Just when we thought the media had covered themselves with as much shame as humanly possible, comes now their crowning stroke. Not satisfied with having ignored the Biden family’s corruption, Joe Biden’s dementia, or Trump’s myriad accomplishments, they have now decided to ignore the deeply troubling signs, as shown in statistical anomalies presented here, here, here, and here, that the presidential election was fatally marred by fraud.
Truly, it leaves one to wonder if there are any journalists around these days. Certainly, there are none at ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. It would be inexcusably naïve to wonder about the reason these news organizations have declined to cover this matter because we already know the reason: They are so thoroughly committed to the defeat of Trump and what he stands for they will do nothing as might aid him, and everything as might hurt him, the public be damned.
It is the most outrageous example in U.S. history not just of biased and dishonest journalism, but of the inescapable fact that these so-called elite media constitute a cabal with a shared set of political and ideological beliefs. How else to understand it? Here you have evidence that something may have gone egregiously wrong with the casting and/or counting of votes in a U.S. presidential election, and none of the organizations mentioned above have covered the mystery of the many statistical anomalies. Is there anyone in the world so blinkered as to think the media would have ignored them if they had been at Biden’s expense?
So once again we’re faced with the question of what to do about a media industry that may not be the enemy of all the people, but is indeed the enemy of at least half of them. As suggested before, the only practical way forward is the massive funding and formation of new media, online and off, who practice objective and value-free journalism. Surely this is at least as important as the manufacture of electric cars, like Tesla, which now has a market cap of more than half a trillion dollars, an amount of money that would be sufficient to buy the parent companies (Disney and Comcast) of ABC and NBC combined.
One thing that shouldn’t be done is ape the conduct of the proto-fascists of the left who practice cancel culture, violent demonstrations, and boycotts of companies and advertisers. Neither would it be right to invite government action against the legacy media by law or regulation. Any such would run the risk of nullification under First Amendment challenges, and even if they did pass constitutional muster would lay the groundwork for legal or regulatory impediments to the development of the new media being encouraged here.
It’s worth remembering that years ago conservative groups like Accuracy in Media were full-throated proponents of the Fairness Doctrine that, but for its repeal, would have meant no future for talk radio or Fox News as we’ve known them.
Years from now it may be commonplace to say that one of Trump’s greatest accomplishments was his demonstration of the dishonesty of most of the American media, surely a haunting revelation for those people of whatever political affiliation who believe that without an honest and transparent press our democracy can’t survive.
Patrick Maines is president emeritus of The Media Institute, one of the country’s leading free speech organizations. While at the Institute, Maines was the architect of the independent national celebration called Free Speech Week, now in its fifteenth year.