Six corporations own 90% of all printed, spoken, and viewed media in the U.S. Just let the implications of that fact sink in for a moment.

These conglomerates prioritize the interests of their owners over those of the public they ostensibly serve, muddling or deceptively hiding the true message about the stakes of this election. Even an attempted assassination attempt (which historians note will probably not change the dynamics of the race) and the milquetoast coverage of the Republican convention (or groveling marathon) could not force the mainstream media to deviate from its relentless focus on President Joe Biden’s fitness to serve.

This battle between the wealthy owners and publishers of the media and the people is a long one in America. Pete Seeger sang about these conflicts in the 1940s in Newspaper Man, one of his many protest songs of the era.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, circulation
Ting-a-ling-a-ling, advertising
Get those readers, get that payoff
What a headache, what a mess
Oh, publishers are such interesting people!
Let’s give three cheers for freedom of the press

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Normalization of the indefensible

Many in the press are working overtime to normalize the authoritarian while undermining champions of democracy. As Will Brunch wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Here in Milwaukee, the political pundits finally saw the thing they’ve been pleading for—unity—and what that really looks like. It looks a lot like Jonestown,” where a cult leader took the lives of his followers in 1978.

The CSS Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is a joint venture of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Annenberg School for Communication, and the Wharton School. The lab provided a detailed case study three months ago on our most egregious practitioner of failed journalism, the New York Times, and their inconsistent narrative selection and framing.

“On the weekend of March 2-3, 2024, the landing page of the New York Times was dominated by coverage of their poll showing voter concern over President Biden’s age. There was a lot of concern among Democrats about the methods of the poll, especially around the low response rate and leading questions. But as a team of researchers who study both survey methods and mainstream media, we are not surprised that people are telling pollsters they are worried about Biden’s age. Why wouldn’t they? The mainstream media has been telling them to be worried about precisely this issue for months.” (my emphasis)

The importance of NATO has been highlighted in July as the alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary and our allies praised the work of President Biden. Yet even in March, CSS Lab noted that

“. . . the choice of the Times to publish almost three times as many articles about Biden’s age as about Trump pulling the US out of NATO represents a clear example of biased coverage. In turn, this choice misinforms the NYTs millions of readers about the relative value of these topics and their underlying facts.” (my emphasis)

If the media is called out for egregious mistakes, they blithely move on, the most recent example of many being when the Times flunked Journalism 101 and ran a story about a neurologist visiting the White House. The story insinuated that Biden has Parkinson’s. It was thoroughly debunked—not the least of reasons being the president wasn’t even in town many of the days when that doctor came to the White House. They never checked his calendar against the visitor logs and have never (to my knowledge) admitted their mistakes. The fact that the White House released the doctor’s thorough report at the time of the President’s annual physical saying Biden had no neurological problems is also—to be charitable—a journalistic rookie oversight.

Perhaps not surprisingly, most media outlets—including the Times—have been strangely compliant with the Trump campaign’s decision not to release any official medical information about the former president’s recent injury.

The Times finally ran an editorial saying Trump was unfit for office. But as Marcy Wheeler helpfully noted, after having scolded the President that he “should leave the race” that Democratic primary voters elected him to run and having ordered the Democratic Party to “speak the [NYT’s] plain truth” to Biden—not to mention having ignored Trump’s own age and actions in the meantime—the Times weighed in against Trump not by scolding or ordering but by “observing.”

The debate (on the Democratic side) is so intense because, the Times says, “a compelling Democratic alternative is the only thing that will prevent [Trump’s] return to power.”

“Which is to suggest that Joe Biden’s historic success—the policy stuff that, at NYT, always takes the backseat to Biden’s age—is not compelling at all.”

This inconsistent narrative selection and framing is killing our democracy.

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Not every journalist is compliant

Fortunately, there was some room for Project 2025 to rise in the public’s consciousness as more and more people—alerted by independent journalists such as Joyce Vance—realized it as a dangerous and highly undemocratic blueprint for a future Trump regime. The Washington Post reported that the same people behind Project 2025 have already declared the November election results illegitimate before the first vote. Their goal is to create a permission structure to refuse to certify the results as the GOP builds a massive voter suppression and election subversion war machine to undermine the November elections. But Marc Elias at Democracy Docket notes, “There were also amazing signs of hope in various court victories for voters around the country.”

