In the previous two parts of this series we’ve covered political tactics, insights into perceptions within the GOP and conservative movement. We finish with that beloved topic, the American media and reforms needed in our relationship to it.
In a nutshell, we have to stop whining about the press and about how leftist it is. It is simply getting upset that birds fly. Instead, we have to develop our own media outlets, banish leftist press from our daily viewing habits, and subvert the press from within.
Look at social media, or even in casual conversation with other conservatives, and the subject of press bias will present itself. I certainly have been guilty of this. Someone will bring up a story in a major news outlet and remark how distorted it was, how unfair to the president it was, how uninformed it was. Of course, the question precedes: Why were they reading it from that source in the first place?
Every thinking conservative knows most television news is simply beyond the pale. Which is fine, as they are private firms and they can spout any silliness they care to. Fox News is now trending leftward, not leftist, because of generational changes in the Murdoch family. James, Rupert’s son, is taking over and he has a wife who seems to be a watermelon Bolshie and works for the Clintons. Given no man wants to come home to wifely nagging about work, no doubt she holds the whip hand in that subject and others she cares to kvetch about. Sinclair Broadcasting of Baltimore, the possible conservative alternative, waits in the wings. Though they did make a valiant recent push for merger and growth, only to be shot down.
And it is frustrating for a conservative to have no reliable means of news briefing. Aside, of course, from that little known service that my kids think I call the “interweb.” A brisk Google search on most topics will give you a decent handle on events so you can decipher the spin. But in this day of instant disposable data most news consumers don’t have time for that. So we rely on other sources that try to edify us in a couple of minutes. The problem is that instant edification is an oxymoron. The general irritation of it can drive otherwise sound people into relying on news sources that confirm their biases, but have headlines like “Obama Indicted Tomorrow. My Dog Told Me!”
Aggregation sites like Drudge are fine to a point. But they run liberal outlets in an understandable effort to attempt balance for the sake of influence and profit. We must remember that about 50 percent of our fellow citizens are imbeciles…er…um…leftists and no smart entrepreneur automatically alienates half their customer base. Well, aside from the GOP. Oh wait, I said “smart.”
The scribes themselves, I’ve known tons of them and have counted close pals amongst them, are not so much Trotskyites as they are lazy hacks. It’s 3 p.m. and they are on deadline. They know their story must be in by a certain time or brimstone will rain. They are staring at their computer and nothing is ringing chimes in their brains. We pundits have it so much easier, as we can just blather on. Anyway, what do they do? They take the road of least resistance, as many of us do when confronting a problem. They get on the horn and call or text or email their friends. Which, if they are a normal newsie, are the gaggle of liberal associates press types pick up like lint. We speak of lobbyists, staffers, pundits, academics, and fellow scribes. Then they get quotes, inside info, background info, gossip, and occasionally actual news from these sources and turn it into a story that will please their editors. Or they take a press release from a reliably “progressive” group, rewrite it slightly and turn it in. Then they go out to drink and bemoan to other hacks and disinterested barflys that they never finished writing that great novel they had written nineteen pages of twenty years ago. Losers. Some of us finished writing ours and even got it published.
If they happen to live in a conservative area, or strangely are allowed to be rightist in their journalistic demeanor, then the gaggle will be conservative.
So much for the process. What do we do about it?
Knowing that the greatest segment of the modern press is merely a propaganda arm of the DNC, ban leftist news from your consciousness. Be selective in your news reading habits. Not only in what you read, most already do that, but also in what you tolerate from fellow conservatives. Too much whingeing about the liberal press and just stop reading them. We all have, or have had, people in our lives who make a fetish out of complaining about everything. These conservative whiners are a subspecies of that. Plus, they take our eye off the ball because those who complain the loudest are rarely focused on solutions.
We must also raid the academies.
Look, I know how annoying liberal arts majors are. I was one and I have a daughter who has suddenly discovered she has all the wisdom in the world because of her vast experiences as a college freshman. No doubt if she was reading this, very unlikely, she would have me refer to her as a college “freshperson.” But we have to do to the liberal press what they have done to us over the last two generations or so, i.e. hit the hostile cultural beaches and infiltrate and repopulate the chattering class with our own people. Conducting, as the saying goes, our own “long march through the institutions.” Sure, being a wonk isn’t as cool as being a doctor, engineer, or captain of industry. But the hours are good, you can live on the pay, the booze is free, and if you’re lucky you’ll never do a real day’s work again for the rest of your life. It’s like the old British custom of sending the useless and dissipated third son of a nobleman to the clergy to train as a vicar. Many of us have a spare child hanging about. Pack them off to Harvard!
Combine those concepts with the understanding that the vast majority of the press, despite even our best efforts, will always be liberal and that we can differentiate, as the Brits do between a Telegraph and a Guardian, and accordingly choose our sources. We can henceforth get better news and focus on solutions. Plus we can make newsrooms, faculty lounges, and publishing houses nationwide a far more horrible place for the left.
If only for that last bit, our quest is a holy one.
