Freedom of the Press Run Amok?

Posted on by under Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Social commentary

You may remember Alexander Vindman from back in 2019 when he testified before the United States Congress regarding the Trump–Ukraine scandal. His testimony provided evidence that resulted in a charge of abuse of power in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. Commissioned in 1999 as an infantry officer, Vindman received a Purple Heart medal for wounds he received from an IED attack in the Iraq War in 2004. Vindman became a foreign area officer specializing in Eurasia in 2008, and assumed the position of Director for European Affairs with the NSC in 2018. In July 2020, Vindman retired after 21 years in the military. He cited vengeful behavior and bullying by Trump and administration officials after he complied with a subpoena to testify in front of Congress during Trump’s impeachment hearings.  Vindman is a hero in the eyes of many, including my own.

Recently, Vindman has begun writing for Substack and I would like to share with you his post from a few days ago about how the press is letting us down in their efforts to please everyone and thus maintain profitability.

All About the Clicks

Elevating the Standard of Media

Alexander Vindman

13 January 2024

I’m pretty frustrated with the New York Times. I grew up in New York City and have always loved the paper, considering the Gray Lady the definitive news source. But lately, increasingly for the last few years actually, she’s disappointed. Too often I see NYT resorting to clickbait titles for their articles and opinion pieces. It’s gotten so bad there’s a hilarious Twitter account called the New York Times Pitchbot with seemingly outlandish story ideas but sometimes it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s satire.

If it’s not the article titles, it’s the clickbait topics and angles that the NYT chooses to print. There have been about a half-dozen shoddy articles promoting the mirage of peace negotiations for the Ukraine war that throw out misinformation of Putin’s intentions, willingness to negotiate, and strawman prescriptions that sound good to the ear but are practical nonstarters.

This past weekend there was a ridiculous opinion essay about Taylor Swift in which, among other things, the author speculated as to whether or not she is gay. How is rampant speculation of Swift’s sexuality newsworthy for any major paper let alone the New York Times?  It seems trivial — and it should be beneath the dignity of one of the nation’s top publications — but if we are to judge by the pattern of clickbait articles, it appears to be their current business model. This only serves to highlight the shocking sliding of standards in the pursuit of readers, viewers, and clicks.

The chase for eyeballs and ad revenues is a powerful force. In fact, it’s the lifeblood of media and the media landscape seems to be constantly in flux these days. Media companies are trying to figure out how to survive, but it seems they have decided they cannot do so without selling their soul at times. I think there are other options. It’s clear to me that newsrooms can make better choices about what news they choose to cover and how they represent that news.

At minimum, there is an expectation that the media learn from their mistakes. Maybe the most egregious of errors was covering all of Donald Trump’s nonsense. Trump is of the school of thought that any press is good press and 2016 proved that to be true. Now, after everything he has done, the media largely refuses to cover him in an honest way. This recent headline is a good example:

We are living in some of the most precarious times of our democracy and this headline reads like theater review. This is not a joke; he is attempting to intimidate, evade, and flood the zone with lies, distractions, and disinformation. Similarly, this was seen recently as well:

Despite what Trump and MAGA supporters want to believe, reality exists and it is not up for interpretation. If the venerable New York Times cannot accept and admit that, I am at a loss. This kind of nonsense casts a shadow on everything published in one of the last remaining print outlets that still supports quality journalism. But if they are willing to say these things, how can we trust their reporting in other areas? More troublingly, how can we trust lesser media outlets?

Why it Matters: Venerable newspapers and the media play a large role in shaping public opinion. Consequently, they must be held to a standard of reporting and avoid sensationalization, false equivalencies, and feel-good superficial reporting, merely to acquire and maintain a following. If a publication cannot meet that basic standard, I am ready to unsubscribe in protest. Individually it won’t register. But cumulatively, it has an impact. Because money talks.

I have been a subscriber to the New York Times for as long as I can remember.  A few years ago, the price jumped and today is $20 per month.  Like Mr. Vindman, I am seriously debating whether their current level of reliability is worth $240 a year.

Our friend Annie also has written on the topic of media bias in the era of trumpism and her post is well worth the read!

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43 thoughts on “Freedom of the Press Run Amok?”

