Via RMJ And Bluesky

 David Maraniss
‪@davidmaraniss.bsky.social‬
The Washington Post editorial this morning essentially equating Biden's questionable pardons with Trump's outrageous Jan. 6 pardons was unconscionable. The newspaper I've been part of for 48 years has utterly lost its soul.

BACK WHEN SOME FEW newspapers were owned by eccentric, idealistic owners, most of those I knew of from wealthy families, though some of the best of them small-town weeklies bought by actual newsmen or women, those few newspapers employed reporters and a few non-reporters who could work on the basis of professionalism but most newspapers an just about all electronic media were staffed by those who worked, essentially, as whores of the intellect, what Harry Truman called "presstitutes.'  Many of those who worked as reporters were somewhat shielded from the whims and financial and social interests of the pimps above them in management and, ultimately the owners so long as their reporting didn't impinge on things the owners cared about or would be financially impacted by though those who were a higher class of whores, the "opinion journalists" dealing in opinion were, for the most part, pretty much whores.   

When the internet was young the long gone blog Media Whores Online - reportedly owned and run by a former journalist - told many of the truths of what the media, the friggin' "free press" really was during the Bush II years and, the Gingrich Republicans dishonest and vindictive use of congressional investigations against the Clintons and Democrats, MWO dealt with the contrast between the media part of that from the New York Times down to the Murdoch owned gutter press and the cabloid brothels. MWO briefly spawned a number of "watch" blogs such as the excellent Sully Watch (documenting and covering the then ubiquitous racist piece of right wing crap, Andrew Sullivan) but that didn't last long, either.  

It's funny how twenty brief years of the laughably called "information age" has resulted in even the dismal performance of what's now called "legacy media" in the freest period of "free press" in the history of the world back then to have degenerated into the owner of one of the now handful of major newspapers, the Washington Post, being one of the billionaire clowns to have gotten top seating at Trump II, what is now obvious as an American Satyricon only I think Trump and his crew outdo the figures in that novel by a long shot.  None of those fictitious degenerate Romans had any actual power.  Our degenerates are very real and have very real power.

I have gone on and on for years about the damage to the United States that  resulted from the Sullivan Decision, the 1964 decision of the Warren Court that stupidly,  massively stupidly opened the floodgates of overt political lying with impunity by the American media, lying that has had its only real political impact in empowering Republicans, and the worst among those, from within four years of the decision being handed down.   It has been the foremost vehicle in bringing ever worsening men and women into office THROUGH THE WORST OF THE MEDIA WHICH WAS ALWAYS READY, WILLING AND ENABLED BY THE SUPREME COURT TO LIE THE WORST INTO OFFICE.   Nixon was the first and most obvious beneficiary from the media freed to lie the lies of him into office.  Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump - and that's only the criminals and crooks that it put into the presidency.   It also led to the elevation to power of Newt Gingrich and his faction of Republicans in the Congress.  

But it was all done through the media, the free press that magnified every flaw and petty corruption in every Democrat and invented flaws and corruptions when flawed Democrats didn't provide them any.   The ubiquitously observed mythology of the crimes of Hillary Clinton - including blaming her for the infidelity of her husband - what led directly to the elevation of Trump is now typical of the lies told by the entirety of the American media, the New York Times as directly responsible in that as the Murdoch gutter press.  The Washington Post, once owned by one of those eccentric old-family idealists mentioned above, followed it, especially once the heirs of that old family sold it off in the way typical of such corporations.  Though the Sulzberger-Ochs didn't need to sell the NYT to achieve the same effect.  Oh, they retain a few reporters who, through, I'd guess, choosing their beats, haven't totally whored out but loads of the NYT reporters are whores as those who lied about Hillary Clinton's impending indictment did right before the election that elevated Trump I.  The NYT celebrated their role in the Sullivan Decision a decade ago, its role in the corruption of American politics, leading directly to Trump should stand as the real life consequences of that.   I'm kind of surprised that someone like David Maraniss is so shocked at his experience of the ultimate corruption of the free press, freed to lie in service of billionaires, millionaires and the politicians, lawyers, judges and "justices" who service them in a parallel line of prostitution.  

I do have to mention that Maraniss's accurate phrasing of the WaPo having "lost its soul" should be noticed because all of this is a product of the official secularism of the law and modern academia, such as produces lawyers and law scholars and journalists (they were better or at least when they were the product of apprenticeship instead of college credentialing).   Not that religion is a guarantee of avoiding such corruption but at least it is supposed to start within moral restritions such as business isn't.   One of the most insightful remarks about journalism I've heard recently was the very experienced Keith Olbermann saying the problem with TV journalism was that it was TV, not journalism.  TV being a business, part of corporate culture, corporate culture which is held to be immune from moral considerations, like science is.   That is, it is in fact.  The ersatz substitution of "professional ethics" for even such obvious moral truths that you should tell the truth and not lie went out the window for the "free press" with the Sullivan ruling.   And that was a product of the sloppy, lawyerly drafting of the First Amendment.  Lawyering has always been the whore house that journalism is, always at service to the richest and deepest pockets.   Only, before that ruling lying could cost newspapers and electronic media enough money to make lying costly.   You'd have to sue the billionaire owners for a lot more than judges and "justices" would feel easy about fining them for even the most consequential of lying.   Democracy is dead until things like that are done.   The WaPo is a machine to keep the worst in power as the NYT is as are the networks and the social disease of social media.  Free press free speech has brought us to the darkest period of eutrophic imperial rule.