Newsrooms, sugar-coating today's GOP, supports their ongoing coup
Would someone please buy the editors a dictionary?
TAT readers,
Phew, thank goodness it’s Friday. Well, it’s that time of year where the kids are back in school, football season finally started and some slightly cooler weather will slowly begin to appear, here in South Texas. I don’t take any of this for granted, nor anything else that is good in my life. A vibrant and ethical press, no longer appears on the list of things to be grateful for. They did this to themselves. Even the great investigative reporters, are now often hamstrung by editors and owners, to write cautiously about the current administration and the Republican Party.
Today’s GOP, exists almost exclusively on lies, conspiracy theories, miss and disinformation. This makes them dangerous as a voting block. None of their dishonest ideology, represents the intentions of our founders nor our constitutional principles. Regarding today’s essay, it is the newsrooms of most mainstream media, that perpetuate the GOP’s dangerous ideology by not being straightforward with American citizens. They employ a variety of tactics to skirt full truth. Any unbiased outside analysis, might even assume that newsroom editors, don’t even own a dictionary, when they continually use the word “conservative” to describe today’s GOP. There is no real conservatism left in the Party. Now, it’s whatever Trump wants and one of those things, is for the press to laud praise on him and never criticize or tell the truth.
Today we’ll talk about how their euphemistic approach to the news, is supporting the dismantling of our constitutional republic. I have written several times about the dishonesty of newsrooms, since beginning TAT, three years ago, last Monday. Not all newsrooms are equally dishonest though, but even the better ones like the AP/ Associated Press, struggle to be fully straightforward with their readers sometimes. A perfect example would be my inspiration for this essay, a headline this morning in the AP titled, “National conservatism asserts its dominance in Trump’s Washington.” I nearly spit out my coffee this morning reading the headline, due to my frustration with media calling today’s GOP, “conservative.”
It’s not that I don’t understand editor’s reticence to be blunt with readers. All media is at threat currently if they are too harsh a critic of the far-right extremist party running our nation. Federal agencies and laws, give this fascist administration, leverage over all media. Trump’s and the party’s “hitmen” like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, have been threatening and extracting extorsion payments from media giants like ABC owned by Disney and CBS, owned by the Skydance Paramount Corporation. I used these two solely as an example, but the problem is a large-scale threat across most media newsrooms. Then there are other ownership compromises as well, such as deep Saudi investment in the Reuters News Agency. This explains why Reuters, like most of western news reporting on Gaza, was and still is in my professional opinion, borderline antisemitic.
Of course, income from ads also steer newsroom reporting or rather, lack of on topics of political and geo-political sensitivities. Small town papers and newspapers of far wider importance are disappearing faster than than most endangered species. Reporters, many of them terrific and with integrity are tragically disappearing along with those newspapers, print, digital or otherwise. While that there are less than ten global multimedia conglomerates, there is a parent/ child relationship between these handfuls of conglomerates. Their “children” agencies, are to a large extent, beholden to their “parent’s” guidance. This gives families and their interests a great deal of say in what we see, hear, read and base our opinions on. This is extremely dangerous in a democracy. Ownership in media is extremely complex, intentionally so sometimes, in order to hide responsibility for programming and policies.
America has been down the road of “fake news” before. It was called the Yellow Journalism era. It led to a global war with Spain, all based on sensationalist and dishonest reporting, from the newspapers of the era’s media oligarchs, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. It also is assessed to have hastened the anarchist assassination of President McKinley.
The only good thing to come from the Yellow Journalism era, is that it was followed by the “Muckraker” era. Muckrakers were intensely dedicated investigative journalists, pulling back the curtain on the oligarchs and Robber Barons of the age, for their inhumane abuse of labor, monopolies and extorsion-like business practices. If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s exactly what is currently occurring to our republic under the current administration. This is an administration of the worst type of “Robber Barons,” that today are best described, as oligarchs.
In today’s America, we are again under the thumb of dishonest media oligarchs, complete with their paid politicians, who grant them tax breaks and laws that assist in maintaining and expanding their oligarchy, at the expense of the working classes of America. They have not only cut the legs out from under our national security, but have also been relentless is dismantling the republic that those same dishonest politicians are sworn to protect.
The role that today’s reporting plays with so much pressure on them to not anger the administration or pursue the geo-political whims of the media oligarchs is to dramatically alter the landscape of global governance. Their whims are so heavily agenda-oriented towards profitability and power, that democracy globally is experiencing its most extensive decline, since the fascist era surrounding the second world war.