  1. The media has become like the politicians – whatever brings them the $$$$$$. All the news is so biased, especially here, I’m tired of having to search for truth. I blame the media for a lot of the egging on and twisting vulnerable minds who believe everything they read anywhere. 😦 x

    Liked by 2 people

    • I dropped them when they stenographed us into invading Iraq. No judgment on others’s mileage, just saying for myself, that did it. Once in a blue moon I try to read something of theirs on my phone, but, somehow, I’m always out of free stories. shrug

      Liked by 2 people

      • I fully understand! I stick with them, at least for now, for they give me a “starting point” and then I go in search of either verification or denial of their claims. This is why I spend about 12 hours a day on this blog … trying to make sure I know what I’m talking about and have my facts straight. Sigh. And with AI, it’s going to get even harder to separate fact from fiction!

        Liked by 1 person

  4. His comment; “Despite what Trump and MAGA supporters want to believe, reality exists and it is not up for interpretation.” needs to be in Big Bold Black letters!!

    The only news media I subscribe to is our local newspaper. For the most part, they’ve proven to be pretty fair in printing both sides. Even so, I think we all need to do our own research … AND not allow ourselves to get caught up in rhetoric.

    Liked by 3 people

    • I fully agree!!! Needs to be said EVERY DAY!

      I agree with you that we all need to do our own research, but then we have to decide who to believe. I think that the recent upsurge in the use of Artificial ‘Intelligence’ makes it even more difficult.

      Like

  5. Suppose in my infinite time I receive my news through a 1000 sources and all the sources are owned by one entity. At least two people who read this blog are OLD (🤣) enough to remember when it was illegal for ownership of more than one media outlet in a market. Maybe we should pay attention to who’s pushing rather than what is in the Soylent Green.

    Liked by 3 people

    • 🙋‍♀️ oh,oh,oh, Mr ryinger77, I remember that! I also remember the infamous time in the 90s when the death knell for that was struck in a bipartisan fashion, and things have never been the same. I’m not saying that getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine in the 80s didn’t get all this rolling, but it could have been held back in the 90s and wasn’t. grrrr

      Liked by 2 people

        • Murdoch as in …? I keep thinking of the “Mysteries” show. Speaking of tv shows, that was my little impression of Korschak on “Welcome Back Kotter.” When he knew an answer, he’d respond in that fashion. No worries.

          Occasionally, though I don’t share the opinion myself because you throw in humor so I can tell there’s no malice, some of your commentary explains your warning. But I appreciate it and will keep it in mind! 🤭🖖

          Liked by 2 people

  6. Jill, in short, in an effort to appear even-handed it promotes a 50/50 perspective. The best example is climate change. Having two talking heads on a TV news discussion belies the truth that the issue is more 97 to 3 in terms of scientists not 50/50.

    Further, while it is true both parties lie, it is not a normal distribution. It is more like for every two lies the Democrats might utter, the Republicans will say fourteen. As an independent and former member of both parties, I see the lying as a main stream attribute in the GOP – you must support the lying of the former president to curry favor (or not curry disfavor).

    Keith

    Liked by 5 people

    • It’s rather like trying to compare Martin Luther King & Charles Manson and coming up with a moral equivalence.

      What disturbs me most about the Republican lies is that even once they are fully de-bunked, the truth is in the limelight for all to see, certain media outlets continue to put them forth, and a large swath of the public will continue to parrot the lies, even after seeing the evidence. Rather than making America “great”, it would appear Trump has made America, or some portion of it, ignorant.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Jill, I was tickled that a Republican led House committee wants to call in Cassidy Hutchinson to try and discredit her. Oh, I hope they do invite her in again. Here is a very credible witness who testified under oath and would be asked questions by people who have put forth lies. Almost Speaker Jim Jordan was denied membership on the original House Select Committee as he was a “person of interest” in the insurrection. Cheney said to Jordan during the middle of the insurrection “you caused this.”

        Hutchinson only heard a speaker phone conference call where Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Donald Trump were breaking the law as they tried to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State to change votes. She also knew Trump had said Mike Pence should be hung. She also knew Trump said “I can’t tell my followers I lost, so go change that.” And, she knows Trump lunged at the steering wheel when his Secret Service people refused to take him to the Capitol building. And so on.

