The rage boiling beneath
Why are people so angry at the media?
It’s fascinating (and somewhat entertaining) to watch national media personalities struggle to understand America’s current political upheaval. But they’re waking up… slowly.
“People feel they aren’t listened to, that they’re ignored, that they don’t matter,” said Brooke Gladstone back in 2020.
Four years later, the problem is only worse.
It’s as if we’re all guests at a huge dinner party, but just a few people dominate the conversation. And it’s the same people who run the table, meal after meal after meal.
Yes, Joe Rogan may have replaced Charlie Rose, and the information ecosystem may no longer favor the legacy media brands. But the balance of power has shifted more than it has been distributed. Everyone now holds a microphone, but few people have an amplifier with significant power or reach. You might be on Twitter/X, but so is Elon Musk, who has 207 million followers.
Meanwhile at that dinner party, right beside your water glass, there’s a small, tented card that says: Join the conversation! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok! Your opinion matters! (🙄)
Which creates a paradox…
If citizens are pissed off because they’re not being heard as individuals, then how can journalists with a national audience possibly address that anger? As soon as these media personalities start talking, they compound the problem they are presumably trying to solve.
“Today on our nationally syndicated show, Brooke talks to _________ about the way media elites like Brooke set the parameters for our public conversations, and how that enrages the silent majority who now want to burn down the entire edifice that elevates and protects our modern (media) aristocracy.
Join us on Xitter & Facebook! Email us! Or join our Platinum Circle (only $5 per month!), where loyal listeners like you can chat on Discord with other supporters who also have no measurable impact on The Conversation.
Also on the show, Bob will offer a five-minute monologue about how democracy demands that we learn to listen to the millions of people who feel marginalized and ignored — and who will never appear on this show.”
Like I said, it’s a paradox.
I think the anger toward the media rises out of the fact that the national media has so clearly, and clearly intentionally, attempted to gaslight the American public over the last eight years for sure, but going back to the 1990s as well.
I remember in the early 1990s, the LA Times assigned one of their investigative A-1 teams to do a story on the Times' own coverage surrounding abortion.
The resulting coverage was a multipart article that ran over the course of several days - and included a pretty in-depth survey of Times subscribers and former subscribers.
What I recall as being telling was that those who described themselves as "pro-choice" felt that public figures who they sympathized with were by and large presented in a fair manner by the Times. On the other side, however, those who self-described as "pro-life" felt that public officials they agreed with were portrayed as two-dimensional stereotypes.
At the conclusion of the series, the Times ran an editorial in which the top editors pointed out that the sign of a nonpartisan newspaper, one that truly represents a first draft of history, is one in which all readers recognize themselves and feel that they and their community are treated fairly.
By that standard - and I think it's a good one, albeit one the Times has long since abandoned - most of the national media fails on a daily basis.
Thus, the anger: When you are constantly misrepresented, your views distorted, your values openly mocked, anger is, I think, a natural reaction.
I only see (the "paradox" of) different (sorts of) people/ "groups" never wanting to listen and having any horror towards thinking and listening carefully, and/but always accusing "the others" of not listening although just this will always be the last thing they´d do themselves. And the whole thing gets named (something like) "democracy".