Why I Hate Legacy Media, and Why You Should, Too

It’s all right-wing media. All of it.

Every time a Republican gets a pass for something a Democrat would get publicly shamed for, we always ask the whiniest of questions about it. You know, the questions that begin with the words “What about” and then go on to accuse the media of bias.

Whataboutism is an argumentative strategy that talking heads use to deflect an accusation rather than respond to it. So, when we get accused of doing X, instead of denying it or defending ourselves, we accuse right back, and that accusation typically takes the form of “What about Y?” This usually devolves into the two parties throwing accusations back and forth and nothing gets accomplished.

But if we step back and ask the whatabout question not as a defense in the moment, but as a tool to analyze media behavior over time, we will discover that it is a useful tool that gives us information we simply cannot ignore. It tells us that legacy media is a joke, and that we should stop supporting it.

Last week, Trump spent several days away from the cameras, giving rise to speculation that he had some kind of health-related episode. It got some coverage, but compared to the daily onslaught of “Joe Biden is old” coverage that we had to deal with every day for four years, Trump’s disappearance barely moved the needle. And while Joe was getting old and showing it, Trump is melting down every time he’s on camera. He’s dragging a leg when he walks, his ankles are the size of Rhode Island, and when he speaks, we’re all left wondering “What in the hell is he even talking about?” Biden was getting old, but Trump is absolutely incoherent, and Biden’s worst day was still far better than Trump’s best. It’s not even a close comparison.

So why did Joe’s aging get constant attention, yet Trump’s daily fits of pure insanity get far less coverage? I believe there are two reasons. One has nothing to do with media bias, and the other has everything to do with it.

First, I believe we ignore Trump’s rapidly deteriorating health because he keeps us pretty busy covering the firehose of criminality that he turns on every morning. After all, it’s kind of difficult to focus on the melting Nazi in the White House when the National Guard is invading your city and deporting the hardest workers we have. It’s also hard to pay attention to the melting Nazi in the White House when your healthcare is going away, your job is going away, your children’s future is being stolen. The fact we now have to take out a loan to buy a pot roast is pretty distracting as well. That said, I don’t think the firehose of awfulness fully explains the difference between how we covered Biden’s health, and how softly we now cover Trump’s health.

We don’t have “state-run” media yet, but we’re getting there.

But the real reason why these two men are covered so differently is exactly what you think it is – pure media bias.

And everyone is guilty, even the networks that pretend to be fighting the good fight. In the end, they are owned, by corporations and their wealthy bosses. And those owners have things they like, and things they don’t. They don’t like taxes on the rich, and they don’t like working people. And they simply are not going to tolerate media that supports either.

There are good people working in legacy media, just as there are good people in the DOJ and also in Trump’s new Department of War. But their leashes are short, and Big Brother is watching. The power in American media will never allow fairness, and it will never care about journalism. It will mimic both, but never really achieve either.

Media owners make much more money putting Republicans in office than they do by getting you to watch their shows. And media in its present state isn’t a service – it’s a business. And business doesn’t give a damn about your freedoms. It never has.

So, knowing this, we should start watching legacy media using a different metaphorical lens, or better yet, stop watching altogether. Right-leaning media is fictional and left-leaning media is muzzled. It’s best to disconnect from both.

And if you need another reason to support independent media, I’ll close by telling you that I would be just as fired if I wrote this piece for MSNBC as I would be if I wrote it for Fox News.

---

Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.

• Follow Brett on BlueSky by clicking HERE

• Send Brett an email by clicking HERE