Pure arrogance, but based on what?

In September of 1990 when I got a job in the upstart Fox Broadcasting Company (pre-Fox Sports and Fox News), one of the first things I noticed was how some people believed they had to “dumb” things down for their audience. Think about the inflated sense of self it takes to assume you’re smarter than millions of people simply because of where you work.

I experienced that attitude throughout my dozen years in Hollywood and that sense of disdain for those who consume their products resulted in simplistic and insulting programming like “Honey Boo Boo” and almost everything on TLC. Do you really think these people would create demeaning productions of those in their industry or neighborhood? No, but they seek out the easily exploitable so they can laugh at us behind our backs and boost their fragile egos.

In the world of politics, we have an elected class that has no problem lying to our faces. Because of abused Constitutional protection, they believe they’re smarter than the public and they’ll have a portion of the media class that will cover for them. We can easily point to many in city councils, state legislatures, and even on Capitol Hill who clearly aren’t the brightest or emotionally stable our nation has to offer but they managed to get elected with something that’s coveted by all grifters: trust.

Watch any news or opinion show, local and national, and observe the formula they all use. You’ll never watch those shows the same way again.

After their opening monologues, they introduce a guest, start out with an elongated summary of the topic (to assure us all about how much THEY know) and end it in a way the guest has to respond with “I agree with you…”. The host is thereby validated by the invited expert on the topic. This also validates the host’s value to his or her employer.

However their “values” are only as good as the company cutting their check.

We’ve seen many who were once reporting for a conservative network jump to a liberal one and their rock-solid values suddenly dissolve. “Christian conservative” Alisyn Camerota anchored for Fox News before jumping to CNN. Kaitlan Collins blogged for the conservative Daily Caller out of college, became a White House correspondent and now host at liberal CNN. Shepard Smith anchored at Fox News before coming out with “fagitude” and moving to CNBC. That didn’t last long.

Kinda’ makes you wonder what their values really were prior to their change of venue.

Unlike politicians with elections and term limits, media personnel are imposed on the public and their bios are normally concealed by their employers. How they got to their current positions could be embarrassing once revealed. Experience, lack of, nepotism, sexual fast-track; all are at play when it comes to the media ladder.

News and opinion broadcasts are splattered with hosts showing us pictures of their wives, children, moms, dogs, family celebrations, vacations, etc. They’re just like us so we must appreciate them in return.

Oh, and don’t forget to buy their latest new book!

Equally as insidious are the politicians and officials who find those convenient parachutes once they’re forced out of their government jobs and suddenly realize their sweet paychecks have ended.

We have a conservative nonprofit who absorbs newly out-of-work Republicans despite the damage they may have done to the base. Vice President Mike Pence got a “fellowship” with the Heritage Foundation shortly after leaving office. Former Trump border czar Ken Cuccinelli also wound up there until he could get another lucrative gig doing what he did after he was Virginia Attorney General: securing state delegates around the nation AGAINST Donald Trump in 2016. Yes, he’s doing it again now and people like him continue on because they assume we’re all too stupid to notice and donor dollars pay well.

Former politicians and officials get paid “contributor” gigs at CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and broadcast news, no matter why some are no longer employed and compensated by taxpayers (government pensions notwithstanding). Andrew McCabe, John Bolton, Jennifer Palmieri, Marie Harf, Stephen Moore, John Brennan, Kellyanne Conway, William Barr, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Claire McCaskill and Kayleigh McEnany get to blab away uncontested, simply because they’re considered experienced “experts” who can attempt to redirect an ignorant consumer base towards a preferred and approved narrative.

Why do we have such a political and social chasm between men and women voters?

Well, if you have smug media professionals targeting women with intellectually stimulating programming like “The Today Show”, “Good Morning America”, and “The View”, it’s easy to understand why so many see things differently that the rest of the voting blocks. They trust the information is true despite how ridiculous and error-ridden. They specifically look down on their female audience and play to hyper-emotion over substance.

While talk radio is crowded enough with whiners like Dan Bongino, Mark Levin, Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon and other small market wrist-slitters, everyone and his brother now has a podcast. You know, a product some people pay for to use only once. Talk about a racket.

Podcasts are another vehicle for former politicians, celebrity wannabes and pundit types to fortify your trust in them and others who hope to get a more lucrative media job by out-shocking the competition. They serve as the potential bench of future “talent” to be inflicted on the nation simply because of a dubious social media reach.

Why do we have so many “fact checkers”? Again, because almost all media jobs are dependent on consumers trusting THEM. Anything that may cast doubt on what we’re being told or have been told by the overpaid has to be squelched by all means necessary. Media people seldom admit they’re wrong about anything. The Washington Post and New York Times have not given their Pulitzer Prizes back despite their Trump “Russia collusion” coverage being proven bogus. Whenever the media is proven wrong, their contrition seldom matches the initial air horns. Retractions are buried and on-air corrections take up a couple of sentences before the end of the broadcast.

It’s enough to question just how much all of these people, who get paid to share with us their abundant wisdom, really know and really care about us.

