SassyLady
11-13-2021, 11:04 AM
Leftist explaining why trust in MSM is collapsing
When All The Media Narratives CollapseIn case after case, the US MSM just keeps getting it wrong.
The news is a perilous business. It’s perilous because the first draft of history is almost always somewhat wrong, and needs a second draft, and a third, and so on, over time, until the historian can investigate with more perspective and calm. The job of journalists is to do as best they can, day by day, and respond swiftly when they screw up, correct the record, and move forward. I’ve learned this the hard way, not least in the combination of credulousness and trauma I harbored in the wake of 9/11 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/andrew-sullivan-i-was-wrong.pdf).
But when the sources of news keep getting things wrong, and all the errors lie in the exact same direction, and they are reluctant to acknowledge error, we have a problem. If you look back at the last few years, the record of errors, small and large, about major stories, is hard to deny. It’s as if the more Donald Trump accused the MSM of being “fake news” the more assiduously they tried to prove him right.
Snip ... really long article
We all get things wrong. What makes this more worrying is simply that all these false narratives just happen to favor the interests of the left and the Democratic party. And corrections, when they occur, take up a fraction of the space of the original falsehoods. These are not randos tweeting false rumors. They are the established press.
And at some point, you wonder: what narrative are they pushing now that is also bullshit?
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/when-all-the-media-narratives-collapse-650
When All The Media Narratives CollapseIn case after case, the US MSM just keeps getting it wrong.
The news is a perilous business. It’s perilous because the first draft of history is almost always somewhat wrong, and needs a second draft, and a third, and so on, over time, until the historian can investigate with more perspective and calm. The job of journalists is to do as best they can, day by day, and respond swiftly when they screw up, correct the record, and move forward. I’ve learned this the hard way, not least in the combination of credulousness and trauma I harbored in the wake of 9/11 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/andrew-sullivan-i-was-wrong.pdf).
But when the sources of news keep getting things wrong, and all the errors lie in the exact same direction, and they are reluctant to acknowledge error, we have a problem. If you look back at the last few years, the record of errors, small and large, about major stories, is hard to deny. It’s as if the more Donald Trump accused the MSM of being “fake news” the more assiduously they tried to prove him right.
Snip ... really long article
We all get things wrong. What makes this more worrying is simply that all these false narratives just happen to favor the interests of the left and the Democratic party. And corrections, when they occur, take up a fraction of the space of the original falsehoods. These are not randos tweeting false rumors. They are the established press.
And at some point, you wonder: what narrative are they pushing now that is also bullshit?
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/when-all-the-media-narratives-collapse-650