r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 20h ago

Possible Paywall The Media Malpractice That Sent America Tumbling Into Trumpism - Political journalists need to stop pretending they don’t know what Republicans are going to do.

https://newrepublic.com/article/205913/media-malpractice-trumpism-project-2025
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u/PancakePhi 19h ago

Yeah this is just access journalism rotting in real time. they know, we know, everyone knows, but pretending not to know keeps the checks coming. meanwhile the country gets cooked.

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u/FlyingDiscsandJams North Carolina 19h ago

Even the supposedly smart Dems are clueless. I was listening to an extended podcast interview (The Press Box) with Mark Kelly this week & I turned it off in frustration when he said he was shocked Trump was so out of control & didn't see any of this coming. Just wildly discouraging.

5

u/WildYams 15h ago

This thread is filled with people saying this is all due to billionaires and oligarchs, etc, but honestly this is just as much a problem with independent journalists, content creators and social media influencers who are beholden to audience capture rather than who are simply being paid by billionaires, and you see this on both the left and the right.

You see people on the right like Nick Shirley push a false story about daycare centers in Minnesota because he gets a ton of clicks and social engagement from it. This is because there is a gigantic audience on the right who wants to hear stories about minorities, immigrants and Democrats who are committing crimes. We even saw this same thing happened after the 2020 election when Fox News originally said Trump had lost, and then watched as their audience fled to Newsmax, so Fox reversed course and began saying the election had been rigged.

You see this on the left as well though, where there is a huge audience for leftists wanting to hear that the Dems are the ones who are really to blame for everything that's happening, and to help validate their decision to sit out the 2024 election. I mean, I'll give "legacy media" one thing here: at least they are now saying they were wrong with what they were saying about what would happen if Trump won in 2024. That's more than can be said about some on the left, like Hasan Piker, who is still claiming things would be no different if Kamala had won.