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Ed Webb

With the world on fire, a cowardly, timid news media is a threat to U.S. democracy - 0 views

www.inquirer.com/...s-gaza-extremism-20231105.html

US USA media opinion Israel israelpalestine Palestine Gaza war democracy

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Jan 24 - Cached
  • In one of the most perilous moments of crisis the world has seen in 75 years, and with the basic notions of free speech under assault, most newsrooms aren’t fighting back. They are, instead, pulling their punches in a defensive, “rope-a-dope” crouch, and thus failing to truly inform — when democracy itself is at risk.
  • the push not to offend with Middle East news coverage is emblematic of a bigger trend of newsroom timidity and even rank cowardice that also permeates domestic news coverage, at a moment when right-wing extremists are controlling the U.S. House and are on track to regain the White House and full governmental control in a chaotic election year
  • deference to authority is already bleeding into serious policy coverage. Far too many news outlets uncritically repeated Johnson’s first major pronouncement — that $14 billion for Israel could be paid for by cutting the number of IRS agents (who audit the GOP’s millionaire donors) when even a third-grade math student would know that reducing revenue agents would cost the government money. Getting it right isn’t only important because Johnson is now the most powerful Republican in Washington, but also because he’s a kind of a John the Baptist prophecy of an even more dangerous Trump 47 in 14-plus months
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  • Growing threats to press freedom in America have metastasized in the weeks since Oct. 7, with pressure not to make any controversial comments about Israel or Palestine causing some editors and reporters to get fired or resign, which has a chilling effect on others. And my bigger fear is that this growing climate of fear is bleeding into coverage of the 2024 election and the threat to democracy.
  • The world is staring into an abyss, much as it did in the 1930s. Now, as then, the global rise of right-wing authoritarians like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel is linked to aggressive militarism that targets civilians and risks a world war. Here at home, the growing sense of chaos abroad and a broken government on Capitol Hill, with Republican Johnson poised to make matters worse, has imperiled the flawed small-d democratic government of President Joe Biden and has primed too many voters to fall into the waiting arms of a wannabe dictator.
  • the institutional caution that frames their work has been getting a lot worse. Some of it is probably business-driven — to avoid offending readers who might cancel a subscription. A lot of it seems to be a desire in newsrooms, after Trump’s whirlwind, lie-filled first term, to return to normalcy and the kind of balance that treats the two parties equally, which means ignoring that one has become an authoritarian cult.
  • things will get worse in less than two years if journalists — as individuals, as newsrooms, and as a profession — can’t stop cowering and won’t adopt a much more aggressive posture in defending democracy, the only political system that makes a functioning news media possible. Some of it is basic stuff — more boldness in calling out a blatant lie, like Johnson’s IRS claim, or making it clear when someone is to blame, like Israel’s killing of journalists.
  • I’m terrified that many angry, apathetic, or ill-informed voters will wake up on Jan. 21, 2025, in a country they no longer recognize ... and didn’t see coming.
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