Media Mobs

Matt Taibbi correctly (& ruthlessly) identified the devolution of journalistic reporting. From an erstwhile bastion of independent thought into a vengeful mob exacting absolute compliance into a hyper-moralistic gospel that kills Media's societal function to create a nationally shared narrative for the consumption of all. He/She who dares to report something that veers from the established narrative will be excommunicated.

As if these times of crisis needed an extra layer of difficulty. 

I am afraid the de facto abdication of Media's role to present an objective, shared narrative (driven by the atomization of the industry) is the direct result of the adoption of social media by journalists. In a sense, I pity them. Faced with the evisceration of jobs in their industry (pushed by the death of print in general & and of local press in particular), they resort to building clout online on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook as a fallback plan in case they get fired. 

Since the only way to build a following in these algo-driven platforms is to cater to emotional engagement, it is only natural that they to turn to press activism. After all, their Twitter followers will only grow if ever more satisfyingly & emotionally affirming content is delivered. The result is the formation, inside erstwhile objective Media institutions, of moralistic mobs (of the same kind that ruined the Twitter experience for objective, moderate users). They're more concerned about the upholding of the mob's gospel by means of excommunication of the "heretics" who "amplify" any reality that breaks with their gospel, than with what their job description theoretically calls for. 

This journalist dares to interview a black guy asking why is black on black crime is not discussed by BLM. Honest, legitimate question. One that does not negate the horrible issue of police brutality towards black folks. The journalist's colleagues response? That journalist's a racist. Get the pitchforks! 

I guess it was a matter of time for cancel culture to reach the news desk. 

The kindergartenization of US academia, with their culture of protect-the-student/client-feelings-at-the-expense-of-destroying-critical-reasoning-skills has inexorably reached News desks around the country. And with that, down goes Media's sorely needed function of constructing an objective reality for the public to digest. The scary end result of this is the vanishing of reality, no less. No anchor for the public to glean a perception of what's really out there. A perpetual doubt. The dread of never really being able to trust anything that comes out of the source of information that used to distill reality in the past. 

The destruction of the press is, in a sense, the destruction of reality itself. In times when the information we get from Media literally is a matter of life and death (Is Coronavirus immunity real? Can asymptomatic infected people be contagious? Are kids really not that affected by it? Will the vaccine work?... etc. etc. etc.) we simply can't afford not to be able to trust our sources of information. 

Scary times indeed.