From Objective to Obedient: The Fall of Legacy Media's Integrity

So many of my dear friends don't understand the overwhelming left bias of the news sources they consume.

If you never hear other perspectives fairly represented, how could you conceive of their position? Instead, they're given misrepresentations and falsely told that such misrepresentation is the reasoning of their challengers. This isn't the behavior of someone acting honestly; this is the behavior of those who act abusively with the sole goal of getting their way, no matter the cost and indifferent to the wellbeing of their listener. They don't care about empowering individual ability; instead, they view their listeners as pawns to be programmed.

The following chart succinctly demonstrates the over representation of left-leaning news:

The algorithmic bias, vastly overrepresenting left-leaning media and underrepresenting right-leaning media, is effectual censorship. Their ultimate goal is placid adherence to regime command: "If you don't think in this exact way, with these talking points, you're an evil Nazi. If you question our narrative, your intentions are evil and you deserve to be canceled and censored, so your 'misinformation' doesn't spread like a virus."

One of many recent instances the legacy media has compared the right to Nazis

This is why so many of the younger generation are abandoning legacy media. It's obvious to youth that the legacy media echo chambers are overwhelmingly biased toward the left. There can be no truth discovered in forums that silence opposition. This quickly becomes apparent after a few seconds of competent thought from podcasts or Twitter. Even if they acknowledge these sources as biased as well, such diversity quickly reveals the bias of legacy media; the legacy media is not acting like an objective agent. Instead, their actions contradict what a fair and level-headed arbiter would deem constructive. These youth have never known legacy media as objective institutions. In their lifetimes, traditional news media has never acted as a critical free press questioning the power and motives of their government—a responsibility charged to the institution of the free press. Instead, they've only ever known them as effectual agents of an ever-increasingly larger and controlling government order.

These youth weren't around when these institutions were trusted and respected. They do not cling to nostalgic notions or loyalty.

The older generation, which remembers when these institutions were still at least somewhat objective, as shown when they used to be willing to concede when proven wrong, still thinks that these institutions have some degree of objectivity. They cling to a loyalty developed decades ago. However, these institutions have abandoned their objectivity and spend what little credibility remains programming their aging listeners with their dogma. This older generation is loyal to a ship of Theseus—institutions that, through slow change, no longer express their founding ethics and have thereby betrayed their founding virtues.

While bemoaning the lack of media literacy in the youth, this older generation has little awareness of their own poor algorithm literacy; they don't understand the power these machines have in swaying and manipulating human thought. This is true of both the left and right. Too many are unaware of the intentional algorithmic manipulation. These algorithms are vastly more powerful than what most people think is possible.

The legacy media misrepresents competing perspectives as absurd or evil, which amplifies division in our society. Instead of critically analyzing claims made by authority, and thereby being the independent and critical free press we desperately need, they play overt politics. If an authority, right or left, says something convenient, regardless of its truth, it is taken blindly as fact with no further testing. Worse, legacy media feigns objectivity when their own ranks have no political diversity. How could you possibly fairly represent others when there are none in your own ranks who maintain differing views? How could you fairly represent others when you yourself are intellectually intolerant?

The Democrats biggest problem is that they are performing very poorly in an informationally diverse environment. They know that very well, and so they're working very hard to limit their listeners' exposure to diverse information. They know that environments with genuine intellectual diversity result in genuine intellectual diversity. Too many of their congregants break ranks under such conditions, and so such conditions must be suppressed.

The legacy media slurs competing perspectives, no matter how rigorous, as "misinformation." They bury stories that paint the left in a negative light. On Reddit and other social media sites, they ban tens of thousands who present even a hint of dissent. They apologize rarely, and when they do, they try to give their apology no attention so their listeners' mental models are never updated. They concede their mistakes by whispering admissions in dark alleys where no one will hear. They clip videos to invent stories that don't exist. They publish exaggerated headlines, favoring yellow journalistic sensationalism. They cite "fact checkers" who never fact-check themselves.

Axios's "fact checkering" being fact checked as misinformation citing their own prior reporting. After being fact checked themselves, Axios retroactively edited their old articles to align with the new narrative.

If you believe we should censor speech and do not hold deep in your heart its value, we are not partners. If you do not recognize that Truth can only thrive where freedom of speech is revered above all other sensibilities, and if you do not value Truth as a supreme virtue, then we are not in alliance. There are good reasons why freedom of speech is the first of all philosophical tenets in the Bill of Rights.

This isn't just some removed hypothetical. Left-aligned individuals and groups have censored my speech many times. Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and local news media have removed my writings either overtly or covertly. Nearly everything I've ever said politically on Reddit has been censored, no matter how benign. Why would I support a tribe that celebrates my censor? How could a possibly vote for a ethic that hates me so much that even my words pose a danger to their existence?

Just one of hundreds of my political posts that have been removed by Reddit.

Facebook covertly suppressed news that made the regime look bad.

I could go into specifics about the lies we've been told: the 51 CIA 'Spies Who Lied' and the Hunter Biden laptop, the misrepresentation of the COVID science, the covering up of Biden's failing mental health, crime statistic manipulation, Biden's first and third executive orders opening the border and then trying to blame others for the administration's own actions, the downplaying of nine Venezuelan gangs gaining control over apartment complexes in four different American cities, and other specific misrepresentations. My chief problem isn't with the misrepresentations by legacy media, because the fact that such issues can be so readily misrepresented is only a symptom of the informational environment. The root disease of these symptoms is the twisting and suppressing of truths that are deemed inconvenient to a powerful, soulless bureaucratic machine that views their listeners with contempt.

A humorous chart making light of the serious problem of Venezuelan cartels taking over apartments in American cities

Individual Americans need to be re-empowered to think for themselves and to make choices that are counter to the engineered, self-perceived utopian ideals of the left. Legacy media is assuming a role that they have no right to administer.

I have faith that Americans usually make decisions based on deep and profound truths, even when those decisions baffle isolated academics. I trust that Americans have reasons for their choices, even if those reasons are never verbalized. The legacy media's role is to inform, not control—to understand our nation, not condemn our values. By trying to control Americans, they demonstrate their unwillingness to trust Americans to make their own decisions. When Americans' values conflict with legacy media objectives, the media often judges these motives as evil. Controlling Americans is simply not their role. Their role is to present objective and critical information and trust the American people to make their own decisions—decisions that are best for individuals, families, communities, and our nation. It is not their role to force their sensibilities and judge the American people.

The legacy media's lecturing against imagined motives and their reluctance to respect the boundaries of their designated role have left a vacuum. This informational vacuum is being filled by newcomers who have genuine concern and understanding. However, it will take time for new media to achieve the broad respect and organizational competence of mature institutions. The legacy media knows this, and they know the clock is ticking on their waning power. They leverage the lack of prestige of these new competitors, working to discredit competitors' reports by slurring them as "conspiracy" or "far right", regardless of how many times outsider reporting is proven factual. They form brigades to remove competitor references from Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, and other platforms, regardless of the journalism's validity.

From @DavidRozado

If the legacy media wants to survive, it must return to trusting the American people to make decisions best for their own self-interests. The legacy media must demonstrate respect towards the sensibilities of large swaths of our nation, which of course includes millions of conservatives. The legacy media must return to its original commission of acting as an independent check against government corruption and overreach.

The legacy media is lying to you. By seeking truth, critical consideration, and respecting genuine factual reporting from independent and small voices, we break free and rise above its manipulation.