While defeated Democrats are trying to decide who they are and what they believe, the media's handmaidens are also facing their own crisis.
A reversal of their political bias has arrived – and it's proving costly in more ways than one.
More recently, their war against Donald Trump has been reaffirmed as the most egregious assault on truth and impartiality, but it is far from the first or only.
CNN was caught this week boasting that it helped free desperate Syrian prisoners from a government slaughterhouse in Damascus.
The problem is that the man was quickly exposed as an agent of the hated Assad regime, and a bewildered news organization is now admitting it.
Reporter Clarissa Ward and her reporting team fell for the ruse because they ignored the golden rule of caution: “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually isn't.''
ABC News and its chief Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos have fallen into yet another trap.
They prioritized their goal of defeating Trump over facts and the law, and in the face of a deposition that likely supported his claims of defamation, ABC caved.
In the settlement, the network collected more than $16 million in legal fees from Mr. Trump's library and Mr. Trump, and “deplored” Mr. Stephanopoulos' false claims that Mr. Trump was found responsible for rape in a civil suit. I had to publicly say, “I think so.''
Ah, the apology touched my heart much more than the money.
The third case is from the past, but it is still instructive.
Now that a North Carolina woman has finally admitted that the rape charges she made against three Duke lacrosse players in 2006 were fabricated, the accumulation of media reports from that time looks even more bizarre.
Day after day, the feeding frenzy pitted white male privilege against the poor black dancers they had hired, perhaps raping them.
The facts were vague and disputed from the beginning, but that didn't stop the hysteria.
Again, the charges fit a predetermined narrative, and facts that did not fit were condemned along with the presumption of innocence.
Even after a high-profile local prosecutor stepped down and North Carolina's attorney general declared the players innocent, it was too late to repair the damage.
Now, especially now, Crystal Magnum's admission that all of her claims were fabricated offers little comfort to the victims.
Will the media apologize too?
Don't hold your breath.
Our First Amendment rights have created a strong press freedom that is the envy of the world, but the precipitous decline in public trust has reached record lows.
According to an October Gallup poll, only one in three adults say they have some or a lot of trust in mainstream media reporting.
Overboard reputation
There are undoubtedly several reasons for this finding, but none is more central than the media's willingness to abandon facts and impartiality in pursuit of an agenda.
Often the goal is not to inform, but to persuade.
Networks and traditional major news organizations such as the New York Times, which once enjoyed strong reputations for setting standards of restraint, are now trying to defeat Trump and impose radical leftist values on the public. In so doing, it is fundamentally undermining its reputation and standards. America.
The contradiction of calling him a Nazi and declaring him a threat to democracy while supporting Democratic efforts to lock him up and keep him from voting would be laughable if the stakes weren't so high. Dew.
And now the piper must be paid.
Unfortunately for them, Trump has the means and will to fight back.
And he has been proven right in major court cases.
Adopt his decision to sue ABC and Stephanopoulos.
It seemed like a costly lost cause, until suddenly they capitulated and he was vindicated.
As he warned in Monday's press conference, it's not over yet.
He did just that hours later, saying he would sue an Iowa pollster and the state's largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, for election interference.
A poll by pollster Ann Selzer released three days before the election showed Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points. This was an earthquake, as all other polls predicted Trump to win easily in the state, and the Selzer poll flipped Iowa blue, giving Democrats hope that other states would do the same. There was a possibility.
In fact, polls showed a whopping 16-point lead, with Trump winning Iowa by 13 points.
And instead of other states flipping, Trump won every battleground state.
He said Selzer's poll was not an honest mistake but was “deliberate” and intended to “influence the outcome.”
Selzer and Register deny the charges, but her explanation of the enormity of her mistake is unconvincing.
She suggested her poll may have served to “energize and galvanize Republican voters,” according to Semaphore.
She will have to go the extra mile if Trump can get court approval for her deposition, as well as the register owned by Gannett.
The paper endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, but did not endorse the president this year.
shift back to right
The battle over editorial support roiling the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times offers a new window into the media's role in politics.
Fortunately, Post owner Jeff Bezos and Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong are pushing back against Trump-hating staffers and demanding a better balance between reporting and public opinion.
In both cases, owners blocked endorsements for Harris and said the papers would not support either candidate.
Some staff members quit with a sigh of relief, while others threatened to quit but decided to keep their salaries.
President Trump has also launched a legal battle against the board that awards the Pulitzer Prizes, alleging that he defamed the board by denying his previous request to rescind two 2018 Pulitzer Prizes. Continuing.
The award went to staffers at the New York Times and Washington Post who reported on the Russian collusion charge, which turned out to be a hoax instigated by Hillary Clinton.
“The press is highly corrupt.”
On Monday, he also said he would sue CBS for deceptively editing a “60 Minutes” interview between Harris and author Bob Woodward over the audiotape controversy.
President Trump said, “We have to correct the attitude of the press.''
“The press is highly corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections.”
He added, “I'm not doing this because I want to. I'm doing this because I feel obligated to do it.”
Personally, I would like to see no need for lawsuits and a return to a time when major media owners and editors had strict fairness standards and a clear distinction between news and opinion.
But given the rise of unchecked social media and the intense hatred for Trump expressed by many left-leaning journalists who have been rewarded with Pulitzer Prizes and other awards, I doubt that change will happen quickly or spontaneously. There is little reason to hope.
President Trump's legal war may therefore be the only remedy with a chance of success.
sorry.
