How the Media Trains Journalists to Lie

By ‘ratioing’ NBC’s Dasha Burns for questioning John Fetterman’s health, her fellow journalists hid the truth from the public but exposed how they manufacture consent

by Leighton Woodhouse October 31, 2022

n the debate stage last week, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman performed like one might expect from someone who survived a stroke only five months ago. In the aftermath of the debate, Democratic strategists have been asking—anonymously, of course—how anybody thought it was a good idea to foist Fetterman onto such a public stage. The simplest answer is that they thought they could get away with it because they believed their own hype.

A swarm of liberal political pundits and journalists had spent the previous weeks denouncing any questions about Fetterman’s health as illegitimate, while attacking the few reporters who dared raise such questions as heartless bigots and right-wing shills. In the process, they unintentionally revealed something essential about how the elite media distorts the public’s understanding of key issues by bullying journalists into repeating obvious lies...........After the interview aired, Burns told NBC’s Lester Holt on air that Fetterman didn’t appear to understand her pre-interview banter. Burns was just doing her job by reporting on the fitness of a public official............the media felt a great disturbance in the Force. On Twitter, blue-check journalists jumped in to defend Fetterman and throw shade at Burns.........

That’s how it remained for two weeks: with Burns scolded and swarmed, and other journalists left to internalize the message about what would happen to them if they too stepped out of line.  Then, Fetterman’s abysmal debate performance vindicated her..........

Starved of ad revenues, print media outlets changed their business models. They had already been drifting toward partisanship, but now they saw there was money in it. Instead of seeing their readers as consumers of the ads they sold, they started looking at them as potential donors. They began appealing to their political consciences, asking readers to subsidize their noble journalistic missions, NPR pledge-drive style. “Support our brave truth-telling work,” went the pitch, “for Democracy Dies In Darkness!”...........To Read More....