By Eddie Zipperer, LifeZette:
Newspaper hints at apocalyptic danger in Trump era with portentous new slogan
The Washington Post — or as I prefer to call it, the swamp newsletter of record — has a new motto. If you go to its website, you’ll find it at the top of the page situated right beneath the main title: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” A motto so dark and portentous one imagines WaPo owner Jeff Bezos has given over editorial control of the paper to a Ouija board.
Perhaps, if the new motto fails to frighten readers, the paper will opt for something less subtle like, “Emperor Trump Hates Us All” or “You Red State Hicks Voted Wrong.” WaPo should have had a motto contest. I’d have submitted “Home of Hillary’s Pinocchios” or “First to Predict the Clinton Landslide of 2016.”
The Post’s spokeswoman, Molly Gannon, intimated to Washington Examiner reporter Byron York that the new motto is not aimed at President Trump, but it certainly seems to fit right into the mainstream media’s canon of anti-Trumpism.
Historians will label the time we’re living in as the era of apocalyptic yellow journalism. In a clear sign that many reporters continue to suffer from Post Election Stress Disorder. Mainstream media headlines look more each day like they were clipped from some Book of Revelations foretelling the final days of America.
This week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — in a move that won him Twitter love from Barbara Streisand and several leftist fringe groups — told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, “If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and, many times, adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”
Mainstream media outlets reported McCain’s comments as if they were the #BREAKING event of the millennium because the comments hit the MSM trifecta of newsworthiness:
- They attack Donald Trump.
- They contain apocalyptic hyperbole.
- They reinforce the idea that criticizing the media is un-American.
Take McCain’s comment, add a dash of alliteration and pinch of brevity, and you have the new WaPo motto. “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” As if a few criticisms leveled at the Washington Post are all that stands between us and tyranny.
Perhaps the dangers of criticizing the paper are the reason it ditched its ombudsman in 2013 (months before the sale to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos was finalized). If an independent press is so important to preserving the quality of our democracy, why isn’t an independent ombudsman important to preserving the quality of The Washington Post? If an independent voice of truth is the only thing that can police our government, why can The Washington Post muzzle the independent voice policing it?
The Post’s last ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, wrote in his final column, “People’s trust in the media is declining. Eliminating the ombudsman seems a shortsighted move.” I genuinely wonder what Pexton, or any ombudsman for that matter, would think of the new motto.The Post and the rest of the mainstream media seem to be operating under some bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment. They seem to think it’s a one-way street that requires credentials for access. They’re singled out by a clause, so they think that somehow gives them a monopoly on free speech. They want to take a Sharpie and redact the pretty-darn-important part that says “Congress shall make no law.” Judging by their histrionics, they must think it says, “the President shall heap no criticism.”
They think Donald Trump is a threat to democracy because he calls out media corruption. I think he’s the ombudsman-in-chief acting as a check on media bias. They think he’s the worst Republican because he won’t play by the rules they’ve pushed on us for years. I think rewriting the rules puts him in the Reagan/Roosevelt echelon of Republicans — an echelon so high that the John McCains and John Kasichs of the world are just dots to him.
Here’s a dose of reality for John McCain, who played by the media’s made-up rules and wound up on the embarrassing side of the millennium’s most lopsided presidential election: If an adversarial press means we have freedom, we are clearly submerged to the tips of our scalps in freedom. I can’t remember an administration treated as more of an adversary. I can’t go a day without seeing a headline that nonsensically pairs the word Trump with words like “dictator,” “Hitler,” or “end of the Republic.” Every American can sleep well at night knowing that Donald Trump will never be given a free pass for even the slightest of infractions. If democracy dies in darkness, we’ve never been so safe. But during the Obama years, democracy must have been on life support. Because from Fast and Furious to Benghazi to the IRS scandal to the I-ransom payment, I remember the mainstream media turning the dimmer down pretty low.
In the end, The Washington Post can come up with a thousand ominous, carnival-crystal-ball mottos, the MSM can flood airwaves with anti-Trump hyperbole, and GOP swamp monsters can keep complaining. The American people know that every overstatement and every exaggeration is just another kick and whine in their never-ending election tantrum.
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