As much as you may already dislike the media, you probably don't dislike it enough.
Legacy media are shedding readers, viewers, and subscribers in record numbers, but still not as fast as they deserve. Operation Epic Fury is a case study in why.
A few mornings ago, I came across this from the AP: Americans’ sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shifted dramatically, new poll shows. I recommend that you skip the AP story and go straight to the Gallup Poll cited in the piece. You’ll save a few minutes of your life that you can’t get back without skimping a bit on deception via questionable polling.
Let’s put aside, just for the moment, the fact that even very well-known and heretofore reputable polls manage only about a 1% response rate these days—which means that even the best current polls are of dubious value in quantifying nearly anything. This allows us to focus on why, if the sentiment reflected in this poll is somehow accurate, the shift in sentiment might be due to something other than what’s laid out in the AP's prima facie case.
It’s not particularly difficult. The fact that sympathies may be shifting could be explained by something other than Israel is now bad and the Palestinians are now good—it could be the fact that nearly everything in the legacy media concerning Israel for much of the last decade-plus is so full of BS that one can smell it long before they can see, hear, read, or step in it.
If you misinform enough people over a long period of time, it’s not surprising to see public opinion move. The only surprise here is how little public opinion may have moved, according to Gallup, given the level of vitriol directed toward Israel throughout the MSM.
The legacy media and their various appendages can’t even get propaganda right. Perhaps that’s why there was so much alarm in the media over the dissolution of the infamous Disinformation Governance Board.
Long before I was critical of the mainstream media for bias and propaganda, I was critical of their incompetence, laziness, addiction to scintillation and aversion to substance. As a member of the media for decades, I watched this from an insider’s perspective. This is why I feel very comfortable assuring you that however much you already dislike the media, it’s probably not enough.
NPR was inane, high-fructose ear candy long before it was a taxpayer-subsidized megaphone for wokeness and other progressive priorities. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, eventually killing over 150,000 people, using ginned-up intelligence and anger over 9/11 as a pretext to settle a personal score, and Fox News still gave him a pass long after the cat was out of the bag. CBS’s 60 Minutes had long since seen its best days, having been diminished by years of inanities, before Leslie Stahl used a segment on big tech and disinformation to betray the legacy of Edward R. Murrow.
The truth is that the legacy media, across the board, is, at best, unreliable. At worst, they are purveyors of unabashed propaganda for greed. The quicker that gets figured out, the easier it becomes to square the world with what one sees, hears and reads in the media every day.
The world is not as complex as the media likes to pretend that it is when they are against something that seems beneficial to most everyone else—and infinitely more complex when it’s something they are touting as an obvious cure-all that you have to be dense not to acknowledge as true.
Beyond that, the legacy media is thin-skinned, petty and far from objective, with egos massive enough to serve as their own sources of gravity. Those may be their best features.
That’s why the MSM generally loathes Donald Trump—he beats their socks off at their own game. The derangement is real. If Trump appeared with Jesus at a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial, both having walked on water the length of the reflecting pool to get to the podium, the media would be revisiting the Epstein files looking for intel on anyone with long hair, a beard, flowing robes and hole in each hand.
OK. Time out. I know that many of you are pessimistic about the state of the world right now. It’s not at all an unreasonable point of view given what bombards us daily in our information spaces. Though I am convinced that most of the people in the world are decent souls who just want to get through life with minimal interference in the affairs of others, there are enough assholes out there to create real problems for everyone else. Some of these problems are big enough that their solutions require social cooperation. If the media were honest and governments functioned as they should, this cooperation would come a lot easier.
Nevertheless, I am, above all else, an optimist. I have faith in our ability to solve our problems. Sometimes we regress, sometimes we go sideways, but the overall trajectory of humanity has been upward from the beginning.
The media, I think, prevents more people from recognizing this. I don’t think that the world is nearly as bad of a place as it is portrayed in the media. At least I hope.
Most of the media, who would be permanently unemployable if ever exposed as the opportunistic grifters they are, want you to think that everything is a crisis because crises and controversies sell ads and pay seven-figure salaries. They also feed large egos who need to pontificate as much as they need to breathe.
The disconnect between what you, I and most normal people see in the world and what the media sees is profound. One of the legacy media’s favorite go-to controversies when it comes to law enforcement and its interface with social justice (always a way to stir the pot) is that of racial profiling. If the police stop a man dressed in black robes, wearing "Death to America" boxer briefs, and a Shia turban while carrying a 14-inch kard, an RPG, and a suicide vest on his way to a synagogue, it’s not good police work; it’s racial profiling.
I don’t know about you, but stereotypes exist for a reason. If I’m a cop and a call goes out that a liquor store down the street has just been knocked off, the perps are headed my way, and the people I see coming are a young couple with a kid in a baby stroller walking and two guys with gang tattoos running, I’m inclined to save time by questioning the guys with the face tats first.
I’m pretty sure that every single one of you gets this. The media? Not so much.
