This is not really an attack on the Capital Gazette, where a crazy person murdered five staffers. There is no doubt that journalists face dangers, at times, life threatening peril to get the story. Yet, the self-righteousness and self-congratulatory ethos that infests the mainstream media culture is insufferable (via NBC News):
"The Guardians."
That's what Time magazine is calling the journalists behind 2018's "Person of the Year," which was revealed exclusively Tuesday morning on "Today."
Like Obama, the media has “thank God for us” syndrome, and with that—you cannot judge, criticize, or attack us. Any attack on the press is an attack on America itself—except that it isn’t. Overall, the vast majority of us journalists and bloggers are not fire fighters. We’re not Marines. And we exist in an industry that anyone could do with a phone and a website. Twitter, the most popular micro blogging site, is a daily river of news, depending on whom you follow. Stuff breaks on there all the time, and again—anyone can do it.
In the Trump era, with his pervasive attacks in the media for being total garbage in their reportingof this White House, the media has responded in kind…by rewarding themselves as Person(s) of the Year. Is this supposed to be an effective counterattack? It’s not. Trust in media numbers are still in the toilet. After getting koi fish feeding wrong (that’s you, CNN), the horrendous story about Trump removing the bust of MLK, Jr., which never happened, and let’s not forget the freak out over Trump calling black history month “National African American History Month.” Do you know who else called it that? Former President Barack Obama. CNN also said that Trump didn’t take any questions on his first trip to China. Wrong—Obama didn’t any questionseither. Why do you people suck so much? CNN is a train wreckwhen it comes to Trump stories, especially those on Russia collusion;they can’t even get dates right. ABC News caused the markets to crash with their shoddy report by Brian Ross, who claimed that Michael Flynn made contact with the Russians during the 2016 election. Nope—it was after Trump won—and it was all part of setting up the diplomatic groundwork for any new incoming administration. Oh, and the recent drama over former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has led to a stream of idiocyfrom the media. Looking at you too, National Public Radio.
Democracy dies in darkness. Meanwhile, you can't even get a story about feeding fish right.
— yokotaster (@neontaster) November 6, 2017
This story went super-viral. The correction, walk-balk & retraction are barely being noted by those who hyped the original claim. This happens over & over, always in the same direction. Again: anti-media rhetoric can be dangerous, but media outlets often lay the groundwork for it https://t.co/V8UcoMQovS
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 30, 2018
With this serial failure, how could you name yourself person(s) of the year? It’s like the movie Horrible Bosses, when Kevin Spacey’s character, already an executive, makes himself the head of sales at the company Jason Bateman works for in the film. Oh, and yes, Jamal Khashoggi as one of the person(s) of the year. In fact, he’s one of the headliners. This guy was not really a journalist; he was a columnist. He also wasn’t Mother Theresa either. He was quite cozy with Hamas and allegedly anti-Semitic.
Saudi intelligence agents in Istanbul allegedly murdered him on October 2; Khashoggi entered the embassy to obtain documents proving he was divorced in order to marry his second wife. The Trump White House’s response to his death has the Left enraged.
Right, as if they would be appalled in this happened under Obama’s watch; they wouldn’t. It’s not like Walter Cronkite was killed here, folks. And this certainly isn’t an issue to detonate the entire Saudi-U.S. alliance. We need them to counterbalance Iran. They’re authoritarian. They’re not democratic, but these are the actors in the region. You have to deal with them, unless you want to democratize the region, which was a neo-conservative action item that the American voter has no patience for.
If anything, this move by Times has only made me want to vote for Trump even more in 2020. Also, how is it that the Thai divers were not considered?
I don’t give a shit about the Time person of the year, because no one reads Time, but how do you leave the Thai cave divers off?
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) December 11, 2018