The legacy media’s downfall is a tragedy, not a triumph

Some within the conservative media sphere celebrate the spectacular self-immolation of the legacy news media. I am not one of them, but I get it: It’s a natural reflex to cheer on the demise of an institution that hates you, thinks you’re an idiot, and works around the clock to manipulate you and your family on behalf of the corporate//Big Tech/Hollywood cultural monolith, all while feigning concern for “the truth.” The people produced by such an industry are truly loathsome in their roles. Who, for example, could help but cheer when CNN canned the monolith’s chief propagandist Brian Stelter ? Our innate hunger for justice rejoices at such moments.

But while it’s impossible not to take at least passing pleasure in the professional demise of those who specialized in protecting entrenched power (comforting the comfortable, if you will), it’s ill-advised to cheer on the downfall of a crucial cultural institution. It is a tragedy that America’s news media outlets have beclowned themselves into irrelevance. With the China threat rising and future national crises on the scale of COVID-19 inevitable, a functional and trusted news industry is essential. The state of our journalism has profound implications on our national security in the information age.

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But trust in the news media is at an all-time low , and this nosedive is driven exclusively by non-Democrats . According to a recent Gallup poll , trust in the news media among self-identified Democrats is at an all-time high of 73%. But only 36% of independents agree and only 10% of Republicans. These figures reflect the reality that legacy media outlets have become an active arm of the aforementioned cultural monolith that works in lockstep with the Democratic Party to maintain power.

Two stories from the previous week demonstrate the dysfunction that has brought us to this perilous point.

The first is an opinion piece written by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who has, in the past, done truly incredible work, particularly in relation to human trafficking and the conflict in Darfur. I’ve long admired and respected him and have even considered him as something of a hero for expanding the scope of what an op-ed could be. But last week’s piece, titled “ The Real Lesson from the Hunter Biden Saga ,” is so transparent in its attempt to protect the most powerful man on the planet that it eclipses Kristof’s great work and irreparably tarnishes his legacy. Could the same man who once won the Pulitzer for his coverage of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests really have penned last week’s column that attempts to divert attention away from a snowballing corruption scandal at the highest level of government?

Kristof does at least acknowledge aspects of the unfolding story, such as the IRS whistleblower who alleges Justice Department interference in the effort to investigate the Biden family. But he waves off the larger story without presenting other highly damning revelations in recent months, including that the thoroughly discredited letter signed by 51 senior intelligence officials that claimed Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of Russian disinformation” really had all the classic earmarks of a domestic political hit job .

One can only imagine what Kristof would say if the situation were reversed — if say, Don Trump Jr. were at the center of the very same scandal in which Biden now finds himself. Or what the younger Kristof, the one who once wrote so bravely about abuses of power, might say to himself now.

The second news item from last week that encapsulates the tragic downfall of the press comes from the Wall Street Journal, which appears to be the only legacy news outlet that remains interested in pursuing the origins of the global pandemic that killed 15 million people . The Journal reported that current and former U.S. officials now identify a prominent, U.S.-funded scientist as among the first three Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to become sick in November 2019 with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. This new revelation gives added credence to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origins, which is now the preferred explanation for the origination of the virus, according to the FBI and the Department of Energy’s elite “Z Division .”

After years of shaming skeptics of the natural origins theory of COVID-19 as racist conspiracy theorists (as well as advocating their removal from social media platforms, a request to which the powers at be readily obliged), it is becoming increasingly clear that the skeptics had it pegged from the start: Risky research, funded by the United States and performed in a Chinese biolab, was to blame for the world-altering pandemic.

Our journalist class, which has become fat and rich by entering into the political arena instead of reporting on it, has yet to take accountability for repeatedly blowing stories of major consequence in the past decade. If they had, there might be a path to redemption in the eyes of most people. But instead, they behave as if it never happened.

Before long, America’s news media itself will cease to exist. It may be a just consequence, but it isn’t worth celebrating.

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Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner and the founder of Crush the College Essay. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, the National Catholic Register, and the American Spectator.