Again, this is crucial to understand as we enter election year, because some people have mistaken their favorite TV talking head for a friend who visits while they sit and eat their dinner. I harbor no such illusions. History is crucial here. The Clinton (Monicagate) scandal should suffice as a good example.
The Clinton Scandal was a media-fluffed issue. Most of the public could forgive the president’s sexual peccadillo ( Hell, Hillary could), but the Republicans donned their Puritan hats and went after Clinton with remarkable discipline and zeal. They impeached him and tried to hound his ass out of office. And so it is with the Biden story, and the media is happily complicit, because ( see the title of my diary)
The Clinton scandal also boosted independent Web media (blogosphere) in the late 90s, unleashing a massive wave of online activism and journalism. “Move on”, and other sites were virtually created to “Move on” from this tired scandal and witch hunt, because, frankly our mainstream press simply wouldn’t.
I fear the early period of independent Web media was the good old days— the flood of bots, AI, and the ensuing enshittification of sources and browsers, has blurred the lines again. Corporations, and their human avatars, have done a great job recapturing much of the terrain we’d initially gained.
Remember: eyeballs on screens ( or newspapers) are how these fuckers make money. If they could profit off the flaming wreckage of a fascist one-party government, the media barons absolutely will do so, which is why they are NOT our friends.
And it is why, currently; zero to no ethics, shoddy journalism, and extreme corporate knee-crooking, is the norm for all our commercial media empires. They need to sell more garbage— it is how they exist.
Don’t get me wrong, of course: there is MSNBC, and while some MSNBC anchors sincerely try, ultimately, MANAGEMENT calls the tune, which is why Comcast is practically creaming themselves and still pushing this line against Biden. Overt censorship is not the issue— editors ultimately need to please the boss, so self-censorship among the editors does the job.
So, turn that crap off, and talk to people. Get out of the media panopticon and get to work saving democracy.