There is an on-air persona and an off-air.

Many of these people are truly horrible and genuinely believe we must believe what they say because their lofty salaries depend on it. While they claim to feel the pain their preferred politicians inflict on us, they’re quite comfortable while telling us all is not that bad. They’re the first to agree on the need to start and/or perpetuate a war their prep-schooled children won’t have to participate in. They’re the first to tell us it’s hot in the summer and drinking water is a good idea because they assume we’re that stupid and they’ll save lives. They can afford an electric car as a status symbol to save the planet while their gas range is off limits. They can and will start race violence in the streets (always great video) and go home to a secured, gated community with appropriate protective measures.

They consider themselves of extraordinary value and we should be damn grateful they exist.

And whenever we’re told about something that “the public doesn’t know” (as if we’re expectedly stupid), it’s because those who are lavishly paid declined to inform the American people for whatever partisan objective.

For them to call us “everyday”, “average” or “ordinary”, that translates as we are exploitable, expendable and don’t you forget it.

Don’t get me started on “workers”….

Given the revelation that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson never got vaccinated while almost all other local, broadcast and cable news hosts and personalities browbeat and shamed their viewers to get vaccinated for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, it can’t be honestly assumed that he was the only one who didn’t get the jab.

After months of amplifying vaccine skepticism while refusing to disclose his own immunization status, Fox News host Tucker Carlson told attendees at a recent megachurch event that he’s not had a single COVID-19 shot.

“I skipped the first three; I’m not getting that one either,” Carlson said of additional booster shots while speaking at San Diego’s Awaken Church earlier this month, according to audio obtained by the Daily Beast and first reported by Voice of San Diego. He claimed he was not against vaccines but took issue with the ones protecting against COVID-19.

It even went out for mass consumption that those in the media were required to get vaccinated as an example to all of us.

It does not appear Fox News is mandating staffers be vaccinated before entering their respective bureaus. At least not yet. Other media companies, namely WarnerMedia and Disney, are not allowing staffers to be in the office unless they have been vaccinated. In fact, WarnerMedia-owned CNN recently fired three staffers for entering the office unvaccinated. It does not appear Fox News is taking the big “mandatory vaccination” step at the moment.
— TV Newser, 8/17/21

So the food-for-thought question should be how many of those who were demanding we all get vaccinated (so we don’t kill others) didn’t get vaccinated themselves? Those who got jabbed and still caught COVID-19 made sure we knew about their suffering.

TODAY anchors get their COVID-19 vaccinations live on the plaza
Savannah Guthrie exits ‘Today’ mid-broadcast and tests positive for COVID-19 — again
Megyn Kelly mocks third bout of COVID-stricken Savannah Guthrie: ‘She’s had all the vaccines’
Al Roker Struggles with Blood Clots After COVID-19 Vaccine
Whoopi Goldberg receives COVID-19 vaccine
Triple vaxxed Whoopi Goldberg says Covid diagnosis was a ‘shock’
Maddow: If You’ve Been Putting Off Vaccination, The Time To Do It Is Now.
Rachel Maddow Hosts Show From Home Due To Covid Exposure
Viewers demand apology from MSNBC, Rachel Maddow for previous COVID vaccine comments

How many of those local and national prompter-readers who demanded we get vaxxed, got vaxxed themselves and still contracted the virus ever said sorry to the millions who listen to them and still got sick? There’s a good chance their viewers may not even know they got sick; they were “on assignment”, vacation, leave, etc.

While Tucker Carlson didn’t demand his viewers get vaccinated and was routinely blasted for being a skeptic, many others on CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, NPR, PBS, and almost all of their affiliated reminded us hourly of our civic duty. Remember, these people deemed themselves special. They would never risk their and their family’s health if they didn’t have to. The general public’s health is only of genuine concern if the special has to be in their proximity.

ABC’s The View FINALLY lets studio audience remove their face masks three years after COVID first hit US shores

They’re also privy to information they can selectively withhold from the public, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that some knew the vaccine might not be as advertised and opted not to personally follow the demands they were making to their audiences.

Chris Hayes: Go Get The Updated Covid Booster Shot

It could very well be coincidental, but I can’t seem to find any verification on Chris Hayes’ vaccination status. You’d think he’d want to lead by example and let the whole world know.

Pfizer CEO explains why he hasn’t received a vaccine yet

Albert Bourla didn’t want to cut the line. Yeah, sure.

Of course, we’ll never know the answer to those and many more questions. While they revel in their abilities to destroy the lives of anyone they report about, the journalist class demands we observe and respect their privacy so any question as to their vaccination status is none of our business.

Former President Trump and Fox News anchor Bret Baier argued over Trump’s false claims of a rigged election in 2020 during a contentious interview that aired Monday on the network.

“First of all, I won in 2020 by a lot,” Trump said when Baier asked him how he plans to appeal to independent voters in 2024. “You know that’s not what … ” Baier interjected as Trump talked over him.

