The Press Has Learned Absolutely Nothing

 Despite its willing collaboration in nearly turning the country into a dictatorship, they go blithely on their way, refusing to distinguish truth from falsity, at least when the falsity is on the side of the Republicans.


Today's case in point- this miserable excuse for journalism from the Washington Post:


"A Senate report on President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election offers new details about an Oval Office confrontation between Trump and the Justice Department, revealing the extent to which government lawyers threatened to resign en masse if the president removed his attorney general.


Democrats charge Trump nearly provoked a constitutional crisis, but for the steady hands of senior Justice Department officials; Republicans say Trump was “faithful” to his sworn duty as president in seeking assurances about voter integrity."


No way of knowing which side is telling the truth and which side is spreading malignant lies.  No way of determining whether the Republican President actually did try to overthrow the government, or whether inciting seditious riots is just part of his "sworn duty as President."  In brief, no reason to tell the truth when one political party wants it to be denied.


This article ends with these stirring words:


"Given Trump’s long-running distrust of the FBI’s handling of the 2016 election, the (Republican) report says, it was “reasonable that President Trump maintained substantial skepticism concerning the DOJ’s and FBI’s neutrality and their ability to adequately investigate election fraud allegations in a thorough and unbiased manner.”


No comment on whether that "long-running distrust" was itself justifiable or even real, or whether it was just an attempt to steal the election in the face of the simple truth that Biden beat him by a large margin.  No, it was Trump and the Republicans who were really concerned with "election fraud allegations," and wanted to investigate them "in a thorough and unbiased manner."


This is not even both-siderism.  It is simply collaborating with the Republicans to spread their lies as far as possible.  And the unchecked reign of such reporting for the last four decades or so has done as much as anything the Republicans could hope to do to end our democracy.


Comments

Kwark said…
". . . Trumps long running distrust. . . " Yeah, bullshit. Firstly, Trump doesn't trust anyone or anything he doesn't own. Secondly, "long running" probably dates to the first time he couldn't force the FBI to bury something. So, 2016, yeah, I guess that is long running for a person with a notably porous memory for anything but a grievance. And lastly, I gather the Post, like the Republicans, would like us to forget the evidence of our own eyes over the last 5+ years.
October 7, 2021 at 6:34 PM
Green Eagle said…
Kwark, I know people must get sick of hearing me say this, but one of my most fundamental political beliefs is that the Democrats could crush the Republican party out of existence without hardly trying; what they cannot do is beat the Republicans and the press working together.
October 7, 2021 at 7:16 PM
PamieC said…
The press is owned by the GOP, heart and soul.
October 9, 2021 at 8:56 AM
Green Eagle said…
Absolutely correct, and for that we can thank Ronald Reagan, truly the worst President the country ever had. Even before Reagan, the American press leaned Republican, but one of the features of Reagan's campaign of "deregulation," i.e. deciding that every illegal thing that rich people did was now legal, was allowing the press to fall almost entirely into the hands of the rich, so right wing sociopaths could own 1500 radio stations, or that within a couple of decades 85% of the mainstream press could fall into the hands of the rich. And while we are on the subject, let's not forget Newt Gingrich, who as Speaker of a very Republican House of Representatives, ushered through a bill allowing foreigners to buy radio and TV stations in the US, while receiving a multi-million dollar book "advance" from a publisher owned by Rupert Murdoch.
October 9, 2021 at 10:10 AM
Unknown said…
Bill Clinton signed the 1996 telecommunications act when he was "triangulating". This has destroyed our democracy.
There are no good Nazis.
There are no good Republicans.
Half a Nazi sandwich is still a Nazi sandwich
October 9, 2021 at 2:43 PM
Unknown said…
The press has learned everything they need to know ratfucklicons are right and Democrats are trouble makers...
October 10, 2021 at 5:16 AM
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