2 thoughts on “The Great Ambush”

  1. There is clear evidence of supply-driven media bias. Editorial choices aren’t just a response to reader demand; they reflect a publication’s or network’s ideological leanings. This influences which stories get highlighted, and which narratives dominate public discourse.

    The recent waves of consolidation in the media industry, coupled with the noticeable rise in perceptions of media bias over the past decade, seems to support the supply-side argument. As fewer companies control more of the media landscape, outlets have less of an incentive to maintain a broad, unbiased approach.

    If you follow the news business at all, you regularly come across the mythology of Walter Cronkite — the voice of the nation. He was a “giant,” the story goes, who single handedly turned the tide of public sentiment against the war in Vietnam with his coverage. In his day, Cronkite and CBS were trusted and respected.

    My, how times have changed. Today, if you want to see BS “news” now, all you have to do it turn to CBS News.

    Cronkite was a liberal, something he eventually admitted near the end of his life. But people knew it at the time. You can’t convey news dispassionately and be passionate about the happenings in the news. When he uttered his famous line — “But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could” — it was a shock. It was the first time a prominent “journalist,” something separate from a “commentator” at the time, had openly put his own personal beliefs on display in the course of his coverage.

    Those beliefs had always been there, of course, in story-selection and what was and was not reported, but they never owned it in that way. Now, journalism has been reduced to nothing but the sharing of journalists’ opinions and crafted narratives.

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