A day or so ago James Joyner posted a riff on my earlier post on the general loss of confidence in institutions.
Within my own wheelhouse of civil-military relations, we have seen the United States military go from being perhaps the most consistently-admired major institution in our society to one with less-than-majority support—with a 25% drop between November 2020 to February 2022. And, no, it’s not because of losing efforts in two wars, for which the American public largely blames politicians. It’s because the military brass are increasingly seen as partisan political actors taking sides in the culture wars.
I find the assertion that confidence in the media is instrumental with Republicans averring confidence in Fox News while Democrats believe CNN misses the point. It hasn’t always been that way. Just 20 years ago, believe it or not, scholarly analysis found Fox News to be among the most unbiased sources. Fox is even more biased now than it was 20 years ago and the same is true for most outlets. I found this remark from James’s comments gobsmacking:
Fox News is , objectively, a propaganda organ of the Republican Party.
CNN is a reasonably accurate news organization.
for which the commenter received substantial support. I agree that Fox News has become a propaganda organ. As evidence that CNN, too, is a propaganda organ I submit the following:
Take note of the following:
- Fox News has a right bias.
- CNN has a left bias.
- CBS, ABC, NBC, the Washington Post news reporting, and New York Times news reporting lean left.
- Wall Street Journal news reporting exhibits neither a left nor right bias.
- New York Times opinion articles illustrate a left bias.
- Wall Street Journal opinion pieces are right-leaning.
The reactions at OTB hearken back to one of my earliest posts here at The Glittering Eye. Where you sit depends on where you stand. If your views are far left, you tend to view views that comport with your own as unbiased while any view less on the left than yours is a right-wing view and conversely with the far right.
Axios has an interesting social media policy for its writers, which is something like don’t express personal or political views or engage in snark or derogatory language. They can share stories, but the views expressed on platforms like twitter need to meet the expectations of published pieces in terms of accuracy and professionalism.
Not surprised to see them in the center. Since these limits prevent writers from advancing their brand, the types of reporters are probably very different that at other media outlets.
Dave, the comments you have received do not do justice to your observation and question regarding loss of Public confidence in institutions and your corollary question regarding normalization. In both instances the commenters immediately started throwing wild suppositions regarding right/left ,dem/repub beliefs etc. This issue goes far beyond this dichotomy. Americans in general have lost trust and the public is being forced by law and social/economic sanctions to to accept the normalization of behaviours which are in conflict with the public norms. Americans have never trusted Government or liked Government and treated it as a necessary evil. Americans never trusted the media and children were admonished to ‘believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see’ and that was before the internet! The big difference between now and then is this scepticism was seen as healthy while now it is attacked as conspiracy thinking. So what changed and when? I think the When was the questions around the Miller report and of course the Vietnman war which went unanswered. The What I believe is the Information Age making information entertainment. Once information was both doubted and entertaining, outrageous lies became acceptable and apologies were no longer given. A third variable I will throw in is the new Tribalisation of society which has destroyed the basic notion of “we’re all in this together”. Ok.I have played D’s the Idiot, how do others see this?
The comment section at OTB is pretty well dominated by left-wingers now. Fox News as the bete noire is a pretty common argument and at this point, I just roll my eyes. Just in the last couple of months, I’ve been accused of “having dinner” with Nazi’s and other stuff for heresy against various progressive narratives. So I guess on a comparative basis, I’m what passes for right-wing there, even though I’m not right-wing at all.
Correction-The report I wished to cite was the Warren report regarding Kennedy, not a Miller report. Big error, no excuse.
Andy,yes, I thought name calling was something we left in grade school but here we are; lies are acceptable and apologies are not given. I am fairly typical of 60″s University types who left school as left/Liberal Free Speech-Anti war activists only find themselves on the Right many years later. I do not think the current Left existed in those the days other than in Orwell’s mind.
Umm, no. Name calling is very much a prominent feature of the former POTUS and it seems to be embraced by his supporters. Also, mocking the disabled.
Steve