The greatest disservice of the news media?

[kentuck]

This has been the dirtiest, most vulgar campaign of my lifetime. How did it get this far?

In my opinion, a large part of the blame lies at the feet of the American news media. By promoting the storyline that both candidates were "dishonest and could not be trusted", they dismantled any standards that may have been set for the election. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What were voters supposed to think?

It doesn't matter who we vote for...they are both crooked and unworthy of the office?

The promotion of personal flaws over the issues and the better characteristics of our people, the media created a wasteland of negativity, division, hatred, and anger.

[dalton99]

1. Ratings = $$$$

“It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS”

[tymorial]

2. 6 corporations are competing for your attention

Sensationalism and manipulation of current events are the means by which the most revenue can be generated.

[dalton99]

3. Yep, they consciously chose to make it a race to the bottom

Sadly it's the race to the bottom that grabs people's attention and Trump knows this very well.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

4. Not exactly "news"media anymore - more accurately "infotainment industry" - used to be media was

required to provide x amount of news reporting as a public (not for profit) service, essential to a functioning democracy. Forget when that all was deregulated - but it was.

Sex and conflict sells - so media of all sorts is more inclined to fan the flames and create controversy where there need not be any..... at the expense of promoting understanding and insight.

Having a bunch of people sitting around a table yakking about what other people have said or tweeted is very cheap.... meanwhile, investigative journalism is very expensive .... but really, there needs to be more of it between now and election day to dig into Trumps Russian connections and degree of indebtedness to his Russian investors. Appears to be a very serious conflict of interest here and its getting very little attention. Hope someone, somewhere in the media can rise to the occasion.

[tymorial]

7. They won't do that.

Not after Rather and Bush.

[ronnie624]

5. Every other consideration, including the common welfare

is subordinate to the pursuit of profit. That's a central tenant of American ideology. A purely profit driven media establishment, is inevitable.

[colsohlibgal]

6. They Are Complicit Big Time

Fox News is propaganda pure and simple but the rest of the corporate media wants a horse race. They also have heard the right rail agains the mythical "liberal media", and that has shaded their coverage.

The good things going on now are shows by Sam Bee, John Oliver, and Bill Maher. Trevor Noah is getting incrementally better. Seth Myers and Colbert help too. And the average age of Faux News viewers is moving toward 70.

[gratuitous]

8. I don't know if it's the greatest disservice

But every now and then someone in the popular media does a thumb-sucker about the current state of politics, dismayed by the vulgarity of it all, and pondering in Hamlet-esque soliloquy about how it all came to this. That's bad enough, and the litany of sins in the political world is enough to make you punch holes in the wall.

But worst of all for me is the complete and utter failure of the popular media to discern any responsibility on their own part for the current sad state of affairs. It's as if all this terribleness just happened, and nobody could have predicted, and why doesn't someone do something about it all? Just don't blame them or ask them to change one whit.