Posted on 04/18/2024 4:36:12 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Our mainstream press has abandoned its sentinel post, leaving America vulnerable as we move toward the most important election in generations.
No one was particularly surprised when Vladmir Putin recently won reelection by a landslide. The near universal reaction could be characterized by a roll of the eyes and a sighed “what do you expect, it’s Russia.” We’ve seen this before, after all -- it is his fifth term -- but there is something new in its significance for us. What’s changed is the newly fragile condition of our own democracy, making the Moscow “election” emphatically relevant to America. Many are the differences between Russian and American society, but one of those gaps has shrunk with alarming speed over the past decade. Putin’s power has been built on the bones of a free press. America once had a fiercely independent media that was not just the hallmark of our liberty but also the guardian that kept our society free. But our mainstream press has abandoned its sentinel post, leaving America vulnerable as we move toward the most important election in generations.
The Supreme Court recently cast a spotlight on the health of our free speech when it examined the Administration’s efforts to stifle critics through manipulation of social media. Reports on the hearing, however, missed the fundamental issue. Apologists asserted that there had been no top-down coercion of speech -- “nothing to see here, move on.” But the ultimate issue wasn’t that the Administration initiated censorship, it was that our leaders were enabled by the repression of speech that was already endemic in the popular media. The Supreme Court will decide if indirect manipulations violate constitutional protections. Whatever the outcome, we are learning a bitter lesson: the Constitution, in all its brilliance, does not protect us from repression that grows...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The problem with the leftist press is that they call evil good and try to convince the gullible that it is true.
And Speaker Johnson himself giving a majority vote to Schumer & Xiden over FISA warrants just took away 1st Amendment rights that enables J6 persecutions, Trump lawfare and the like. The MSM is an important enabler for the left but the GOPe is the enabler for the real thing.
He’s correct about what happened but not IMO, why. It had little to nothing to do with sensationalism or celebrities. Its all been driven by the massive consolidation of media in this country that took place in the 90s and early 2000s. Over 90% of the media is owned by just 6 corporations now. The media used to be much more diverse and fiercely competitive. Now all it takes is a few wokesters at the top of the pyramid to stifle all but Establishment, Globalist, Envirosocialist thought.
The saving grace was supposed to be the internet and in its early years especially, it was. But then the rise of the government backed and deeply government tied social media companies was like the rise of the consolidated media on steroids. The ties between the Deep State and the likes of Google, Facebook and (pre Musk) Twitter were and are right out in the open.
There’s a name for it when big business and government are in bed together with each doing the other’s bidding. Its called Fascism. That’s what’s been building in America for the last 30 years.
I think both of you are mistaken. It has little to do with media consolidation. If the companies which own the media were culturally for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, there would be little problem.
What happened was Progressivism/Marxism, as an ideology took over the media, starting with the radio networks during the Roosevelt administration when the FCC. Roosevelt put his man in charge. The administration made sure the radio networks were pro-administration, which meant Progressive. Censorship during WWII consolidated the ideological change. The radio networks became the Television Networks. There was a concerted effort to take over newspapers and turn them into Progressive papers. Thus, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Associated Press always had a leftist/Progressive bent.
The recent change is because the Progressive media has lost its ability to control the narrative. Now the Media/government complex has to resort to raw censorship to control the information flow.
GREAT post. Thanks.
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Historical context BUMP!
Historical context BUMP!
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