The New Journalism Is Destroying Us

March brings my quarterly appeal for your support.

It is becoming more difficult and more dangerous to tell the truth.  Censorship is closing down reliable information.  The Establishment has lost patience with those who dispute its narratives.

Science is being politicized. Orwell’s memory hole is opening wider.  Accountability is everywhere disappearing as civil liberties are contravened by Elite agendas.

Today truth is the last thing that can be taken for granted. Think about this as you consider my appeal.

Now for today’s column:

The New Journalism Is Destroying Us

Paul Craig Roberts

Presstitute is a contraction of press prostitute.  It is a term that has come into widespread use to describe the media’s service in behalf of the narratives of the corrupt Western ruling Establishment.  That the presstitutes serve the material and political interests of their Establishment owners is completely obvious.  But the media did not give up its integrity for material interests alone. The media have become acolytes to the religious  ideology of “social justice.

In the Winter 2021 issue of the Manhatten Institute’s City Journal, Martin Gurri explains that the media have abandoned all pretense of objective reporting, because the media, or enough of it, believe that objectivity upholds systemic racism and defeats social justice. 

The ideology of systemic racism is institutionalized in the US educational system and in the NY Times “1619 Project.” (See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/02/22/the-demonization-of-white-americans-is-official-educational-corporate-and-government-policy/)  This ideology comprises the mind-set of the woke generation and accounts for the media’s disregard of facts and intolerance of other views.  According to the ideology, as white people are systemic racists, social justice can only be obtained by overthrowing whiteness.  This overthrow is now the purpose of the media.

Gurri points out that newspaper owners and editors bought into this as a business model to sell a creed and an agenda to like-minded online subscribers. The liberal/progressive/left can conveniently  go online to get their hate fix for the day. This tells you all you need to know about the NY Times’ subscribers.

Trump’s election in 2016 was a boon for the launch of the new post-journalism. During Trump’s four years the NY Times digital subscriptions increased by 600%. Gurri writes that the intent of ideological journalism is not to report factual reality and inform the public, but to foment and justify hatred of the enemy.  

Russiagate provided the narrative. Gurri reports that a Google search turned up 3,000 NY Times Russiagate articles—multiple articles per day–during Trump’s four years.  “This was journalism as if conducted under the impulse of an obsessive-compulsive personality. Virtually every report either implied or proclaimed culpability. Every day in the news marked the beginnings of the Trumpian End Times.”  The NY Times organized its newsroom in behalf of a single story that turned out to be empty.  Under the rules of real journalism, the NY Times experienced the embarrassment of massive failure, but under the new rules the NY Times was wildly successful in fomenting hate and establishing the narrative.

Fomenting hate is now what the media does—all of it: not only the NY Times but also CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Washington Post, and the rest. All of the hate targets are still around—Trump, whiteness, Russia, Iran, China—and are likely to be for some time.  If these targets wear out and fail to bring in digital subscriptions, what woke infraction will bring forth the new target?  

Meanwhile post-journalism’s targeting of Trump and Trump supporters will eventually radicalize white people and further divide the country.  The demonizations of Russia, Iran, and China will lead to war and humiliating defeat for America. The dollar will lose its world currency role, and the US will be unable to pay its bills.

Those of us who can see it coming will be silenced for unapproved speech while our country goes to hell.

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