaction? To push self-descriptions of unbiased, truthful reporting despite the hulking mass of leftism growing out of their back.

CNN is giving us promo videos about people calling apples “bananas,” but how they’re above all that. WaPo’s “we’re totally truthful and stuff” sounding tagline is “democracy dies in darkness.” The New York Times is passing social media guidelines to their journalists to stop them from exposing their obvious leftist bias.

Allow me to say something that I’ve been saying about myself for eons: I know I’m biased. I freely admit to my bias. I actually take pride in my bias because I believe my stances are moral and just. It’s always been my hope that by admitting this to my readers, and encouraging them to go read my opponent’s writing as well, that despite my personal takes you can trust me in many a regard.

I’m never going try to sell you on the idea that I’m an unbiased journalist just here to give you the facts and nothing else. It would be an obvious lie, disproved by a quick glance at my writing history and Twitter feed. I do this not just to maintain a sense of ethics, but because trying to pull off an unbiased facade would just look stupid.

And that’s the current look the mainstream media is sporting.

Stupid.

The simple fact that they aren’t admitting to an obvious bias makes them seem stupid, and furthermore, that they’re obvious liars. It’s why, during the election, trust in the media had fallen to an all-time low. It’s why even now, almost half of Americans believe mainstream stories about Trump are simply made up.

This goes beyond just looking stupid, though. Far beyond.

Not everyone understands that the mainstream media is biased, and the consistent negativity is having a horrendous effect. Senators are being shot at during baseball practice. Riots in the streets are occurring with people claiming one group is out to harm another. Criminals in high positions are getting away with crimes that they should be punished severely for, yet no one knows about.

Biased mainstream reporting masked as the truth is literally killing our society, and it’s adding to the hostility the mainstream media — and by extension, other journalists — is experiencing by the general public. Furthermore, it’s adding to the hostility we are showing each other.

Admitting this bias would go a long way to begin healing the damage done to the mainstream press. Why this hasn’t happened yet probably has a lot of reasons behind it — most of it financial — but it needs to happen soon.

If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you watch Prager U’s recent video on this very subject.