That’s how even The Wall Street Journal terms the press. This, as it notices the decreasing control influence the press has on what us average Americans are allowed to know about the political doings of our politicians.
A new media landscape has emerged. The traditional gatekeepers of political discourse—TV networks and newspapers—are shrinking in influence as Americans turn to many more outlets for information.
This comes especially in the wake of the last eight-ish years of naked bias by the press, a period wherein The New York Times has openly announced that there can no longer be objectivity in news reporting, newspapers must take sides, and a major broadcast news anchor announced that there are not two sides to every story; there can be only one side to many. In furtherance of those decisions, the press actively proselytizes on its news pages for its chosen candidates and party while actively suppressing stories that provide different information or that show their denigrated party and candidates in a good light. The press also suppresses stories that cast its chosen party/candidate in a negative light.
Beyond politics, the press actively spikes writing that contradicts its settlement of climate “science,” with the Los Angeles Times saying that it would no longer publish letters to the editor that disputed the LAT‘s determination of the proper discussion.
It’s no wonder that us average Americans no longer take the press seriously and are moving away from it toward other sources—including straight from the horse’s mouth in the podcasts that are becoming ubiquitous, and on some social media outlets like X, Truth Social, even the dangerous TikTok. If we can’t entirely trust these alternative outlets, we can at least hear what the candidates—and other guests—are saying, without the gatekeepers’ censorship filter.