However, the default of too many in the media is what Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post describes as “access journalism.” She called out that failure this week.

“CNN and other broadcasts have reached a new low in RNC coverage, fawning over “unity” and “young Vance” — ignoring we are seeing a fascist party overflowing with criminals plot the downfall of America, a VP who is the single most radical and unqualified in history. No pushback on lack of information about Trump’s injury. It’s access journalism at its worst.  It’s not the media we need to defend democracy.“

Dan Fromkin has long called out our national media for their inability to see reality. And in his column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch wrote accurately on Thursday that the convention’s central theme was “The deification of Donald J. Trump.” Note that the Inquirer was one of the few national newspapers to get the story right from the beginning about which candidate should drop out of the race.

Fortunately, we still have some independent news organizations alive to cover the convention, as they wrote about Trump’s “Secretary of Retribution,” how the new VP pick will run as a Never Trumper reborn—and a model for other elites to follow, and how the convention was all about the man who wasn’t there.

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The role of dark money

Much of our current political struggle comes back to greed and power, core values to the former president. Capitalism is not democracy and working for the common good is not socialism but the rich are increasingly trying to tell us that those two things are true. They are using every tool at their disposal—dark money, control of the national media, a captured court system, racism, homophobia, political hypocrisy, Christian nationalism—to divide the country and take control. Eric Levitz lays out a pretty devastating attack on their falsehoods.

One of the early signs of the priorities—and ultimate legacy—of Chief Justice John Roberts came with the 2010 Citizens United decision. * The billionaires and their corporate judicial system headed by Roberts decided that corporations are people with political rights, opening the floodgates to billions in dark money. That one decision altered our history, changing the core—if often unrealized—values of our country from the democracy-supporting “we the people” to the rule-by-the-rich-and-connected focus of “I, me, mine.”

Project 2025 is fully funded by dark money. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is one of the most astute and consistent speakers about this cancerous influence on our body politic, and on July 1st he wrote about the threats America faces on X/Twitter.

“Behind each threat is dark money; massive anonymous political spending by special interests who hide their identities from the public . . .

This whole filthy bestiary of influence is new (or refocused and expanded) since Citizens United. It didn’t used to be this way; it doesn’t have to be this way . . . voters hate dark money with a passion, Republicans, independents and Democrats alike. Polling is off the charts . . .

It’s a trifecta; dark money is behind climate denial, Court capture and corruption of Congress—one crew, one plan, one cancer in the body politic.”

Unfortunately, you won’t hear nearly as much about the plan of Project 2025 to end American democracy in the media as you do about Joe Biden’s age. That’s a deliberate choice.

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Making a choice

Biden gave a barnburner of a speech in Detroit last Friday. It begins around the 6:40 mark of the video, and because he lays out his plans for the first 100 days, talks about our world-leading economic recovery from the pandemic, and attacks Donald Trump’s record in scathing terms it is worth your time.

Republicans who voted against every bill Biden has championed that has led to investment in our economy take credit for work they opposed . . . because this work is very popular with the American people. Tennessee’s Governor, Republican Bill Lee, boasted that the state had “secured historic funding to modernize Memphis infrastructure with the single-largest transportation investment in state history.” All the Republicans in the Tennessee delegation opposed the measure, and Senator Marsha Blackburn called the bill “socialism.” In Alabama, Senator Tommy Tuberville boasted about a bridge project funded by a $550 million Department of Transportation grant, writing: “Since I took office, I have been working to secure funding for the Mobile bridge and get this project underway.” But as Representative Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, pointed out, Tuberville voted against the bill that provided the money. 

These government policies are enormously popular and so Republicans take credit for them, even while voting against them. The hypocrisy and greed are unbelievable. The obliviousness—or more likely the duplicity—of the media in not pointing that fact out is unconscionable.

The notion of journalistic objectivity, often touted by these elite-run outlets, serves as a façade for balanced reporting. But in truth, unbiased news is a myth. These six corporations—the publishers and owners of our day—are focused on advancing their agenda and their greed. The public—and democracy—be damned.

The fight for democracy and against greed and authoritarians never ends. Which side are you on?

More to come . . .

DJB

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*The other key aspects of Roberts’ legacy: destroying voting rights and destroying the rights of American women.

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Image of money by S.K. from Pixabay.