There's something wrong with the media. Surprise, right? I mean it though. There is something fundamentally wrong.
Here's the thing. I've been watching the sports media for some time. They suffer all the usual problems as the rest of the media -- politically biased, uneducated, stupid, monkey-see-monkey-do-ism, and smugness. But in the past couple years, I've noticed more. I've noticed that the media seems intent on destroying the thing they cover.
If there is a flaw, they not only report it, they aggrandize it. They blow it up into the proportions of a scandal. They treat it like an intentional, personal affront. If there is anyone who attacks a particular league (particularly the NFL), they treat these people as national heroes. They promote their cause, lie for them, attack those who refute or disagree, and do their best to bring as much disgrace to the league as they could. No issue is too petty for them to adopt. No issue is too minor to use to demand resignation, boycotts, and shutdowns. They are cheering for Kapernick to win his ludicrous collusion case, they want the players to go on strike, they want owners brought down for exercising the same rights they want the players to have total immunity to exercise, and they want the idea of concussions to end football itself. They want the league destroyed for moving a team to Las Vegas, where gamblers might find them! They want anyone ever accused of harassment or domestic abuse forever banned... except that it's racist when it happens. Punish the league when they do, punish them when they don't. They attack player suspensions... and the falure to take action" against bad players. They attack new safety regulations... and the NFL's failure to care about safety. Teams are racist. Logos are racist and the NFL should lose its trademark protection! And so on and so on. Any issue, no matter who worthless, becomes a cause for the destruction of some aspect of the league.
The more I watch, the more obvious it becomes that their behavior goes beyond even willful bias. It goes to the point of overt hostility, with the unstated goal being the destruction of the NFL, Major League baseball and whatever else. Why?
And I see similar behavior among a lot of the MSM in the political arena. Naturally, they want to destroy the GOP and Trump, but they seem even more hostile than that. They seem to embrace ideas that will fundamentally destroy America and American democracy. It's like they hate the rest of us and what this country is.
I'm not sure where this has come from, but I see it in today's media and growing all the time. I never saw this in the past. Something has gone very wrong.
Thoughts?
Here's the thing. I've been watching the sports media for some time. They suffer all the usual problems as the rest of the media -- politically biased, uneducated, stupid, monkey-see-monkey-do-ism, and smugness. But in the past couple years, I've noticed more. I've noticed that the media seems intent on destroying the thing they cover.
If there is a flaw, they not only report it, they aggrandize it. They blow it up into the proportions of a scandal. They treat it like an intentional, personal affront. If there is anyone who attacks a particular league (particularly the NFL), they treat these people as national heroes. They promote their cause, lie for them, attack those who refute or disagree, and do their best to bring as much disgrace to the league as they could. No issue is too petty for them to adopt. No issue is too minor to use to demand resignation, boycotts, and shutdowns. They are cheering for Kapernick to win his ludicrous collusion case, they want the players to go on strike, they want owners brought down for exercising the same rights they want the players to have total immunity to exercise, and they want the idea of concussions to end football itself. They want the league destroyed for moving a team to Las Vegas, where gamblers might find them! They want anyone ever accused of harassment or domestic abuse forever banned... except that it's racist when it happens. Punish the league when they do, punish them when they don't. They attack player suspensions... and the falure to take action" against bad players. They attack new safety regulations... and the NFL's failure to care about safety. Teams are racist. Logos are racist and the NFL should lose its trademark protection! And so on and so on. Any issue, no matter who worthless, becomes a cause for the destruction of some aspect of the league.
The more I watch, the more obvious it becomes that their behavior goes beyond even willful bias. It goes to the point of overt hostility, with the unstated goal being the destruction of the NFL, Major League baseball and whatever else. Why?
And I see similar behavior among a lot of the MSM in the political arena. Naturally, they want to destroy the GOP and Trump, but they seem even more hostile than that. They seem to embrace ideas that will fundamentally destroy America and American democracy. It's like they hate the rest of us and what this country is.
I'm not sure where this has come from, but I see it in today's media and growing all the time. I never saw this in the past. Something has gone very wrong.
Thoughts?
Couple possible reasons come to my mind, but they are probably just a small part of it. 1) aggrandize take it seem bigger so people will be sitting on the edge of their seat breathlessly waiting the next story (e.g. More readers, viewers, etc.) 2) it gives them a feeling of power and relevance (we can destroy you, we are the all powerful Oz) I could be wrong, but these seem to fit
ReplyDeleteWhy is it happening now? Perhaps it is time to replay the Sixties. Young millennial s, including the media, feel like they can be on the cusp of a cultural revolution of seismic proportion. America, they have come to believe, is rotten, putrid, and needs to be completely destroyed and re-built into a socialist worker's paradise where outcomes, not opportunities are guaranteed and white males are, at best, domestic help
ReplyDeleteHi Jed! I've been thinking about this all night and I think it comes from a combination of things.
