It is always precious when the established stars in the media firmament get testy over the fact that the general public trust in the press these days is on the wane. Whenever the subject of ”fake news”, or the public trust in journalists is brought up a level of contempt rises from these once-vaunted names.
The latest is from Tom Brokaw, an established — albeit tarnished — name in the journalistic hierarchy. The former NBC Nightly News anchor is promoting his new book, ”The Fall Of Richard Nixon”, and he was on The LateShow Monday night with Stephen Colbert.
During his segment Brokaw griped about the demise of the media’s esteem.
Tom Brokaw Laments, Americans Trusted Us Before Social Media! https://t.co/PVFOYxVDXm pic.twitter.com/BbQ0FU1n7J
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) December 10, 2019
So according to Brokaw, the reason behind the drop in trust with the news media today has nothing to do with the constant examples of bias and manipulation of news stories. It is the fact those darned kids these days use the internet to get information!
Tom mentioned the ways they used to work hard to get news stories, ”But we’ve lost control of it because you don’t know where it’s coming from, where it’s going, what the motivation is, and, so, when you see something, so many people believe it, ‘I believe that!’, and so much of it can’t be authenticated. That’s a huge difference between then and now.”
Seems Tom let the mask slip a bit there. He says the media lost ”control” of the news narrative. That is a bit revealing, is it not? This actually underscores the reality that the internet has allowed us the chance to dig up the facts apart from the news controlling outlets, and thus they are exposed by the hackery they try foisting on us.
Consider, the Russian collusion hoax narrative 20 years ago would have been delivered to us as a defined story, wrapped up and closed already. There is an irony that Brokaw thinks his Nixon book is timely, in light of the impeachment proceedings. Except the Democrats cannot get any traction with their accusations because our new digital landscape is causing each of their charges to be diffused by facts.
This is the kind of thing that rankles the likes of Brokaw.
We now return you to Tom Brokaw mourning the Good Old Days of Nixon-hating media in the Seventies…. pic.twitter.com/dKLf9GA410
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 10, 2019
He said on the blatantly left-wing Colbert show.
Self awareness, what is it?https://t.co/c13wJ0C4dD
— Cranky Gordon (@StillCrankyAF) December 10, 2019
Yes, weird isn't it? https://t.co/hYQqXhroRr
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) December 10, 2019
Yeah, well, I used to believe in Santa Claus, but we all grow up. https://t.co/UfRhaMc6Oo
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) December 10, 2019
It’s weird how people stop trusting someone when they find out that they’ve been lying to them for years.
— Jeff Smith (@Jeffsmith5084) December 10, 2019
“They believed us before social media.”
— DirtForester (@Dirt4ster) December 10, 2019
That may be the most accurate translation.
