What really is the Mainstream Media?

Conservatives often refer to the mainstream media in the same dismissive and rankled manner liberals refer to evil corporations. But what really is the mainstream media?

Conservatives mean it to be every liberal television, print journalism, and internet source. But they either need to define their terms better, or stop being intellectually dishonest. Blogs, podcasts, social media, magazines, echo chamber shows, and news apps are part of the media also. While not being traditional sources or unbiased (is there such a thing anymore?), they are part of the media.

Ben Shapiro has one of the most popular podcasts in the nation. I listen to it occasionally, though I find talking about politics for four hours a day a touch off-putting. Conservative podcasts are popping up like plastic Talpidae in Whack-A-Mole games. Fox News has been steadily creaming their cable news competitors in the ratings for years. Indeed, Tucker Carlson draws bigger viewers for his hourly program than all of CNN’s prime time lineup. Bloggers and smartphone app developers are able to bring news reports and their analysis to you at the push of a button, or a notification on your phone (for the lazy among us who find pushing a button too strenuous). It was bloggers who so quickly dragged Dan Rather through the mud all those years ago when he portrayed falsified documents regarding Bush’s military service as legitimate. I guess we can call that the very first instance of going viral in a negative way. At least it was backup watchdogs policing the main watchdog. And it had a positive effect on truth-finding in the media. Rather fixed his error and moved on with his life.

Thanks to social media and its close, at times strained, ties to the fourth estate-that-never-sleeps, a fake, trumped up, falsified, overtly biased, sensationalized, or hoax of a story can be disseminated, fact-checked, debunked, redacted, re-disseminated, vitriolic responses widely distributed, and the authors of the bad story doxed all before I’ve even finished hitting snooze on my alarm and had my morning Mountain Dew (I despise coffee).

When you aggregate all of the conservative news sources set up (often in opposition or in response) to counter the liberal news sources, adding in the floundering status of print media and network news, it’s time to for conservatives to stop using “MSM” pejoratively. They have at least balanced the scales, if not tipped them altogether. Just because the New York Times and Washington Post still exist and have vast readership doesn’t mean conservative news sources are voices in the wilderness, or desperately plugging holes in a dam any longer.

I recently saw a statistic on Facebook stating that 60% of the country agree with Democrats, only 30% with Republicans. Of course, this was posted by a Democrat friend. I had the urge to set him straight and point out that Trump was only a few million votes behind Hillary in the popular election, but I resisted. I didn’t vote for Trump, nor do I agree with either party on everything. I’m a complex creature, but I can’t claim singularity in that. All humans are complex creatures. To think that all registered Democrats or Republicans always support every measure and piece of legislation their party puts through would be to delude oneself, and I’ve got some prime real estate in the Arctic Circle I’d like you to consider investing in if one does think it. My Facebook friend wouldn’t have changed his mind anyway.

Yes, the gargantuan coastal cities of this country could sway general elections were the electoral college abolished, but it wouldn’t be as lopsided as one might think. Conservatives don’t vote as militantly or religiously as liberals, because most of them don’t count on government to ease their suffering, save their lives, feed their families, provide and secure their employment, and what have you. Were the electoral college burned to the ground, we’d see a different kind of conservative solely out of pragmatic fear. And they’d know the minute, nay, the second, the electoral college had lost its accreditation.

And so it’s time to stop whining. Victim mentality, its concomitant rhetoric, and push for recompense don’t suit those who would make their way by the sweat of their brow.