The Death Knell for the Corporate Media

The last straw was this week’s decisions by the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post

The corporate media committed suicide this week. The shameful decisions by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post to refuse to endorse a presidential candidate is a break from their respective traditions and a demonstration of their fealty to Donald Trump.

The mainstream media has for years now peddled the false equivalence that the Democrats and Republicans are engaged in “bipartisan bickering.” They willfully refuse to acknowledge that one party has ceased being a party and has taken on all of the characteristics of a non-democratic cult, while the other party has fought for democracy and defended freedoms that are under threat from those same sources.

There is no equivalency, but don’t tell that to the media, which has normalized the Republicans and insisted ad nauseum that the parties play nice together. This is delusional, or more likely cynical. The issue is democracy versus dictatorship, pure and simple.  There is no middle ground.

In corporate media world, however, election deniers are equated with Democrats who hold non-mainstream views. Each is treated as an outlier, despite the fact that election denialism is a cornerstone of the Republican party and the progressive wing of the Democratic party is fighting for affordable health care, reproductive rights, the climate and voting rights.

Project 2025 and the Democratic platform which espouses the policies just enumerated represent different forms of government. One is dedicated to eliminating democracy and installing theocracy, while the other offers women, minorities and working people hope. You wouldn’t know it listening to the major newspapers, network and cable news. To them, it’s all about the horse race, who’s up and who’s down. It’s all about clickbait and catering to Trump and his oligarch friends. Most of the owners of corporate media entities are themselves oligarchs who support the Republican Party and specifically, Donald Trump. That’s the reason they won’t endorse. Forget their excuses about objectivity and independence.

The corporate media labels those who support the Democratic policy agenda extremist, equating them with the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Lauren Boeberts. This is beyond disingenuous. It is dishonest reporting and represents a major reason people have begun to eschew major media for other news sources.

It was disconcerting (though no surprise) to find major news outlets after the Republican convention proclaiming a changed Trump, with correspondents speculating that he would espouse a message of unity. They have perpetrated one of the most egregious scams in modern political history. Networks that once pledged never to allow on air guests who espoused election denial are now bantering with election deniers and apologists for the insurrection, some of whom have been hired as contributors. Together, they propagate the ridiculous image of a reasonable Trump.

While anchors breathlessly report the minute-by-minute machinations of the Democrats as if disaster looms, the Republicans have been given hours of air every day to lie, and to fill viewers’ ears with their bigotry and contempt for women and minorities.

The obsession with suspect polls is deplorable. The media know well that more than 80 Republican polls have been dumped into the polling ecosystem, but you would never know it from their reporting. To them, these suspect polls buttress their narrative of a tied race.

It is easy to say “ignore them.”  The reality is that corporate media personalities have for years been celebrities who make rather than report news. They have abdicated their responsibility to the public in favor of advancement, clicks and profits. As noted, many of the owners and the senior executives of the companies that run major media outlets are Trump supporters. This is inevitably reflected in the decisions made in the newsroom, notwithstanding the protestations of the anchors who create these false equivalencies.

This leaves us relying on such sources as independent media for honest reporting. The near death of investigative journalism and the demise of local news have allowed politicians to lie with impunity, safe in the knowledge that nobody will call them out. This is untenable, and cries out for change. The only way that will come about is if readership and viewership dwindle to near nothing. Take heart. The Washington Post is reported to have lost more than 2,000 readers and counting since their announcement. This is a newspaper that garnered only 4,000 new subscribers in the past year.

Corporate media will have no one to blame save themselves. In the meantime we are left to search for truth in the few remaining places we can find it.