Political interference into new organizations continues to be a feature in the Trump administration.
One of the major examples of projection by far right politics is the accusation that the media is controlled by left wing politics and is pushing lies to make right wing politicians and politics look bad. Like so many of the other rantings of the far right, the accusation is based on complete fabrications and delusion. The reality is that major mainstream media has become increasingly right wing with crass BSAB (Both Sides Are Bad) fake reporting, relentless sane-washing of Trump and non-stop attacks on left wing politicians for the most trivial of things to the point that it brought down president Joe Biden.
The thing is, like any psychotic political ideology, no amount of sucking up to them is ever enough. Even after the non-stop carrying of water for the right, the campaign to instill further thought control over the media didn’t end even after Trump unfortunately got elected. Examples include the lawsuit against a pollster for the crime of being wrong, the efforts to defund the media, politically motivated investigations, and cutting funding to news organizations for not being pro-Trump enough. In short, the level of political interference in the media has reached unprecedented levels in living memory.
Even worse, the crackdown on anyone daring to publish even the slightest hint of criticism of the thin-skinned president continues to get worse and worse. Yes, I know I’m a little late on the draw here given the level of insanity in the news these days, but the thought control efforts in the US have gotten to the point that Trump is having thought control/censors installed directly in media companies to directly monitor for thought crimes in the reporting. The chief media censor in question is being referred to a “bias monitor” or “bias ombudsman” to try and make the situation seem a little more politically palatable. This is going ahead as part of the condition for a major corporate merger. From TechDirt:
One of the key merger conditions to net approval was the installation of a sort of FCC “bias ombudsman,” who’ll be installed at CBS to ensure that the new network is appropriately feckless when it comes to criticizing our buffoonish orange king. Making the rounds on right wing propaganda networks last week, Carr ironically insisted this was necessary in order to restore trust in U.S. journalism:
“They made commitments to address bias and restore fact-based reporting. I think that’s so important,” Carr told Newsmax’s Greg Kelly on his show Thursday night. “I mean, look, the American public simply do not trust these legacy media broadcasters. And so, if they stick with that commitment, you know, we’re sort of trust-but-verify mode, that’ll be a big win.”
CBS was technically bought by the billionaire Ellison family, close supporters and friends of Donald Trump. So the idea the network wasn’t already poised to kiss Republican ass without a babysitter is fairly laughable. The Ellisons are already making moves to buy right wing bullshitter Bari Weiss’ Free Press and put Weiss in an “advisor” role at CBS News, which speaks for itself.
Carr then confirmed that the FCC is installing a staffer whose entire job is to make sure a major U.S. news network is nice to our sensitive baby king:
“One of the things they’re going to have to do is put in an ombudsman in place for two years,” Carr said. “So basically a bias monitor that will report directly to the president. So that’s something that’s significant that we’re going to see happening as well.”
This is amazing if you’re old enough to remember how Republicans whined for decades about the “Fairness Doctrine,” a long since-discarded set of FCC guidance (which was never really enforced) that required broadcasters to at least try to be “fair and balanced” in their news coverage.
The idea was never very well thought out or implemented, and wouldn’t have fixed any of our modern media problems today anyway (consolidation under billionaire ownership, rampant propaganda), because it only applied to broadcast, not cable. Even if you could craft useful rules, the U.S. government is the last institution you want determining what news outlets can or can’t say, as is being demonstrated now.
For anyone who cares about free speech and freedom of the press, the correct response is to condemn the move on the Trump administrations part. There’s no debate to be had. This is the government directly interfering with the internal operations of the press. It is a similar problem to the problems brought about with the link tax here in Canada where the government is paying a good chunk of the expenses of the mainstream media. This is easily leverage to affect the coverage of an institution that bills itself as one that holds power to account.
In this case, however, instead of directly funding the media for political leverage, the government is installing someone to directly monitor the news coverage from the inside and report back to the government on the levels of compliance of a policy of kissing the Trump ring. The method may be different, but the end goal is the same: to attempt control what people know and don’t know about what is going on in the world around them. If Trump wants to push the narrative that Russian leader, Vladimir Putin is an alright guy, he now has more leverage than before to do so. If Trump wants to push vaccine disinformation, well, he has that added leverage to push that messaging as well. After all, reporting on the contrary will get labelled as “bias” and the government can pressure that media outlet to not run any such stories at all.
The thing here is that this will eventually not be enough. For all we know, Trump could eventually demand that all media outlets have a government censor patrolling the journalists cubicles monitoring for “bias” (re: government criticism) by threatening the outlets accreditation for those who resist. Trump could cook up something else entirely as well.
Either way, free speech and journalism is taking another hit here. It’s less that it affects one outlet and more the precedent this sets. Once that precedent is set, boundaries will get pushed as Trump figures out what other insane things he can get away with. Things will get worse from here. All signs point to that.
Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.
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