ReplyDelete1. The cynicism of the modern age where weak-minded people mistake hostility for fairness, and cynicism for skepticism.
2. The modern journalistic trend of trying to see everything through a personal eye, which brings emotion into it.
3. Familiarity breeding contempt.
4. A desire for self importance, in a world where the only way to inject yourself into the event is to destroy it because the journalist can destroy but cannot build up.
and
5. The 24 hour news cycle which has all but eliminated the idea that stories need to be vetted and considered. Speed is all that matters. So you run with stories even if they don't make sense and opinion can become a substitute for fact when you need to say something but have nothing to say.
6. Ego. These guys spout their opinions and then they want their opinions to become fact.
I think that's what's going on.
Jed, I actually think this is just the state of evolution in a cynical society. But I totally agree with you that this reeks of the 60's generation all over again.
ReplyDeletecertainly possible, wven probable. My examples were just the first two to come to mind
DeleteThe latest example of this, by the way, involves a player called Terrell Owens. Owens had Hall of Fame Talent, but was such an intolerable ass that he was constantly dumped by teams and, when he went up for consideration for the Hall of Fame, not a single former teammate, coach or quarterback stood up for him.
ReplyDeleteFor reasons I still don't get (pure stats really), the Hall of Fame decided to let him in this year. He immediately flipped them the bird and said he would not attend the event... he would hold his own event in Tennessee. This is very typical of his drama queen BS.
Anyways, these writers have taken up the cause of trying to destroy the Hall of Fame, the NFL and anyone who dares to point out the reasons Owens isn't deserving. It got to the point, that these writers are writing articles all but hoping that he draws a bigger crowd (impossible) and smearing the hell out of the Hall for not bending over backward and kissing his ass.
It's bizarre. The Hall of Fame is basically just a museum to football and yet, these people are screaming about all but wiping the Hall out over this. They want the electors removed and vetted by some unnamed organization and the process outlined and basically subject to court review. Some of them argued that the Hall's non-profit status should be stripped. Others wanted the networks to stop showing the ceremony. Others argued the link between the Hall and the NFL needed to be cut.
And they all went on jihads against players in the Hall, arguing X didn't play as long, Y didn't have as many touchdowns, Z didn't have as many catches. So what? It's the Hall of Statistical Greatness.
And all of this is for a shit who's most famous moment was holding a press conference in his driveway where he actually cried and whined that no one was treating him fairly... after throwing his last three quarterbacks under the bus.
Why would a "journalist" be so set on destroying a museum just because they were "slow" to let a shit into the museum? That's what I'm seeing over and over now.
Off Topic: Weinstein is going the route I suggested. He's claiming it was all consensual and he's producing emails sent by these women after he supposedly raped them, in which they flatter him and talk about the jobs they want him to give them.
ReplyDeleteHe's going to win this.
would not surprise me in the least, but I wonder if he will still be ruined. Who would want to work with him
Deletemy friends son owned film rights to a Harvey bio. If he still has them, could be a tasty property
ReplyDeleteThe media started downhill when TV networks started expressing their "opinion" in the 1960s. I remember watching Eric Severeid, Frank Reynolds and Cronkite voice their concerns....instead of doing the news. News and opinion became the same department by 1980. Professional sports is just strange to me.
ReplyDeleteJed, I'm surprised there aren't Harvey films already. It seems like a very lucrative opportunity.
ReplyDeleteI think the points you made are good ones, and I can't say that my mine are better. I honestly don't know what is causing this. I see it. I just don't know what is causing it.
Critch, I've been watching an excellent documentary on Vietnam recently and they keep showing news clips. It's interesting how many of these guys drifted into opinion and how those same names presided over the utter collapse of the pubic's respect for the media.
ReplyDeleteOn a more fundamental level—or maybe it’s a higher level, IDK—I think a lot of what the media is doing, the destructive stuff, if because of a modern mythos that holds protest as the noblest cause. It doesn't matter what you protest as long as you protest.
ReplyDeleteYou’ve taught me yourself that the civil rights movement of the 60s was just a climactic end to a much longer, quieter political revolution that was nearly complete. But what gets all the attention when the story is retold? The protests. Same with Vietnam, Watergate, feminism, Stonewall, etc. etc. etc.
And part of the story is how reporters broke the stories that inspired the protests, making them the vanguards of the protest movement. So now we find ourselves in a chaos of media-led protest of whatever got us here to take us wherever we’re going. It’s how you get truly schizophrenic notions that the way to continue the Civil Rigts movement that fought for integration is to protest for racially segregated safe-spaces. Because the protest is the most important thing.
For starters I'll quote something I said five years ago regarding media bias.