To illustrate how less than full, candid reporting can undermine democracy, look no further than the inspiration for today’s essay in the AP article I noted at the beginning of this essay. Its headline reads like a euphemism for today’s fully radicalized, Republican Party: “National conservatism asserts its dominance in Trump’s Washington.” There is nothing conservative about today’s GOP, as I have laid out in excruciating detail in the essay pinned to the top of my website’s home page, titled, “Being a Republican today, doesn’t make you a Conservative.” In the essay, I compare the primary items in President Eisenhower’s, 1956 presidential platform and the 2022 Texas GOP Platform. Eisenhower, the premier, principled conservative in modern American history, had a platform very closely aligned to President Biden’s 2020 platform.
At the writing of this essay in Jan of 2024, the national Republican Party hadn’t had a national platform since anointing Trump king, in 2016. The Texas GOP platform for 2022 was exemplary of the unconstitutional and un-American ideology of the today’s GOP. Today’s administration exceeding even their Project 2025 ideology and platform, is infinitely more extremist than even Texas’ 2022 disgraceful platform. There is no way that any sane individual could call them “conservatives” with a straight face. Yet… newsroom editors and reporters do this daily. This perpetuates the myth or rather lie, that today’s GOP is a legitimate political party. People and organizations are what they do, not say.
conservatism a : inclination to preserve what is established : belief in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society Classical education involves a certain kind of conservatism. —Adam M. Carrington The twentieth century politics of New Jersey has continued to be dominated … by the natural conservatism of the industrial and business interests. —American Guide Series: New Jersey compare liberalism sense 1 b : a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing the importance of established hierarchies and institutions (such as religion, the family, and class structure), and preferring gradual development to abrupt change Despite much change in the surrounding social environment, however, the essential values of conservatism remained much as they have always been: church, family, personal responsibility, order, country. —A. James Reichley specifically : such a philosophy calling for reduced taxation, for limited government regulation of business, industry and finance, for restriction of immigration, for a strong national defense, and for individual financial responsibility for personal needs (such as retirement income and health care coverage) and often including the aims of social conservatism … believes there is a strong desire in the [Republican] party for a candidate … who espouses Reagan-style conservatism, including traditional social values, hawkish foreign policy and small government economics. —Jill Colvin and Thomas Beaumont This reasoning is congruent with conservatism's argument that excessively benevolent government is not a benefactor, and that capitalism does not merely make people better off, it makes them better. —George Will" - Merriam-Webster Dictionary - Conservatism
The persistent use of the the word conservative by news media, lulls audiences into the false belief, that we are still a democracy choosing politicians for office, just like any other election. When describing a foreign power, most media would describe the ruling party quite differently, than most US media describes the current administration. For example, Trump’s recent public support for Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former far-right president along with his attacks on the current Brazilian government for treating Bolsonaro as the criminal and insurrectionist that he is, is quite different from how they describe the same crimes by Trump and his party here at home.
In Brazil, they describe Bolsonaro’s backers as a far-right movement or “criminal organization.” This is an accurate depiction, despite the fact that Trump’s 2020 election denial coup attempt on January 6th, 2021, was the model for Bolsonaro’s in 2023. In Brazil, Bolsonaro is under house-arrest, while that Trump is defiling the Oval Office. As you can see in the quote from Reuters below, the language Reuters used describing Bolsonaro, is “far-right firebrand.” His presidency, looked little different from Trump’s first and now second term. What the hell, Reuters, why two different standards for far-right presidents attempting coups?
"Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet charged the far-right firebrand and his running mate, General Walter Braga Netto, with leading a "criminal organization" that wanted to create a new order in the country, including with plans to poison Lula. A total of 34 people were charged in the plot, including several military officials, such as Bolsonaro's former national security adviser, retired General Augusto Heleno, and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos, according to the charge sheet. "The responsibility for acts harmful to the democratic order falls upon a criminal organization led by Jair Messias Bolsonaro, based on an authoritarian project of power," it added." - Brazil's ex-President Bolsonaro charged in alleged coup plot - Reuters - By Luciana Novaes Magalhaes, Lisandra Paraguassu, Manuela Andreoni and Maria Carolina Marcello - February 19, 2025
They are not the only ones either. Anyone reading a mainstream news article at the time of Bolsonaro’s coup attempt, would find the same, regardless of the source. Ideology is a very dangerous type of narrative that is extremely difficult to dislodge, once established. By reporting via euphemisms about today’s far-right Republican Party, most newsrooms are by default, sustaining the far-right GOP’s claim, of being a “conservative party,” rather than telling the truth about the GOP’s violent extremist, and insurrectionist agenda. Below, another story from the Guardian, where they tell the whole world about the far-right president and how his supporters are hoping pressure from Trump, will save their dear leader. If all this sounds like January 6th, it’s because it is.
