Anosognosia (/æˌnɒsɒɡˈnoʊziə/, /æˌnɒsɒɡˈnoʊʒə/; from Ancient Greek ἀ- a-, “without”, νόσος nosos, “disease” and γνῶσις gnōsis, “knowledge”) is a deficit of self-awareness, a condition in which a person who suffers some disability seems unaware of the existence of his or her disability.

I’m taking a departure from my usual international news stories for the water cooler to report on the media’s complete lack of self-awareness. This has been an issue for a long time, but has risen to a possible medical condition as result of their inability to realize their unearned and bloated self-worth and lack of actual journalism. This video encapsulates it beautifully (original link via the Washington Free Beacon:

Blaming Donald Trump and/or Republicans for the lack of trust or faith is like the alcoholic blaming distilled spirits for their drinking problem. Let’s break the video down, shall we?

Do people not realize, or are they forgetting the other critical element of it.? You either have a media, or you have what I witnessed in Saddam’s era, in the Libyan’s era where you never got to actually call yourself press or you’d go to jail for it.

Is this really all that matters to them, is that they get to call themselves the press? How about earning the title by reporting what’s going on instead of avoiding the truth because of your own personal political agenda. You aren’t even doing a good job of hiding it anymore.

Just this week Gallup came out with a new poll showing that faith in the media had hit an all-time low. Less than 1/3 of Americans now have expressed trust or faith in the media to report things accurately. That drop down from 40% last year is largely fueled by Republicans and largely fueled by Donald Trump’s anti-media rhetoric. And he’s even taken credit for bringing that number down.

Does it ever occur to the media that if the criticism is one-sided as the Gallup poll suggests, that there might be some truth to it? That’s a rhetorical question for those of you that have not been paying attention. The fact that Republican and Independent voters are at the same number should give them a hint. But, anosognosia you know.

That is a serious problem because like you said, it is the role of the media to hold these candidates accountable, to hold both the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates accountable (emphasis mine). When you lose that, when you start celebrating restriction of the media, when you start mocking the media, that becomes a serious problem for the very foundation of the democratic project and the American political system.

What’s serious here, is the pundit’s complete lack of self-awareness that media itself is a huge part of the problem. Just as it’s important “for the media to hold candidates accountable” it’s equally if not more important for its readers and viewers to hold the press accountable. Biased, uneven, and politically-motivated news coverage is not journalism, it’s propaganda.

When I was in Baghdad, driving by Saddam Hussein’s palace, I was gob smacked by the size of it, and my driver yelled at me, “Put your eyes on the road. Stop looking. We’re going to get into trouble.” We were on a freeway and my driver was terrified that I was looking at Saddam Hussein’s palace. There’s the other side of this.

My message to the media would be this: If you’re so worried about the media being treated in the U.S. like it was in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and being mocked by the public, then you might want to consider reporting the news fairly and evenly, and stop acting like Baghdad Bob.

That’s it for today’s Water Cooler. –OPEN THREAD– Mingle amongst yourselves in the comments.