Not Just CNN: Mainstream Media Is on the Ropes
From The Epoch Times By Roger L. Simon February  8, 2022
I’m beginning to sense something many of us have dreamed about since the beginning of this century—the serious decline of the mainstream media.
Dare I say a tipping point has come, that the witch is dead? Not quite, but she’s clearly stumbling around on her broomstick, wondering what to do next.
I’m not just talking about NBC’s pathetic coverage of the Beijing Olympics that nobody is watching, though that’s an indication.
Nor am I talking about the well-known polling that rates the media’s popularity somewhere below Congress, if such a thing were possible. That’s been going on for a while.
It’s more.
Let’s take a tour d’horizon, but first… CNN.
A widely discussed article by media critic Joe Concha concludes:
“The collapse of CNN is now complete: 9 out of 10 viewers, gone. Its top-rated anchor, Chris Cuomo, gone. Its network president, gone. Its integrity in shambles.
“Oh, and new management coming in that is signaling big-time changes … changes that may bring CNN back to the proud network it once was before [network President] Jeff Zucker destroyed it.”
True enough, but should CNN be brought back? A company that deliberately downplayed the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime (they even admitted it) in order to maintain their exclusive access to that same regime should have vanished years ago. We would have been spared all the endless Trump–Russia lies.
Actually, it doesn’t matter who replaces management at CNN because the real ownership hasn’t changed—WarnerMedia and, above that group, AT&T.
And above AT&T, as with the other two giant corporations who control the vast majority of the mainstream media landscape, The Walt Disney Co. and Comcast, their true capo di tutti capi is China—because the communist-controlled nation is the one whose mammoth audience they crave.
That’s the bad news, but the good news is those same corporations are increasingly behind the times.
You are here, reading this, not listening to their canned propaganda.
And not just here, of course. You are reading blogs, alternative media, and listening to podcasts. Who has more influence these days, The New York Times or Joe Rogan? Well, it’s a toss-up, and that’s just one guy.
You are also surfing the internet for other information, making up your own mind. The possibilities for gaining that information are growing in number and in strength by the day.
What intelligent person watches the traditional evening network news anymore? Who believes that the aforementioned NY Times is the “newspaper of record”? That’s basically a joke now to vast numbers of people.
Donald Trump has been using the mainstream/legacy media (call them what you will) as a fall guy for some time now. It’s almost beginning to sound dated, all this talk of “fake news.”
The real news is being created before your eyes. And the more outlets, the merrier, because the chances of finding the truth will only increase. The chances of their being canceled also will decrease.
Chairman Mao was undoubtedly lying (and creating mayhem) when he said, “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” but the thought being expressed was correct. If I were to write my own Little Red Book today, I would say in terms of news and a lot of things: Learn from the Canadian truckers! (In other words, do it on your own.)
Yes, it’s a bit self-serving, but as a subscriber or even a reader of The Epoch Times, you are participating in this ongoing media revolution that’s truly picking up steam after more than a decade.
I think back now to the days when we started Pajamas Media (2004) and how we were accused of being “amateurs in our pajamas” by a CBS executive, for daring to question their anchor Dan Rather’s lies about George W. Bush’s National Guard papers. (We couldn’t have been more correct and Rather was shortly gone.)
In the parlance of another day, “we’ve come a long way, baby.”
Pretty soon, we may have a different problem. What happens when you become “the man”? Let’s hope we handle it better. We should.