ReplyDeletehttps://commentaramapolitics.blogspot.com/2013/04/whcd-bias.html
The supposedly adversarial relationship between reporters and the subjects they cover has never been a rule of thumb (reporters like all humans have their likes and dislikes, which colors all that they do) so I don't care if the relationships are open or covert.
There's no ratings (for the network) or glory (for the reporter) in real reporting since nowadays its common for talking heads to focus on the facts other people have dug up.
Americans tune in to overtly partisan talking heads they trust so those talking heads can tell them what is important and what to think. The people who generate the news are both much more expensive (real reporting costs time, effort and money) and less watched.
Also, I don't see much difference between news reporters and partisan talkers. The talkers pick which stories they regurgitate for their herds, but the news reporters pick which stories they cover.
Some organization which decided to focus on the hard news space networks are abandoning would just be providing grist for the other guy's mills.
END QUOTE
Here's a six year old point that Fox and the then struggling MSNBC (now both are tnriving) are the only two honest networks.
http://commentaramapolitics.blogspot.com/2012/10/hurricane-politics.html
As for the merits of Fox compared to the other networks, I think the difference is that Fox is honest about its politics, while the others (bar MSNBC) lie, but I confess I don't watch much tv news nowadays.
I can't stand sitting there and waiting for reporters to get to what I care about when said info is only a click away on the web.
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I believe media objectivity has never existed.
Everyone has opinions. Guys who say 'I've covered politics for a decade and I've never developed an opinion about politics or politicians' are people I distrust more than guys who say 'I've got a worldview and I am actively promoting it'.
END QUOTE
The unlovely truth is media bias is not a new thing nor is it a real problem, it's what competitors in a crowded field need to get to the top.
What? no one menitoned 8 years of the great apologist O'Bummer?.Was not that long ago he was doing the "apology tour" around the world bowing to everyone and asking the 3rd worlds forgiveness for American imperialism?.He was also real chummy with terrorist leaders ie. a pallate(sp?) of cash in various currencies and gold bullion sneaked out middle of he night to Iran? He and his "wife" declarations how horrible a country we are ad nauseum..and the media darlings loved it! I felt sick.I still do n ot believe he was even an american! The crispy brand new looking "birth certificate" they flashed on TV for a brief second was bullshit. He was and still is the "manchurian candidate" with some very dangerous billionaire globalists using him as a sock puppet". If you ever saw him speak without the prompter he was a idiot. Scariest part of all is where is the media at? Complicit in every way..that is what scares me most.Where this country is being led to.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, That's a really good point. You might well be right that the media just sees itself as the vanguard of the protest movement now. That would very much match the mindset. I'm going to have to think that through.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I'm glad you remember what we talked about with the 1960's just being the peak moment of something that had been going for a long time! I thought that was a pretty fascinating point which really through the generally accepted historical narrative on its head.
Anthony, I don't think the issue is bias. There has always been bias. I think the issue right now is hostility.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, the hostility seems to be toward the institutions being covered, even when they should be biased toward those things. As my point was, I am seeing journalists who cover the NFL reveling in attempting to destroy the NFL. You can see similar things in politics and in other areas too, especially political reporters.
To continue the Owens story above...
ReplyDeleteThere is a meme out there which says, "How Aires apologize" and you see someone writing, "I'm sorry you made me angry." Well, the media is now running articles that sound a lot like that with Owens.
Owens chose to do his own Hall of Fame celebration rather than participate in the big one. Today, there are articles about how he "deserved better" and how "this didn't have to happen." Then they drop the blame on the Hall of Fame, even though the whole things was an Owen sympathy stunt. "Gee, we're sorry you made Owen be an ass to you... he really didn't deserve to be treated that way."
One place, which last year ran every news nugget they could from the Hall of Fame speeches, this year mentioned Owens and then nothing (until a race issue). Basically, they ignored the Hall, but not Owens. So much for being a news site.
Andrew, no matter how many times I see it, I’m continually amazed that the world I know is only about as old I am. I notice this especially when it comes to the technologies that I take for granted. But I also see it in the cultural myths that we live by. Most of what gets taken for granted today is a retconned version of the 1960s. One of the most pervasive myths is that the Democrat and Republican parties simply switched roles in 1968, which is a fable that didn’t really arrive until the 1990s and is still only held up by two tenuous strings: a willfully misinterpreted 1981 interview of Lee Atwater and Ken Mehlman’s ill-conceived apology on behalf of the RNC to the NAACP in 2005 for events that supposedly transpired when he was still wetting his diaper (assuming he still doesn’t).
ReplyDeletetryamax, That's really true. Even things like our understanding the Founding and prior American actions are all modern inventions. And this goes beyond the US as well. So much of our understanding of the rest of the world is invented by our modern culture.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like the span from the Founding to the Civil War is our Era of the Primordial Gods and the Old Progressives are our Titans which, I guess would make the Civil Rights Figures our Olympian Gods.
ReplyDelete