(I wrote this as a comment this morning, then noticed a couple other diaries discussing how the media has suddenly ‘got it’ and started to be truthful...well I have a slightly more jaded view...)
Pundits and reporters have suddenly found their integrity and are reporting on Trump with some honesty. We’ve all noticed it; hell even Wolf is biting back at the bullshit, and the CNN chron person is allowed to insert commentary on the bottom of the screen. The media has discovered the value of Truth, right?
Yeah, but…
Insulting Americans wasn’t enough to turn off the media. Insulting the family of a hero who gave his life to save the troops under his command, threatening the other candidate with death from his supporters, giving up the dog whistle and yelling outright that the sitting president is a dark-skinned terrorist, getting into fights with babies...even Trump’s mistreatment of reporters wasn’t enough. What was?
No ads. No ads running, no ads booked over the next three months.
If Trump’s campaign and the RNC aren’t going to buy advertising, then there’s no reason to work hard to make it look like the election is close, that it’s an actual horse race. Why bother? There’s no profit to make the reporters and pundits choke back their bile and talk like Trump is a serious political figure, a rational, intelligent leader. Nope. If there’s no profit in it, why lower yourself to that level?
If there’s no profit from advertising, the only thing left is ratings, and so they’ve shifted from covering the election like a competitive horse race and started covering it in two other ways:
1) Cover Hillary’s campaign like it’s Michael Phelps in the 200 fly, with instant replay from the underwater camera of those awesome turns off the wall—after all, everyone loves a winner and you can almost hear the shouts of USA! USA! as this winner drapes herself in the American flag and smiles for the camera...and
2) Cover Trump in great detail, showing the campaign as the show-motion train wreck it is—slow it down, zoom in, show the rending steel and the debris flying through the air, cut to the crazy man at the controls yelling that it’s someone’s else’s fault—and show him as he really is. The vast majority of Americans want to see this evil clown get taken down, so the media is going to cover exactly that.
It’s not pride. It’s not journalistic integrity. It’s not even decency.
It’s profit.
((See what happens when you go out for a run with the dog, only to get blown off the bike path by the UCSB cross country team, just back in town...you make the rec list, and without reporting on a massive fire. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful, insightful commentary!))