When I was growing up my parents would watch the “evening news” nearly every night. Not while we ate dinner, that was when we actually talked about our day, but afterwards. There really was no “daytime news” and there certainly weren’t any 24/7 news outlets that I can remember. Where did the term “mainstream media” (MSM) even come from? The phrase “the media” began in the 1920’s and then there was the “mass media” which was pretty much just print such as newspapers up until the end of WWII (late 40’s for those who don’t get much “history” in school anymore!) After 1950, radio, television and video all came into being. TV really came into it’s own in the 1960’s….around the time of my recollection of the “evening news”. MSM still wasn’t a common term….rather they were “the press”. People like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow , Chet Huntley and David Brinkley ( The Huntley-Brinkley Report). If you want to see the pinnacle of news broadcasters AND Presidents watch this clip! https://www.nbcnews.com/video/president-john-f-kennedy-on-the-huntley-brinkley-report-1963-69718083657
Then during the Nixon era the war began between “the press” and the White House. Nixon felt that press coverage of him was biased and unfair. William Safire, who was a speechwriter for Nixon wrote in his memoir: “The press became ‘the media’ because the word had a manipulative, Madison Avenue, all-encompassing connotation, and the press hated it.” Nixon told his staff that “the press is the enemy” a dozen times in Safire’s presence. Nixon ended up resigning over his role in the Watergate break-in but the change had begun.
By the 1970’s the term MSM came to be primarily known as conventional newspapers, television and other news sources. Over the following years there was a “consolidation” of these sources. Television created “networks”. The press created organizations like the AP (Associated Press), UPI (United Press International) and Reuters. Newspapers were bought up by companies like Gannett and Copley. This consolidation led to greater control of distribution and content. No longer did you have competition between smaller news outlets that would actually INVESTIGATE a story to have that EXCLUSIVE headline. Remember Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein? Young journalists from the Washington Post who broke the Watergate break-in story that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation. I don’t recall anyone doing that kind of investigation of a potentially blockbuster “headliner” named Hunter Biden!
That leads us to today, 2021. With the advent of the internet there is literally an infinite menu of “information”, almost ALL of it unverified, opinionated and non-referenced. EVERYONE is a “Facebook Certified” expert on everything. There no longer are small independent “news” outlets. In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by eight corporations: Fox Corporation, The Walt Disney Company (which includes the ABC, ESPN, FX and Disney brands), National Amusements (which owns Viacom, CBS), Comcast (NBC,Universal), AT&T (Warner Media), Discovery, E.W. Scripps and Altice USA.
And THAT my friend is what happened to MSM. BIG corporations that control WHAT you see and hear. Not your grandparent’s “nightly news”. You’re being fed stories and images that are highly controlled. They are mostly biased to the point that you can pick and choose a “news” outlet that tells you WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR! CNN that can bash Governor
Di Santis of Florida while patting Cuomo on the back. Fox “News” that angered Trump when they didn’t compliment EVERYTHING he did. MSNBC the broadcast arm of the Democratic party. You can even go to https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ where you’ll find “The Media Bias Chart” and pick your poison.
So there you have it. How dangerous is the situation? Well you have the following quote: “Our way of taking power and using it would have been inconceivable without the radio and the airplane,” Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels claimed in August 1933. As for “social media” (Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc.)….that’s another whole problem. This month we’ve seen arbitrary censorship and blocking of 1st Amendment Rights (freedom of speech). Looks more like “1984”by George Orwell every day and we have entire generations who don’t even know who Walter Cronkite was! I’ll close with this quote:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”….George Orwell “1984”