They did it to themselves and I don't mind it one bit.
I just read this post from Joel Huffman: You Don’t Hate Them Enough | The View From North Central Idaho quoting Pau Bedard..
The media are losing their friends just as they lost viewership and readership as they stepped up bias, according to a new survey of news consumers.
Younger voters, older people, Hispanics, Republicans, independents, and even Democrats cited pro-Democratic bias in agreeing that they just can’t hate the media enough.
I don’t know if hate is even applicable in my case as it feels something you apply to somebody that has some worth. I just despise most media and my case goes back to the late 90s and the Miami Herald.
Back then when I still believed that newspapers would actually print the truth if pointed it at them or at least mention opposite opinions fairly, I actually wrote a letter to the editors of the Miami Herald and to my joy, it was published. But the joy lasted a second till I read what were supposed to be my words, but somehow were not. They actually edited my pro-second Amendment missive into a rant with no sense. It pissed me off so I contacted them whereas I was told by some smug a-hole that the paper reserved the right to edit letters sent for brevity and content.
It was not only me who suffered that treatment, but a couple of other friends from my group of shooters also went through the same editing process. We went ahead and tested by sending pro gun control letters and they got published sans editions “for clarity” and only maybe a reduction of length. The paper caught up (too late) and we got ourselves a lifetime ban from ever having our letters published.
After that came the case of one well written pro-gun article that mysteriously got published in the MH and it was such a shock I actually picked up the phone and talked to the author of the piece. He was appreciative of the call and I told him I would not mind seeing more of his stuff published in the future. He said that he was being “let go” from the Miami Herald and that in fact, that was his last day at his desk and was packing his stuff. I was shocked, did not dare to ask if it was related to his article, but whished him the best wherever he landed.
The big and final nail in the coffin was the 2,000 presidential election. The MH had not endorsed any candidate for president for ages, but that year they made it official in their editorial pages that they were pushing for Al Gore. Nothing subtle at all. And when the recount debacle happened, they acted more as support team for Gore than actual impartial judges in search for the truth. Even after doing three recounts and having to admit that the result favored Bush every time, they kept pushing for more stratagems to see if they could flip the election.
I was not the only one who started to not only ignore the Miami Herald but actively crapping on them. Reader of my old blog may remember addressing the paper as “the local birdcage liner” and mocking both cartoonist Jim Morin and “exalted” columnist Leonard Pitts as the couple of bigots they probably still are.
The Miami Herald lost a lot of readership to the point of having to sell its building located in prime property overlooking Biscayne Bay and ended up in some prefab business office building in the Doral area (A.K.A Little Caracas) and having the actual paper printed by a shop in neighboring Broward county.
If you were a fan of the show Burn Notice, the last episode have Michael and Fiona faking their deaths in some abandoned building rigged with explosives. Yup, the Miami Herald ended up being a prop for a TV show which was more Miami that the paper that carried its name.
And I did not mind it one bit.
Could’ve let the editorial staff and publishers watch from the inside. What a missed opportunity. Oh well…
"I don’t know if hate is even applicable in my case as it feels something you apply to somebody that has some worth."
I had a manager at work, a few jobs ago, who said one of the wisest things I've ever heard coming out of a live human being.
(Paraphrasing): "The opposite of love is not hate. Hate is a very small step to the left of love; both are strong feelings. No, the real opposite of love is apathy. When you just don't care, that's the opposite of love."
Journalists in the digital age thrive on clicks and people sharing their writings. Whether you love and agree with it, or hate and disagree with it, *you're still re-sharing it*. The journalist gets paid by the click; they make money either way. "No such thing as bad publicity," and all that.
(In a way, IMO that's one reason why journalism has gotten so bad in the past few decades. Facts and news are boring and predictable, but click-bait outrage-fests and controversial hit-pieces get lots of clicks, and clicks pay the bills.)
So treat journalists the way we treat mass-shooters. Don't publish them, don't publish their names, don't share or re-post any of their screeds. Don't give them any of the attention they need.
The worst thing you can do to a journalist vying for your attention is to shrug and say "Meh."