In a report from Publica, a Brazilian publication similar to ProPublica, they detail their concerns about potential relationships between Putin, Trump and Bolsonaro and to what degree, this influenced Bolsonaro’s coup attempt. Brazil actually proactively looked ahead and began planning for a similar event to January 6th, in Brazil’s election of 2023. One might say that Brazil had a great deal more foresight, than our own domestic national security community. Brazil, still a rather young democracy, is staying true to their founding values while the Republican Party, is shredding ours with their fake patriotism and disdain for our constitution.
So long as our news media ecosystem has different standards for different people and organizations, the current national conversation will not change. Our current status quo, just like during the Yellow Journalism era, is chaotic, unsteady and will build towards a variety of disasters, just like it did in the late 1890’s. Like most other issues in our lives, sometimes we just have to feel a great deal of pain, before we take threats like today’s media disaster, seriously.
At the moment, that pain is beginning to settle in, for more and more Americans. After the Midterms when the Big Ugly Bill’s most painful pieces begin to really hurt all Americans, including the GOP base, it may be too late to stop the GOP’s juggernaut of fascism. One of the few places I see hope within the media world, is that the scourges of late 19th century America like Robber Barons and Yellow Journalism, begat the Muckraker era, where journalism had to clean up their act, instill a code of journalism ethics and move past their earlier transgressions. Journalists like Nelly Bligh and Upton Sinclair, took on the oligarchs of their day and curbed their ability to abuse labor, start wars and generally take over our nation.
There are excellent investigative reporters and organizations like ProPublica and CREW that do extraordinary and honest work, pulling back the curtain on what is really going on in government. They are worth following. Look for reporters that you can trust and I highly recommend avoiding all cable news. If you must get your news from TV, please try the networks, like ABC, NBC or CBS. Whatever my beef with them, I still find them more credible than Cable news. Use a couple of good fact-check sites like Factcheck.org or PolitiFact, to help you source what media you frequent. Facts won’t matter to the Republican crowd, but it will give you confidence that you are well-informed.
Labor improvements and more truthful reporting, gave all Americans not only relief, but hope in our founding principles and their opportunities to acquire the American dream. We believed again and the engines of commerce began to hum accordingly. The nation responded with the Roaring Twenties and abundance, until similar forces to today’s GOP policies regarding taxes for the elite wealth crowd, plus the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, a Wall St. crash and other factors, brought on the Great Depression in 1929. Oh how soon we forget the important lessons in America. Hopefully, this time around we won’t have to wait another thirty years for relief from poor policy, protectionism and grossly inequitable tax rates between elite wealth and the rest of us.
I wish to be fully transparent about our chances to steer mainstream media onto a more honest path that supports good-decision-making for our nation. They are not good. Anytime there are monopolies, it is all about their bottom line and all else be damned. This is especially true in the news world these days. Those global media conglomerates are only about pleasing their owners, investors, board members and any other revenue stream, such as ads. That is how business works. Our American principles say that they must build their bottom lines ethically but this simply isn’t the case for oligarchs, Robber Barons, Captains of Industry or any other lofty euphemism for powermongers. Moderating their behavior will depend on our ability to show them that we can affect their profits. Yes, it’s a hard job, but at this point, what choice do we have but to try.
As I close today’s essay out, I hope that it brought a bit of understanding regarding the wool, American media is trying to pull over everyone’s eyes. We must be just as diligent in parsing our news as we are about making other important decisions in our lives. Only truth can help us solve our problems and at the moment, we get a very watered down version of the truth from most of our media. Read, watch and listen carefully to your sources, so that we’re all well-enough informed to see our threats clearly. Then, just like throughout our history, we can meet those threats, and beat them back in defense of the nation and its principles. Our children and grandchildren expect no less. If the American press is to be the Fourth Estate, then they need to start acting like it.
The Fourth Estate "Journalism has long been regarded as an important force in government, so vital to the functioning of a democracy that it has been portrayed as an integral component of democracy itself. In 1841, Thomas Carlyle wrote, “Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all” (On Heroes and Hero Worship). Four years earlier, Carlyle had used the phrase in his French Revolution: “A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up, increases and multiplies; irrepressible, incalculable.” Carlyle saw the press as instrumental to the birth and growth of democracy, spreading facts and opinions and sparking revolution against tyranny" - Journalism in the digital age - Stanford University
Enjoy your weekend everyone,
Paul