I thought this was an interesting article. Erickson appears to be starting to realize how horrifically flawed and evil our mainstream media is but still won’t accept that they are the enemy of the people. Not all of them are but I think the vast majority are in fact the enemy of liberty, honesty and America as we know it.


ERICKSON: Confession And Apology

Copies of the New York Times sit for sale in a rack July 23, 2008 in New York City. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

By ERICK ERICKSON
January 26, 2019
For the past two years, I have defended the press from President Donald Trump's criticism. Having worked at both CNN and Fox News, I know the good hard work so many reporters do to provide us with the news. We have a president who found a way out of going to Vietnam, and we have reporters who rush into war zones, risking their lives to provide accurate coverage of dangerous events.


But I must confess I have a harder and harder time resisting the temptation to believe the American political press corps has become the enemy of the people. Increasingly, it seems that the political press is becoming the enemy of half the country. I try to pull myself back from thinking they are the enemy. But I fully understand why so many Americans believe they are.

The press reaction to the news of Covington Catholic is one of a long series of stories of reporters dripping with contempt and being quick to come to conclusions about people the press thinks need to be taken down. Right now, the media coverage is all about how the press was just trying to keep up with the story. The media is actually blaming Trump supporters. They cannot admit they judged a boy by his hat. There have been supposedly legitimate news stories about whether the boy was smirking at the drummer and what that smirk was supposed to mean. This is not journalism.

NBC News is running a story about a gay Covington high school student who graduated valedictorian and the school refused to allow him to give his valedictory speech. Only a careful reading of the story would make clear the student did not even go to the same high school and he was denied the ability to give his speech because he did not turn it in on time and violated school rules about political statements.

The American political press has become increasingly isolated in the security of its own liberal bubble of privilege. Reporters' skin colors and sexes may be varied, but their groupthink and herd mentality is all the same. The political press, like so much of the political left, has decided to build narratives instead of report facts.


Before the story about the Covington students at the March for Life, reporters attacked Karen Pence, the second lady of the United States, for teaching art to students. Karen Pence had worked at the same school for 12 years. It is a small Christian school in Springfield, Virginia. The students' families sign Christian confessional statements acknowledging they will adhere to a Biblical worldview and moral behavior.

I take this one personally because my kids go to a Christian school with a moral code reflecting my faith. The contempt and belittling reporting on Karen Pence was an attack on my faith and family too.
There are many great and fair reporters in this country at both the local and national level. I have vocally rejected the idea the press is the enemy of the people. But I increasingly understand why they are so hated by so many and why so many cheer on their bankruptcies and layoffs. Too many members of the media do not understand or do not care why people feel that way.

I said this is an apology, too, and not just a confession. It is.

I must apologize for the growing belief that it is no longer worth defending our press corps. I increasingly feel, as a Christian and a conservative, that the press is not interested in telling the truth and facts, but is heavily invested in ruining people like me. Intellectually, I know better. But it is hard not to get emotional when I see so many vile press-led attacks on people of faith and so much willful misreporting because someone has on a red cap or is a Christian or a conservative. Within the media as a whole, I do not see a will to improve. Increasingly, the good, responsible journalists are getting overshadowed by clickbait and ratings that cater to people who look and think like the reporters ruining the industry. It makes me sad.

When people either inject opinion into, or fabricate news outright, it ceases to be journalism. It becomes propaganda.

Pure journalism no longer exists.

News ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Opinion

A long ways apart.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: parabellum,

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
When people either inject opinion into, or fabricate news outright, it ceases to be journalism. It becomes propaganda.

Pure journalism no longer exists.

That is the whole crux of the matter.

One of the things most critics of the BS news media seem to be blind to is that they are profit making companies. When people watch them, that contributes to their profits. It doesn’t matter if it’s people who love what they’re doing, or hate it. If doing what they do attracts people, it doesn’t matter what those people think, all that matters is the attraction. If someone watches CNN because they like being offended or can’t wait to hear the latest outrageous thing one of their commentators will say, that’s still a win for CNN.

