When the history of this era is written, possibly on a cave wall, the media will bear a heavy portion of responsibility.
Using normalizing language in a headline such as this is a longstanding practice of theirs.
(Laughable? Your homework assignment for tonight is to Google the term Pied piper strategy. The NYT played ball with the Democrats at their request, and never stopped carrying it.)
The Pied Piper Strategy was interesting to read about, but that doesn't agree with my experience of reading the Times. It seems more than happy to pander to its subscribers' biases.
Day after day, I'd scream at them under my breath: You idiots are going to get him elected. You know that, right? Right?
Turns out that yes, they did.
In the sense that it sells papers and ads? Sure, I guess. That’s the price of an attention economy. Someone who commands attention gains economies.
Or do you mean the Times is ideologically aligned with Trump?
Look at the headline here for instance - US and Iran send conflicting signals, as though both parties are sending incorrect messaging regarding a potential peace deal.
What's really happening though is Trump unilaterally lying through his teeth (established), perhaps so that entities tied to him, likely his erstwhile bankrupt family, can manipulate the stock market (speculative). Of course, you won't see the NY Times or any American paper of record narrate the news that way. That's what GP means by the NYT's sanewashing. Because for them, any news sells, and you don't cut off the source.
I mean, it's not as if they're actually going to come out with the correct headline: "Trump Continues Lying About War, Makes Up Unlikely-Sounding Excuse for Chickening Out," is it?
But they can do better than "Conflicting Signals."
I don't even mean to be political, but one of the two parties here is notorious for lying, so much so that there's a wikipedia page dedicated to the falsehoods they have come out with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements...
First line:
> During and between his terms as President of the United States, Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims
To have a productive discussion on HN, I'd like to ask a question I've always wondered about the USA: How come, given how the media represents things, there haven't been any new media companies, no new news shows, no new newspapers/websites, dedicated to honest, factual reporting, that have gone mainstream/nationwide?
Is there something preventing this?
mitchbob•1h ago