Headlines and breaking news the past few days have been all about Operation Epic Fury. The media coverage of this is generally maddening. I feel the same way about Trump’s actions against Iran as I did about his recent actions against the Maduro regime in Venezuela, i.e., another one bites the dust. Much of the media sees this quite a bit differently and aren’t bashful about saying so.
I may disagree with Trump’s methods here, but not his results. It’s about damned time that we dealt with dangerous rogue regimes before they get the idea that we can’t. I'm no warmonger, but if we're going to spend $900 billion annually for the military to address issues that diplomacy fails to resolve, Iran appears to be at or near the top of the list.
Good riddance. Also, China, Russia, and North Korea—you feel us?
Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been a prominent sponsor of terror, a destabilizing presence in the Middle East and has likely been responsible for more American deaths than any other foreign state during that period. Through various proxies, the Iranian regime has been one of the most thuggish on the planet for over four decades. Now, at potentially the end of the line, they've taken to firing missiles at other non-involved Middle Eastern nations as part of their response to OEF because, well, they are murderous theocratic assholes.
Persian culture is over 5000 years old. Prior to 1979, Iran was one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East—an economic, cultural and technical leader of the region. The 1979 revolution replaced all of that with a 14th-century caliphate that should have been scorned by the rest of the world.
But, alas and alack, that didn’t happen. It’s a bit surreal to watch the juxtaposition of progressive figures such as Jane Fonda (Tehran Jane?) and many unhinged pundits lining up to condemn the figurative beheading of the brutally repressive Iranian regime while members of the Iranian diaspora, most of whom live in the United States, take to the streets to cheer the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989.
One thing that’s really struck me about the coverage of OEF is the “praising with faint damns” of Khamenei. This has been a staple of news coverage by those who despise Trump and cannot bring themselves, under any circumstances, to acknowledge that anything he’s accomplished might be good. To hear them talk, Khamenei is a genuine statesman with just a few unfortunate features.
I think that it’s useful to compare the media’s characterizations of Ali Khamenei, who was directly responsible for the suffering and deaths of, at minimum, hundreds of thousands, with that of the recently assassinated Charlie Kirk, who was responsible for allowing liberals to hoist themselves on their own petards.
The Associated Press characterized Charlie Kirk as a “provocateur” who “relished jeers” and “invited sometimes-vehement debate” on college campuses. Kirk was a combative purveyor of misinformation and openly critical of racial justice movements and LGBTQ+ rights.
Ali Khamenei, on the other hand, was characterized as a "top leader and commander-in-chief" who molded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC—a terrorist organization) into a force for advancing Iran’s goals.
The Washington Post depicted Charlie Kirk as a provocateur, unapologetic about his own "divisive effect on the nation." They depicted Ali Khamenei as a “singular authority” of the Islamic Republic, noting his skill for successfully balancing competing factions within the regime for decades.
I guess the 30K-plus Iranian dissenters killed just this year count toward “skill.”
The New York Times portrayed Kirk as a polarizing provocateur whose rhetoric often courted controversy. They depicted Ali Khamenei as an effective “institutional weaver” who stabilized the state and built the IRGC into a dominant economic and military force.
NPR depicted Kirk as a "divisive" figure known for "polarizing remarks" (I’m seeing a theme here), specifically noting Kirk’s habit of casting immigrants and transgender people as threats to society. They portrayed Ali Khamenei, an actual threat to society, as a man of “strategic patience” who was able to calculate steps ahead of his rivals—as if he’d make a jolly good chess companion.
CNN noted Kirk’s history of allegedly spreading "false claims regarding COVID-19 and the 2020 election." They also highlighted his "divisive remarks" concerning transgender rights, immigration, and his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Ali Khamenei? Well, he was a “strategic planner” who just happened to screw the pooch in his final days.1
Finally, MSNBC famously opined that Kirk’s "hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” which was widely interpreted as suggesting that Kirk had it coming since he was an especially divisive figure who constantly pushed hate speech and an activist-troll who built a career on owning the libs rather than engaging in traditional policy debate.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? He was a "cunning outmaneuverer.”2
It’s almost not possible to dislike the media enough. Research, however, continues.
Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, climber, skier, motorcyclist, musician, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time raising four kids. Follow him on X at @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.
CNN, to their credit, has taken a mostly rational view of Khamenei, rarely glossing over his record of brutality and repression.
MSNBC has, somewhat amazingly, also taken a fairly rational view of Khamenei’s legacy.
The legacy media forgot to note that Khamene’i was also an “austere religious scholar” like the late saintly Kalifah al Baghdadi.
Well said. I was 17 in '79, and have been treated to the same long view of Iran as a constant problem as the rest of us of a certain age, but the "Iran clock" probably starts in '53 with our complicity through the totally out of control CIA regime change addiction. Having said that, I'm with you on Trump's positive outcomes, mostly because he took out Maduro but left the remnants of his regime intact (on the theory they'll be stable but pliable?). I hope that works. I also hope we leave it up to the Iranians to solve their leadership problems for themselves, not least because we need the administration to move the entire navy and all our related forces out of the middle east asap and stage them in the Potomac River equidistant between Capitol Hill and Langley, like under Key Bridge or something.