How the MSM Might Survive: Come Out of the Ideological Closet

by John Nolte

Whenever reading Politico, everything should be washed through this filter. You must always keep in the front of your mind that this supposed “news” organization took the time to dig up and publicize dirt on a private citizen whose only sin was asking a perfectly reasonable question of a public figure. Politico’s warning to the everyday American was clear: get in the way of our guy and we will summon all our resources to publicly humiliate you. This all goes to prove that Politico is nothing more than a digital version of the Dinosaur Media — and just as clueless and dishonest as their unholy brethren, especially when it comes to explaining why their counterparts are drowning in the tar pits of obsolescence.

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To hear Politico tell it, CNN’s stuck in humiliating fourth place behind FOX, MSNBC and their own Headline News because they’ve made the mistake of not appealing to the great unwashed who prefer partisan bickering and echo chambers:

With the proliferation of media across platforms these days, there’s less shared knowledge among people, who are increasingly heading to niche outlets for information. At the same time, there’s a large appetite for the new media world where the MSM gatekeepers no longer hold as much clout, and “he said, she said” journalism gives way to strong point of view. …

There’s no doubt that the over-the-top, and politically partisan, hosts are having more success attracting viewers on nights when there’s no major news event.

And what better place for Politico to get an opinion on such a matter than The Nation aka: “The flagship of the left“:

“The whole notion of citizenship has been declining for decades now.”

In other words, CNN is dying because of their oh-so noble and self-sacrificial decision to remain unbiased and objective. We know CNN agrees with this sanctimonious rationalization because they’re quoted saying so in the article:

CNN President Jon Klein says he knows why those approaches work, and he’s not going to go there. “It’s the oldest trick in the book to trot out over-the-top hosts and put them on a cable-news show[.]” …

Klein told staffers on Tuesday, according to TVNewser, that CNN “refuse[s] to do the things that might get us a quick number or cater to the extremes that would alienate our core viewers.”

Maybe CNN’s problem is that their president doesn’t watch his own network. After all, what self-respecting individual not wanting to smell the hot breath of someone laughing in his face could be aware of Rick Sanchez and say such things?

But online or not, this is what the dying Dinosaur Media so desperately wants to believe – or at least wants history to believe – that their slow, painful demise was the result of journalistic integrity. “We would rather be extinct than get in the gutter with low-brow partisan journalists who appeal to the lowest common denominator!”

Well, I’m going to go ahead and appeal to the lowest common denominator by stating, what a load of crap.

CNN, and much (though never enough) of the Dinosaur Media, are dying because everything they do and everything they stand for is predicated on a lie. They are liars of the highest order, have been for decades, and now that alternatives (who are not liars of the highest order) are available … we turn to them.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have too many flaws to even begin to list here, but both are open and honest about their partisan agendas, and the same is true for the whole of MSNBC. The cable net may have never proclaimed, “We’re in the tank for all things liberal!” but they’re so shamelessly open about it there’s no need. Sure, MSNBC tells and spreads lies, but their existence is not based on a lie any more than the DNC.

On the other hand, CNN’s very foundation is built on a lie; the lie that they’re objective … and people, left and right, are turning away from them and others like them because they’ve had enough. No one likes smug, sanctimonious, phony posturing – and from the dim-bulb Wolf Blitzer to the Cover Boy Anderson Cooper to the Shark-Eyed Campbell Brown to OlberGeraldo Rick Sanchez – CNN is up to their 4th place necks in smug, sanctimonious, phony posturing.

What Politico and their delicate compatriots at The Nation describe as “catering to extremes” and “he said, she said” journalism, the rest of us call intellectual honesty. And no matter how sober and thoughtful, no matter how hushed the tone or furrowed the brow, CNN is a network stacked mostly with hardcore Leftists pretending not to be. Given the choice between CNN’s dishonest con job and MSNBC’s shameless hack job, I, and many others, choose a shamelessly honest hack job.

Fox News beats everyone and has the most ideologically diverse audience of them all because their straight news is straight, their opinion news is presented as such and even Obama’s biggest fans have come to learn that if they don’t tune in they’ll miss important stories like, say, that whole ACORN thing.

Of course, the Politico article won’t even consider that argument because Politico has the same con job going as CNN, and isn’t about to cry foul on their entire way of doing business.

You want to survive, Dinosaurs? Give up the asinine charade.

CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR… do your ratings, shareholders and consciences a favor and join the Daily Kos, Breitbart’s Bigs, The Huffington Post, National Review, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow in coming out of the ideological closet.

You’re no longer fooling  anyone, and as you swirl the drain we chuckle at your charade like a parent dealing with a dumb little kid who insists on pretending they’re invisible.


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Posted Nov 2nd 2009 at 12:03 pm in Media Criticism, Politics | 106 Comments