Once Lost, Liberal Journalists' Mission Suddenly Found in Time of Trump

By John Kass
February 24, 2017

Journalists "find a renewed sense of mission," reports The New York Times.
That's nice. There is some truth to this. And it's not fake news.
With the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, journalism, in a typical pattern of self-congratulatory excess, has dusted off an old cliche to announce that it is once again "speaking truth to power."
Behold. That which was lost has now been found.
But it isn't exactly like setting out on a long and frightening sea voyage to find an undiscovered country, is it? Because finding a renewed sense of anything suggests that you might have misplaced the darn thing in the first place.
Losing your mission might even be worse than losing your car keys, stomping about the house and desperately demanding answers of your kids, the dog, only to realize, sheepishly, that the stupid keys are right there in your stupid hand. Yes, I've done this.
And finding your mission again might be like another cliche, that of the adult finding a beloved childhood toy in a bedroom closet in his parents' home. It's right there in the dark, in a box, a stuffed animal perhaps (mine was Morgan the stuffed dog) or a fire truck, a princess doll, anything that could fit into another sequel of the "Toy Story" franchise.
There are happy tears at such times of lost toys, even in the dark of a theater sitting next to your children, or in the silence of my old bedroom with a faded White Sox pennant on the wall and a dusty Morgan in my lap.
But this business of finding a renewed sense of journalistic mission poses an awkward, unanswered question.
Just where was that sense of mission for the past eight years?
You know where it was. It was in polite hibernation, on its back, with President Barack Obama in the White House.
When he was elected, there were happy newsroom tears of real joy for America's first black liberal president. It wasn't contrived emotion. It was real, and there was much bonding over a sense of accomplishment.
But there is a cost to powerful emotional connections with a politician. Love of a president can blind, but so can hatred of a president. And in the land of the blind, things tend to get lost, like journalistic mission.
Now Trump is president, and news consumers can plainly see the old mojo is back, with absolute vengeance. There are eager fact checks and story after story to counter Trump's loud and vulgar bragging, his use of alternative facts, his bald lies. Trump is an extremely bad liar.
But all politicians lie, and the best ones lie seamlessly to those who adore them, and expect to be defended. Think of some of the things we heard from the previous White House occupant:
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. The IRS wasn't used to target conservative groups. The Americans who died at Benghazi were killed as the result of a video. The first I learned of Hillary's unsecured home-brew email server was from watching the news.
Now journalists are at the barricades once again, like those idealistic students of Paris in "Les Miserables," protecting us against the orange-haired barbarian they so very much despise.
And they also seek to protect America against his populist army, that forgotten working class that sent him to Washington and that frighten them so very much.
Trump despises his media critics, and in his raging narcissism, shrieks that what we call the establishment media is "the enemy of the American people," and this only encourages them to hunker down even deeper into their Left vs. Trump bunker.
Yes, the criers of Beltway news are on the political left. But that's like saying rain is wet. Where's the surprise in this?
Modern American liberal journalism might not believe religion has a place in the public square, but it has a deep abiding faith, in government to accomplish the good. And there is the danger.
Because if journalists were truly intent on speaking truth to power, they wouldn't be defending the unelected rulers of America:
The unelected and unaccountable federal bureaucracy is true power. The federal governmental leviathan is the faceless vanguard of the status quo. It is the vast hiding place of our modern American Kemalists, who are at once the servants of empire and its quiet rulers, and they will not relinquish power easily.
Trump was sent to Washington by the majority of the states and by his voters -- those folks repeatedly mocked and ridiculed as deplorables by Beltway journalism -- to break that status quo.
And the bureaucracy fights back, offering crippling news leaks and resistance against the White House -- even classified intelligence leaks from the Deep State -- in exchange for journalistic protection.
On the popular MSNBC "Morning Joe" program, co-host Mika Brzezinski responded to whether Trump's attacks on the status quo were the fulfillment of campaign promises.
"Well, and I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media," Brzezinski said, "trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that is the -- that is our job."
Later, she tweeted out that her comments were purposely misinterpreted, but I listened to it again and again and it was quite clear to me.
Controlling what people think isn't a mere job. It's a mission.
And now it's been renewed.

Source: https://townhall.com/columnists/joh...tm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

The MSM has had all the power for as long as anyone can remember, and DJT is speaking the truth to it. The MSM thinks it is speaking truth to power, but what it is actually engaged in is attempting to suppress truth by power--and failing miserably. The press as represented by the NYT, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC and CBS, are dying and are accelerating their own demise with their enthusiastic and blatant embrace of an agenda which we all knew was there.
Consequently, college and university journalism schools and programs will sooner than later begin to dwindle. What will idealistically result is a swing of the pendulum of a new generation of journalists who seek integrity and impartiality. Journalists who will see the failings, the compromise and corruption of the current media and will resolve to never follow its example. As journalists they must report the news so that we are unaware of their personal "missions". It's called 'Objective Reporting', if they do not report in that manner, then they are nothing but propagandists. We do not care and we do not even want to know their opinion. This is not their function. They are there to report and to tell us what happened. That is all we need and want from them. However, for the longest time till today, journalists have turned their privileged profession as reporters of the "Fourth Estate' into the 'Fifth Column' of the Progressive Socialist Left.

 

Yes, they long for the good old days...having their phones tapped by the NSA, reporters being harassed in their homes, investigative journalists looking into F&F sidelined & canned, Obama's WH inviting them for strategy "narrative" sessions and having president Obama smear FOX News for them. it was very cozy.

 

They think it's their duty to ensure people have the correct version of the truth. Which also happens to agree with their version of the truth but that's for later discussion when you've sobered up.

 

I just watched on Youtube how Joy Behar and her band of misfits hounded Omarosa who works for Trump. Behar ands most on the View, save one woman, can't quit talking to listen. They tried to tie Omarosa up to the point she could never reply unless she talked at the same time.

BIGOTS with a capital B are on TV ostensibly to entertain us. I am not entertained by Bigots.

Behar wants an apology from Trump. For what? What he said about McCain? That is campaigning. Believe me, John McCain did it to George W. Bush. McCain has big boy pants on. And if Behar likes McCain, that is a shock.

I watched some C Span where a young man is visiting campus after campus trying to spread truth. Colleges actively use students time to preach Democrats values. Look, I spent decades as a Democrat. I recall well how I once was precisely a clone of what they are today. I had to stop it in an office I worked at. The people working there were sick of me defending Democrats.

In college, the only course where I can say I understood the politics of the teacher was in Political Science. This teacher immigrated to the USA. We heard his story where his family in Russia was wealthy by their standards. They had servants. This AM this guy heads out to hunt and took one or more servants with him. They got back home later that day and the family and servants were all dead. Killed in the name of left wing politics. He saw the ruins of the family estate. So he got out of Russia. So he was not pro communist. But other than that, he did not tell us to vote for either political party. I had never met a Russian before so it was kind of exciting. Kids attending school can get beaten up if they dare say they support Trump.

But we have to realize how angry the media is. They felt smug as they gave Donald free publicity. Their aim was to knock out all of our republican governors. And they and Trump shared that goal. But once he defeated the people many of us wanted to win, such as Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Walker, Kasich et al, they figured Trump would melt away. And when he did not, and the public supported him, their polls showed only Hillary as the winner. They felt vindicated by their help to Trump.

Then it all backfired.

We have a president today who means business. And let's hope the left will stop baring their fangs and accept reality.