The former president floated unfounded theories about ballot harvesting and voter fraud, to which Baier pushed back, saying, “Mr. President that’s all been looked into. You lost the 2020 election,” Baier told Trump, noting the numerous recounts and lawsuits that followed Trump’s refusal to admit defeat in the weeks after the election.
— The Hill, 6/19/23

The Founding Fathers gave the media protection in the First Amendment of the Constitution with the caveat that they keep the public informed. It didn’t have to be said that the information presented be accurate. Maybe it should’ve been. Especially over the last decade, the media has made numerous declarations and a good portion of the populace believed them. As usual, when those declarations turned out to be untrue, corrections are buried if issued at all. Apologies? Zip, zero, nada.

Does CNN ever apologize for getting it wrong — putting out false or deliberately misleading information — again and again and again and again and again?

No, CNN simply pretends all of this failure derives from good-faith errors rather than wishcasting and flamboyantly obvious partisan hackery, then dials the whataboutism up to 11.
— New York Post, 10/12/21

The lack of contrition is expected because some of the overpaid in the media risk loss of their income should the public not trust them. Brian Williams seems to be one of the exceptions of a busted liar who continues to get high paying gigs while a laughing stock. But the media gets it wrong so often, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to insist the public accept them at their word, for example, when it comes to the 2020 election as the “most secure in history“.

In fact, the media is wrong so often, there are posts dedicated to not letting the arrogant off the hook so easily.

There is a major source of misinformation that’s rarely mentioned in news stories — the news media themselves. A Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism study found that “news organizations play a major role in propagating hoaxes, false claims, questionable rumors, and dubious viral content.”  In another study, Harvard’s Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts examined four million online messages transmitted or shared during the 2016 election campaign, including those from the websites of traditional news outlets like the New York Times and fake news sites like those of Russian operatives. The research team expected the Russian effort to be a major source of disinformation, and it was. But they discovered that traditional media were a larger contributor.
— The Journalist’s Resource, 10/27/20

Clutch pearls now.

Here’s Glenn Greenwald’s greatest hits breakdown of media mistakes, lies, whatever you wish….

Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story

Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

Russia Attacked U.S. “Diplomats” (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

You get the drift, but wait, there’s a lot more!

Not fake news, just plain wrong: Top media corrections of 2017
The rise of left-wing, anti-Trump fake news
My Top 10 media lies: Micheal Goodwin
How Did So Much of the Media Get the Steele Dossier So Wrong?
20 Stories The Media Got Horribly Wrong In 2020
The mainstream media’s top 10 missteps in 2021
Trump was just arraigned on federal charges. The media are already getting it wrong
Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in US Politics

You may find ironic and humorous when some of the gross offenders offer sanctimonious introspection only after all harm was done.

And probably the biggest middle finger-mocking of the media and Joe Biden they are protecting, resulted in the slogan-turned-hashtag, found on social media sites and auto bumpers to this day….

NBC NASCAR reporter Kelli Stavast is either hard of hearing, or a very, very quick thinker.
— Deadline, 10/3/21

…

It’s best not to believe any media story nowadays. They’ve clearly earned the mistrust.

Sadly, they also depend on their consumers being too lazy to do the due diligence and investigate further on their own, which unfortunately explains how easy it is to continue to include “The View” under the ABC News banner.

But when the media insists you believe masks work and vaccines are safe, climate catastrophes a century from now can be prevented today, elections where Democrats win should always be accepted, and especially when they insist you believe them because they say so, have one word at the ready…

Why?

There’s little chance Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin will acknowledge their hypocrisy.

There are way too many instances to review.

The panel on ABC’s “The View” reacted with anger and disappointment to news on Thursday that a Los Angeles radio personality accused Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) of groping her and forcibly kissing her on a USO trip in 2006.

“It’s just so disappointing,” said co-host Joy Behar, “but, you know, men of all different stripes are out there doing crazy shit.”
— Raw Story, 11/16/17

Either Joy Behar has an acute case of Alzheimer’s or she’s been lying to America knowing she’s been prone to put her hands where they don’t belong without consent.

Of course, Behar will NOT address her past transgressions unless pressured into an insincere, public apology by her evil male bosses at ABC. If liberal patterns hold true, she’ll claim her groping was NOT of sexist intent.

It was comedy. Just you wait.

By the way…

One of our most beloved comedians,

That’s a stretch.

The brilliantly witty and outspoken star of The View, hits the most unpopular President ever elected where it hurts—and makes us laugh and cheer—in this hilarious alphabetical guide to everything that’s wrong with the “Orange One,” Donald Trump.

Put down the knife, lock away the gun, lay aside the noose, Joy Behar is here to save you from suicide as she hot walks you through the next four years (two if we are lucky, less if liberal dreams come true). Besides despair, the sane response to the insanity in the White House is laughter. On her hit ABC daytime show The View, Joy has been blunt in her condemnation of the comb over-in-chief, and her words have electrified and inspired millions in the resistance for whom #notmypresident has become a rallying cry. The Great Gasbag is Joy’s answer to the hell that is the Trump Orange House.
— Harper Collins, About the Book

Her new book would be more appropriate if she weren’t in front of a blackboard but looking into a mirror.