Media, Shape Up or Shrivel Up...

This piece is in response to an article a friend posted on Facebook:

"The 2016 Election and the Demise of Journalistic Standards"
( https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/2016-election-demise-journalistic-standards/ )
I didn't want to fill his timeline with my rant, so I'm ranting here.

Overall, I agree with Mr. Goodwin. But I differ on several points. If you looked, you could see today's situation coming as far back as post-Watergate. Kids were entering journalism in droves, driven in part by altruism, but as much by personal ambition. And they were taught increasingly and overtly by left-leaning academics.

I'm disgusted at the number of my former colleagues who've fallen right in line with such dangerous judgement and destructive behavior! News flash, bozos: the Left can turn on you in a New York minute. If they take the First Amendment away from conservative voices, they can take it away from news media. Savvy?

Students I saw entering TV news, especially, wanted to be "stars," not reporters. And they saw "splash" as the quickest way. That's how we went from reporting a fatal crash, to knocking on the door of a victim's parent for "reaction," to reporting unsubstantiated rumor today, then convicting based on said rumor.

I was appalled as early as 1977 by reporters, both young and old enough to know better, inserting their biases into news stories — and editors and news directors letting them get away with it!

In his book "Boys on the Bus," Timothy Crouse exposed "pack journalism" during the Nixon-McGovern election, and it has gotten much worse now. The most insignificant dead horse is beaten today, until grows, not becomes a smudge and disappears.

The Left seems to be doing its darndest to quash dissent — amazingly, abetted by the media! The same media who so enthusiastically defended Larry Flynt, publisher of "Hustler Magazine," against obscenity charges in the '70. Based on First Amendment Rights.

The New York Times, Washington Post and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS to you whom don't know what the initials stand for) once were the epitome of objectivity. Today, only FOXNews of the major news organizations even pretends to be objective. I'm ashamed ever to have been a part of the news media. Had I worked for a national news outfit, I think I'd have probably slit my wrists by now.

For several decades I've felt that many in the government and national news media believe they know what's good for me better than I do. Witness the Clintons, Gores, Obamas, Sanders et al. And in the above article, I believe Mr. Goodwin doesn't give enough credit to we, "the Great Unwashed." Americans can forgive mistakes, even incompetence to a point. But we CANNOT forgive dishonesty.

Though we Americans are sometimes slow to act on the national stage, I believe we eventually tire of arrogance and conceit in our leaders. And the Left's current attempts at DJT's death by a million cuts" notwithstanding, enough of us had it up to here and placed him into the presidency. That's an important point. Though we may not have been a majority, we were a fed-up plurality. And we're NOT gonna cave into a bunch of lazy self-centered whiners who just want to take, take, take and never contribute.

And if the national media don't hold a Come-to-Jesus Meeting among themselves, We the People will. Already the traditional news outlets are suffering. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that if media don't straighten up, they will have no need to.

Economics is a powerful force. They'll just fade to black.

...Or maybe they'll just dance....