
By: Steve McCann
Thanks to Donald Trump’s revolutionary campaign strategy of near-exclusive focus on internet media, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and self-immolation, the dominant ninety-year run of the self-styled “mainstream media” ended with the 2024 presidential election, alongside its legacy of being the cheerleaders and propaganda arm of the American Left and an increasingly radicalized Democrat Party.
The mainstream media can trace its beginning to Franklin Roosevelt. It was given birth with the passage of the Communications Act of 1934 and the creation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), thus, placing control of the electronic media under the thumb of the federal government. The FCC’s primary function was to restrain competition. Consequently, three well-financed and Roosevelt-allied networks ended up with a virtual national monopoly on the dissemination of news broadcast over the radio, and eventually television, airwaves for the next 50 years and maintained a near monopoly for another 30+ years.
Not to be outdone, the Democrat-leaning members of the print media, in order to ingratiate themselves with Roosevelt, assumed even greater notoriety and dominance by cooperating with a fascist-sympathizing Roosevelt Administration and the Democrat Party in abetting their heavy-handed treatment of any opposition media. Thus, the favored print media, together with the administration, succeeded in their quest for dominance by driving numerous publications into bankruptcy or obscurity.
It was then that the issue of fairness in reporting the news began to be bandied about in reaction to the near monopolistic status of what we now refer to as the mainstream media. Consequently, the management of the leading newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks found it necessary to initiate the mantra that their profession was the epitome of credibility and integrity. All the while they were unabashedly promoting Franklin Roosevelt and his big-government agenda, marking the beginning of nine decades of a bedfellow relationship between the media and the Democrat Party.
The dominant players in the media willingly became de facto accomplices with not only the Roosevelt administration but the despots in Europe, whom FDR refused to criticize or condemn. Taking their lead from FDR, the New York Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and Time Magazine among many other mainstream media outlets published puff pieces defending and praising Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin while they were overtly and brutally consolidating power. The Washington Post, the New York Times, other major newspapers, the wire services, as well as the three major broadcast networks all buried or essentially ignored the reports of the Holocaust before, and most egregiously, during the war.
In the 1950s and 60s, the mainstream media’s love affair with Fidel Castro knew no bounds as virtually the entirety of the media complex promoted, protected, and gushed over the communist dictator as he was brutally ascending and consolidating his power. Newsweek in April of 1959: “Castro is honest, and an honest government is something unique in Cuba… Castro is not himself even remotely a communist.”
In the 1970s and 80s many mainstream media outlets slobbered over the ascension to power of the PLO/Hamas despite their determination to exterminate Israel. In the 1980s Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua received similar treatment as did Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in the 1990s.
Since the 1980s, the mainstream media has often criticized the Communist Chinese, but virtually all the criticism is “constructive criticism” (i.e., we want you to succeed — this is what you are doing wrong.) Confirming their first loyalty is to authoritarian ideology, over the decades many mainstream media outlets have accepted untold millions in payments from China for publishing articles and airing broadcasts not only favorable to Beijing but at their behest in order to overtly influence U.S. politics.
Beginning in the 1950s, many television reporters and anchors assumed celebrity status as they were in the homes of Americans on a daily basis. As such their credibility was rarely if ever questioned.
While there were some news anchors and reporters that tried to be impartial, the majority were not. Walter Cronkite was portrayed and feted as “The Most Trusted Man in America.” Yet, along with his cadre of reporters, he convinced the populace that what was in reality a significant victory by the American Army in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive, was in fact an overwhelming defeat and embarrassment, thus denigrating the valor of the soldiers and turning public opinion against the military. Across the spectrum, his reporting, abetted by what stories the network chose not to cover, skewed significantly toward the Democrats and sympathy with authoritarianism.
The authoritarian leanings of the mainstream media over the decades have not been limited to international affairs. At home they have unabashedly promoted the erosion of the nuclear family, secularism, the denigration of federalism, socialist economic policies, and a permanent one-party ruling class oligarchy with themselves at the table.
The preponderance of the current generation of so-called mainstream journalists are more ill-educated and steeped in Marxist ideology than their predecessors. Over the past twenty-five years these useful idiots have had the use of the mainstream media platform to unabashedly promote Marxist cultural and economic policies in furtherance of transforming America.
It is this iteration of the mainstream media that accelerated the self-immolation of a nine-decades-old institution. Unlike their predecessors, they no longer hid behind a fig-leaf of objectivity.
Beginning in 2008 they abandoned any pretext of objectivity by their obsequious fawning over Barack Obama, their mindless determination to destroy Donald Trump, and their unabashed support for an obviously incapable and senescent Joe Biden. They robotically assumed the role of the Democrat Party’s Praetorian Guard as they, almost universally, regurgitated and promoted the talking points, fabrications, innuendos, and “fake news” given to them by their fellow-travelers.
In a recent Gallup poll taken prior to the 2024 election just thirty percent of the citizenry have a great deal or fair amount of trust and confidence in the media. Further, 70% believe the media is pushing an agenda and not fairly reporting the news.
Americans, as polling reveals, have become progressively suspicious of the mainstream media. The citizenry is increasingly assuming that virtually all news as presented by them is either a fabrication or an exaggeration to promote a left-wing agenda. The media’s grotesque exculpation of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democrats during the Biden presidency and their role as propagandists during the 2024 campaign has permanently cemented this mindset among the majority of the electorate.
Since November 5, 2024, the viewership of MSNBC’s prime time shows has dropped 53% and CNN’s prime time — 47%. The ratings of the network evening news broadcasts continue to plummet as viewership has dropped by 50% or 20 million viewers since 1990. Meanwhile, the circulation of daily newspapers continue their freefall as they have lost nearly 70% or 41 million readers since 1990. (By comparison, the population of the United States has increased by nearly 90 million since 1990).
The mainstream media cannot recover from this self-imposed catastrophic downfall and its ninety-year legacy of being the de facto propaganda arm of the American Left and an increasingly radicalized Democrat Party. Its reign atop the media pyramid is over.
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The above article (The Demise of the Mainstream Media) is republished here under “Fair Use” (see the TLB disclaimer below article) with attribution to the author Steve McCann and the website americanthinker.com.
TLB Project recommends that you visit the American Thinker website for more great articles and information.
Image Credit: Graphic in articles Featured Image (top) – Image by Aurel Cham from Pixabay. In-Article Image – Magic Studio (from original article).
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Also by this Author:
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The Legacy Media Has Passed the Point of No Return
The 2024 Election and the Economic Future of America
The Death Of Citizenship
Donald Trump & The Fate Of The Nation
The Evolution Of The American Police State
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
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