The Old Press Meets The New Press
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” (Thomas Jefferson)
It’s a new year and “journalist” are following the age-old tradition of sitting around patting themselves on the back while explaining it’s not their fault they’re the Typhoid Mary of misinformation. Alas, this is nothing new. The old press has been the primary spreader of misinformation since our country was founded. Thomas Jefferson - one of the greatest advocates for a free press in our history – pointed this out in his letter of June 14, 1807, to John Norvell:
“the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors…”
Not sure, is that “misinformation” or “disinformation” Jefferson was talking about? In any event there you have it, the press embraced fake news no later than 217 years ago. What’s worse, is over the next couple of centuries things only got worse, a few of many examples:
- “Remember the Maine?” You know, when Hearst’s New York Journal and Pulitzer’s New York World (Yes, that Pulitzer) blamed the sinking of the of the U.S.S. Maine on Spain – even though there was no evidence Spain was involved. The 1898 equivalent of click farming at the expense of fanning the flames of war;
- Then there was the AP’s deal with Hitler’s Germany to hire Nazis so they could stay in Germany in the 1930s. Guess they thought being part of the Nazi propaganda machine was not a big deal as long as they made a buck.
- Let’s not forget the NY Times and their ace reporter Walter Durante covering up Stalin’s Genocide in Ukraine that killed between 3 and 5 million people. Yea, Durante got a Pulitzer for that reporting;
- Starting in 1941, the press acted in unison in not only supporting FDR’s decision to send over 120,000 Japanese-Americans to prison camps in WW II, but also demonizing them. To be fair, 18 Americans were charged with spying for Japan and 10 were convicted, of course all were Caucasians.
- From the 1950s to 1972 the American press willingly ran stories made up by the FBI to discredit people Hoover and gang took a disliking too, including civil rights leaders, free speech advocates, anti-war protestors, and even women liberation activists;
- Oh, remember Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive? He spilled the beans that CNN intentionally did not report on Saddam Hussein’s atrocities so they could continue to have access to Iraq.
I could go on, but then this article would become a multi-volume diatribe, so in the interests of brevity I’ll jump to the point – we’ve always had a free press, but never an honest press, at least until now.
Until recently the old press was not only the gatekeepers who determined what news we could see, but perhaps of more import, what news we could not see. Then came talk radio and the Fox news and the gates of the old press were dented, but certainly not stormed. Blogs such as Instapundit were next and they too begin banging on the gates of the old press but with only limited success. It was not until the hybrid news/opinion sites like Real Clear Politics, Jester Politics, and HotAir combined with the blogs that gates of the old press started to leak.1 But it wasn’t until the rise of podcasts like Joe Rogen, Megan Kelly, and Tucker Carlson coupled with independent platforms such as substack, spotify, and X that the power of the old press was truly challenged. With people like Bari Weiss, Begee Welborn, Matt Taibbi, Sharyl Attkisson, Michael Shellenberger, Glenn Greenwald, and so many more writing on substack, Jester Politics, HotAir, X, and others; as well as publishing podcasts and posting videos, the old press is finally giving way to the new press.
Now, it’s the norm for the new press to expose the old press, and in so doing it’s clear to all who care to see that the old press has been the primary source of misinformation since the founding of our Republic.
How many times did the old press report on the Steal Dossier (it was false), Russian Collusion (there was none), the pee-pee tape (it was made up), there’s no evidence that Biden is corrupt (there is), Israel is committing atrocities in Gaza (they are not), police were killed during the January 6 riots (they weren’t), Biden is as sharp as a tack (he is not), our southern border is secure (it isn’t), illegal migrant crime is not significant (it is), illegal migrants contribute more to our economy than they take (they do not), white supremacists are the real threat to America (they aren’t), Trump was convicted of rape (he was not), female identifying biological males have no athletic advantage over women (they do), puberty blockers are safe to give to children (they are not), and mutilating children in the name of gender affirming care prevents suicides (it does not). All of this, and more was false, all was spread by the old press, and none would have been exposed except for the new press.
The old press is now on the defensive and unless they do something many, if not most, will become footnotes in history. However, with few exceptions, instead of engaging in an honest evaluation of where they went wrong and correcting their mistakes, the old press, often in collusion with big tech and the government, has decided to attack the new press.
The old press always insists their reporting is accurate until the last thread connected to reality that they’re grasping snaps. They then try to bury their biased, often dishonest, reporting as if it never happened and shift to pointing fingers at those on social media for spreading “misinformation.”2 To make matters worse, none, or very few of these “journalists” have been held accountable. Rachel Maddow, Brian “Potato” Stelter, Jake Tapper, Joy Reid, and George Stephanopoulos, to name a few all make a nice living off spreading misinformation from the Russian Collusion hoax to Trump being guilty of rape, not to mention holding “town hall meetings” that are nothing more than poorly disguised ambushes of their political opponents (looking at you Jake Tapper).
Worse than the old press’ dishonesty is their collusion, or at the very least their support of, big tech and government efforts to censor speech. Remember the Department of Homeland Security’s Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board (Board)? To this day we don’t know the full extent of what that organization was formed to accomplish. What we do know is the Board:
- Was originally conceived in part to monitor domestic speech regarding “conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections” and “disinformation related to the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks.”
- Planned to partner with pre-Musk Twitter to suppress disfavored speech.
- Prepared legislation to codify a “Rumor Control Program of the Department of Homeland Security to Counter Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation,” including a public-facing website known as “Rumor Control.”
When the Board was forced to shut down many in the media mourned its demise. NPR, NBC, CNN, The Washington Post, and others all lamented the death of the Board and blamed it on disinformation spread by Republicans and/or, yes you guessed it, the “far right.” However, as Jonathan Turley pointed out, these beacons of information forgot to point out that Nina Jankowicz – the head of the Board - is a long time advocated for government censorship of speech.
We now stand at a fork in the road. One road leads to a free and honest press controlled by us – the citizens. The other leads to the status quo of a free but dishonest press controlled by a modern priest class called “journalists” - who are willing to sacrifice our liberties for their comfort and status. The question we must now answer is: do we have the courage to demand a free and honest press? If we do, then we must reject all attempts to censor our speech - regardless of whether it comes from the government or the old press – and support the new press. We also must reject attempts to censor speech we dislike.
The decision is ours. I hope we are not a people who have “two good eyes but…still don’t see.”3
Full disclosure, I am a principle of and write for Jester Politics.
A perfect example is The Associated Press (AP) who ran a weekly roundup of what they claim to be fake news they found on social media. They started this as early as May 26, 2017 and ran it at least through July 24, 2004. I admit I did not review all of these posts, but the one’s I did all pointed out what they claimed to be fake news on social media and failed to point out the ‘fake news’ in the old press. The implication being that social media is the sole source, or at least the primary source, of misinformation. The logical conclusion being that speech must be policed on social media to prevent the spread of misinformation.
Grateful Dead, Casey Jones.