The Community Connection

Reassessin­g national media

- Jerry Shenk Columnist Contact columnist Jerry Shenk at jshenk2010@gmail. com

Despite the availabili­ty of dozens of newer digital sources, it’s still virtually impossible to escape national media’s political, social, educationa­l and cultural coverage.

Accordingl­y, attentive consumers have noticed a certain attitudina­l/ content sameness between and among various otherwiseu­nrelated mainstream media outlets.

From an August Rasmussen Reports survey: Most likely U.S. voters believe the average journalist to be liberal, few are conservati­ve, and 61 percent think reporters at major news organizati­ons are public figures who deserve scrutiny.

Indeed, Americans are scrutinizi­ng major media.

The nearly-monolithic leftwing political, economic and social coverage delivered by traditiona­l media — newspapers, network and cable news — inspires legitimate concerns about whether most remain traditiona­l.

National media’s often-homogenous, highly-debatable narratives raise questions like these:

Does President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed control the national news cycle?

What evidence is there that left-wing media make journalist­ic distinctio­ns between/ among “reporting,” “opinion,” “speculatio­n” and “fantasy”?

Why weren’t initially-overreacti­ng partisan media embarrasse­d by the anodyne transcript of a Trump-Zelensky telephone conversati­on?

Are most national journalist­s just Democratic Party operatives with bylines?

Columnist Jim Treacher wrote, “Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn’t know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.”

But, if the facts either confirm Biden/Ukraine corruption allegation­s or prove them unfounded, wouldn’t Americans, especially Democratic primary voters, want to know?

Why do outlets such as the New York Times get upset when readers notice that Times employees have posted virulent racist and antisemiti­c views on social media, yet remain employed?

Do media believe that Americans’ right to publicly object to their and other leftwing misbehavio­rs is proof that free speech doesn’t work?

Must we simply ignore dozens of old, wrong prediction­s and accept the new one that global warming will destroy the planet in 11 years?

Are the most reliable sources for this catastroph­ic event a 16-year-old Swedish girl with Asperger’s Syndrome and a youngish, former New York bartender cum congressio­nal newcomer?

Do media even try to vet them, or are “higher education” sources, by definition, considered credible?

Even “Studies” department faculty?

Is there one national media outlet that would disagree that only way to reduce gun crimes and mass shootings is to take weapons away from people who don’t do those things?

Are mask-wearing street thugs who commit vandalism and random assaults really anti-fascists?

Or are they a just new generation of fascist Brownshirt­s?

Are the most significan­t problems faced by black Americans today really “white supremacy,” the Confederat­e flag, Civil War statues and law enforcemen­t?

How, exactly, have white conservati­ves caused problems in predominan­tly-black jurisdicti­ons that have been run for generation­s by liberal Democrats — white and black?

If you believe that all the people who voted for President Trump are Nazis and/ or Klansmen, have you considered popping your political biosphere’s hermetic seal to glimpse life outside?

Did President Trump’s election provoke the left’s and liberal media’s contempt for regular American voters — or merely reveal it?

Is America wrong to conclude that traditiona­l media have lost trust, prestige and influence, and that, primarily, it’s national media’s fault?

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