That should be a clue, but for most people, it seems, it’s too difficult to understand.

Oh, look. He finds himself in the vicinity of a clue. How nice for him. I hope he manages to stumble over it.

What took him so long? Did he not see Walter Cronkite's Tet broadcast in the History of Distortion journo class?

Having his head up his ass impaired his vision.

Journalism in America is dead. It is propaganda now.

quote:

Oh, look. He finds himself in the vicinity of a clue. How nice for him. I hope he manages to stumble over it

I'd rather the truth be like a rake than something he might conveniently forget when it suits him down the road. Maybe even send a few teeth flying through the air like chiclets.

Well, let's analyze the facts:

America was founded upon individual freedom on responsibility.
NOT dividing the people along every conceivable demographic category.

Founded upon individual responsibility.
NOT who is the Most victimized" and "most aggrieved".

Upon free enterprise
NOT upon socialism/communism.

Upon "Freedom of Religion"
NOT upon "freedom to never hear about religion"

Upon representative democracy
NOT upon imposition of immorality by activist judges.

Upon generally judeo-christian morality and ethics.
NOT upon a right to be an aberrant, obscene, pervert and forcing normal Americans to participate and approve of their debauchery.

Upon the premise that we are a sovereign nation.
NOT upon the right that the world has a right to enter.

Upon free speech
NOT upon a mandate to squelch "hate speech" or "conservative speech".

There is no such thing in American law as "hat crime" or "face crime" or "crime-think".

Part of the concept of "journalism" is "factual presentation of the news". I understand that everyone has their biases, but when they stoop to deliberate misrepresentation and lies to promote an obvious political agenda, it is no longer "journalism", it is "propaganda-mongering".

So, when an entity advocates AGAINST every founding principle of America, and advocates and pushes all the direct opposite ideals, and deliberately tries to lie the the American people, I think it is very accurate to call them "enemy of the people".

Yes. The mainstream press is the enemy of the American people. Probably a more vicious and insidious enemy than "the Russians" or "The Chinese" or "The Taliban".

It's astonishing how dense these people are. I- and many others- have known since the summer of 2015 that Donald Trump is the only man who can help America in the way it needs to be helped.

Just what in the fuck did all you ivy league snobs do in college?? Where did daddy's money go, huh? You clueless, shit-for-brains phonies.

quote:

Just what in the fuck did all you ivy league snobs do in college?? Where did daddy's money go, huh? You clueless, shit-for-brains phonies.

Erick Erickson went to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He might be many things, but he's not an ivy leaguer.

The mainstream media IS the enemy of the people, absolutely. Because it is not true journalism, but a propaganda machine to keep one political party in power as its sole purpose.

And the entertainment industry is pretty much there as well.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
The mainstream media IS the enemy of the people, absolutely. Because it is not true journalism, but a propaganda machine to keep one political party in power as its sole purpose.

And the entertainment industry is pretty much there as well.

My thoughts exactly.

quote:

Increasingly, it seems that the political press is becoming the enemy of half the country

Actually, more like the enemy of the whole country.

I immediately discounted the author's entire notion. DJT never called the press the enemy of the people. He called "fake news" the enemy of the people.

Same thing, maybe. These days. But still words have specific meaning. The practice of the Left is to twist something someone said into something they didn't say, and then attack it.

I have no time for such morons.

“Increasingly”, “it seems”—those are weasel words.
You ain’t there yet, buddy.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
The American political press has become increasingly isolated in the security of its own liberal bubble of privilege. The political press, like so much of the political left, has decided to build narratives instead of report facts.

This sums up the issue.

Report the news. When a reporter becomes an editor, then you can editorialize ...on that page called editorials, not on the 10-15 pages that came before it.

It's beyond amusing how these supposedly "elite" intellectuals and great thinkers of the conservative movement write these pieces as if they have discovered something new and important when in fact they just about the last ones to have figured it out.