Power Players
Journalists are now government’s useful idiots
IMAGINE a profession filled with ideologically foolish people who lack curiosity and are fueled by snobbery. They’re among the population’s most educated people, with degrees from exclusive universities, yet many make a career out of being useful idiots. They are egotistically certain about what they know nothing about and willfully oblivious to their pretentious demeanor as self-awareness is not their strong suit.
Now suppose these people are the ones we rely on for information and truthful narratives surrounding serious events.
The state of journalism, once seen as a profession filled with noble individuals, is now overly comprised of people who are as likable as herpes and expect praise for mediocrity just like a “nepo baby.”
This present-day profile of mainstream-media journalists is not just an American problem but international, as Twitter owner Elon Musk found out in his interview with BBC reporter James Clayton.
The pair got onto the topic of censorship and hate speech on Twitter as Clayton noted Musk brought back controversial people previously banned and former Twitter employees have accused the platform of lacking moderation for “hate speech.”
“What hate speech are you talking about?” Musk promptly inquired. “I mean, you use Twitter. Do you see a rise in hate speech? Just a personal anecdote? I don’t.”
The CEO asked Clayton to give him one instance of hate speech he’d seen since Musk took over — but Clayton couldn’t provide one.
“You cannot give me a single example of hateful content, not even one tweet. And yet you claimed that hateful content was high. That is false, you just lied,” an annoyed Musk said.
“No, I claimed that there are many organizations that say that that kind of information is on the rise,” Clayton fumbled. “The Strategic Dialogue Institute [Institute for Strategic Dialogue] in the UK they will say that.”
Musk continued to push back: “You literally said you experienced more hateful content and then couldn’t name a single example. That’s absurd!”
He later added that he trusts users’ judgment more than journalists’ supposed expertise, boasting about the effectiveness of Community Notes in giving greater context and correcting real misinformation — while getting Clayton to admit the BBC had spread untrue information.
Journalists like Clayton repeat what they hear more than question what they’re told, especially if the information’s source is someone or an organization representing the perspective of high society.
All Clayton needed to hear was that the Institute of Strategic Dialogue claimed hate speech is on the rise, and he ran with it. Any inquisitive journalist would ask pertinent questions about the source and be skeptical once he sees it’s funded by governments around the world, including America’s, and the wealthiest people in the world, like Bill and Melinda Gates.
As Musk provided internal-communication access to real journalists like Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger to expose the collusion between the US federal government and Twitter 1.0 as it was engaging in organized state-sanctioned censorship, governmental fronts like ISD used the plethora of useful idiots like Clayton to repeat narratives about the supposed growth in hate speech since Musk’s takeover.
Coincidentally — or not — the Twitter Files also uncovered the media’s laziness in repeating narratives set by think tanks like Hamilton 68, which collected a handful of real American accounts and described their authentic conversations as Russian scheming, to perpetuate the Russia-boogeyman narrative and weaponize the term “Russian disinformation” for political purposes.
Journalism has been compromised partly because of its practitioners’ persistent love of being next to power rather than confronting it. Journalists of the past understood it was their job to question the most powerful people in the world — but now they can’t wait to be seated next to them at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Every journalist should fight for free speech and never encourage the government to chip away at our First Amendment. Because if we accept the government’s rationalization to censor the people we don’t like, what’s to prevent them from censoring the rest of us, including journalists?
The problem is that too many of our journalists are actually statists who repeat CIA and FBI talking points to remain safe, employed and, most important, connected to power.
When Musk ended the government apparatus’ control of the commoners’ speech in the public square, the mainstream-media mouthpieces did its bidding to downplay the fed’s egregious activities. Instead of chastising the state’s overreach, they aimed their cameras, pens and keyboards at the whistleblower: Elon Musk.
Journalism can only be resurrected once the love affair with proximity to power ends and a relationship with curiosity begins.
Adam B. Coleman (adambcoleman.substack.com) is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor.”