        When you are lying, the best thing to do is not ask people in who know you are lying.

        Keith

        Liked by 1 person

        • I’m with you … let them interview Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson! I hope that if they do, she puts them in their place! Thing is, though … I think all these should be done in public. Like Hunter Biden, I strongly suspect they intend to take things out of context and twist what is said such that it appears as something other than what it was. Hmmm … seems like maybe I don’t trust them … I wonder why???

          Like

  7. The world of instant gratification has run amok. It appears me the past where Walter Cronkite once held his hand up to the news camera as if to say “I’ll be with you in a minute,” because he was in the phone getting the latest piece of information on a subject are long gone. We live and operate now in a world of likes and hearts and thumbs up and all that seems to matter is not what is happening but how people are reacting to it in this very moment. We have become the dog chasing its own tail but worse than that the tail is wagging the dog.

    Liked by 6 people

  8. Thank you, Jill, for reprinting Vindman’s piece; he’s a hero, for sure, and I’m glad to know he’s writing regularly on Substack. Thanks, too, for linking to my blog post on the topic. I grew up with TNYT, and old habits die hard. But the more outrageous their reporting becomes, the more seriously we consider opting out of “the newspaper of record.”

    Liked by 5 people

  9. I am so glad to have witnessed Alexander Vindman’s testimony… as well as the disgusting MAGAt tactics to discredit him and his honorable colleagues (Fiona Hill also comes to mind). People like them make me feel proud of this country.

    Regarding the NYT, I dumped my subscription two years ago… and stopped reading even before my subscription ran out–totally disgusted with the upselling, clickbait, and “balanced” reporting. There was no debate about doing so. I hope other follow suit by voting with their pocket books.

    Liked by 4 people

    • Agreed, and yet … how else do we find out what’s going on in the world? I typically try to verify anything that sounds remotely off with at least three ‘reputable’ sources … it’s the best we can do, I think. I don’t like to think we’re entering into Orwell’s “1984” forty years later!

      Liked by 3 people

      • We have been there for some time now. It is not only what and how is reported, but also what is NOT reported. Like all the demonstrations in France, Belgium and Germany. They were hardly in Danish media, just with short remarks. One has to search the internet to find direct sources.

        Liked by 3 people

  11. It is a good post, it highlights one of those cycles.
    The standards rise and the standards fall.

    For some of us, we still live in the afterglow of the Watergate Investigations by such as Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post.
    There have been times when this was not so.
    Just two examples:
    Under Hearst and Pulitzer’s encouragement the American press believed the Spanish had blown up The Maine and accelerated the Spanish American War (the final excuse?)
    The British Press played its part in whipping up anti-Spanish feeling in 1730s which lead to a ruinous war with Spain 1739 – 1748.

    A commentary by British Writer and Essayist Jerome K Jerome in his fictional book ‘Dairy of a Pilgrimage’ (a journey through Europe). He and his friend get into an argument over the height of a cathedral. His friend defending the height comments ‘But the Guide Book says’
    Jerome retorts:
    ‘The Guide Book? You’ll be believing a newspaper next!’

    The newspapers walk a fine line between being their for profit, reporting news, perusing agendas and downright entertainment. In this it is difficult to ever accept they will produce impartial and accurate accounts.

    In the current era where the Internet’s Social Media has birthed an atmosphere of hysteria of likes and hits, become a place where any unedited drivel that suits the fears and prejudices of people can be accepted as a ‘Truth’, the Newspapers are fighting for their place in the sunshine.

    Do not go to just one source. It relies on you to absorb the evidence and reach your own conclusion and the more that rails against your beliefs and the greater the discomfort it causes, the more likely the conclusion is to be near to accuracy.
    An open mind and an acceptance that there is no simple answer is the safest course.

    Liked by 4 people

  12. He hit the nail right on the point when he said, “Venerable newspapers and the media play a large role in shaping public opinion.” The question is, “Whose opinion are they feeding to the public?” It certainly is not the opinions of the good citizens of a democratic nation. I am not a regular reader of NYT, nor would I want to be. I see headlines and excerpts from articles and news stories, and I think, this editor wants to see Trump back in power — Trump sells newspapers! So they are on his side..

    Liked by 5 people

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