Dem
47
GOP
53
We had an item on February 18 in response to a reader complaint that they wished the site would go back to being more neutral, the way it used to be. Our response, as readers will recall, was that the current environment makes that an impossibility.
As it turns out, we're not the only one dealing with the Brave New World of Trumpism, and wrestling with it publicly. Last week, under the headline "All Media Will Be Forced to Choose," The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last (a conservative, keep in mind) made very nearly the same argument we did:
We can learn a lot about what's wrong with our democracy by examining how the media has split into three fairly distinct spheres.
There's the state media—Fox, Newsmax, the Federalist, HughHewitt.com—which have become pure propaganda outlets.
There's the "neutral" media—The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, CBS News, CNN—which believe that politics should be covered as a sport with reports about who's up and who's down. Extraordinary efforts are made by these institutions to present both sides of every question, even if it means presenting the case for illiberalism or platforming people who the media orgs know are lying to their audience.
Finally, there's pro-democracy media—outlets which understand that America is experiencing an ongoing authoritarian attempt and that they must stand on the side of small-l liberalism.
But this segmentation is not sustainable. Three spheres will soon collapse into just two: Media orgs that oppose authoritarianism and media orgs that accept it.
Notice, incidentally, that Last also adopts our usage of "Fox," refusing to support their phony branding by appending "News" to the name.
And Last's piece wasn't the only one like this in the last week. TechDirt has been on the forefront of DOGE coverage, for the obvious reason that they are focused on Silicon Valley, and so they know well both the players and their playbook. That site had a piece headlined "Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)," in which writer Mike Masnick noted that TechDirt has been getting complaints about its non-neutral political coverage, and requests/demands that the site go back to the way it was. He responds:
We've spent decades documenting how technology and entrepreneurship can either strengthen or undermine democratic institutions. We understand the dangers of concentrated power in the digital age. And we've watched in real-time as tech leaders who once championed innovation and openness now actively work to consolidate control and dismantle the very systems that enabled their success.
I know that some folks in the comments will whine that this is "political" or that it's an overreaction. And it is true that there have been times in the past when people have overreacted to things happening in DC.
This is not one of those times.
If you do not recognize that mass destruction of fundamental concepts of democracy and the U.S. Constitution happening right now, you are either willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. I can't put it any clearer than that.
This isn't about politics—it's about the systematic dismantling of the very infrastructure that made American innovation possible. For those in the tech industry who supported this administration thinking it would mean less regulation or more "business friendly" policies: you've catastrophically misread the situation (which many people tried to warn you about). While overregulation (which, let's face it, we didn't really have) can be bad, it's nothing compared to the destruction of the stable institutional framework that allowed American innovation to thrive in the first place.
This is a fairly small segment of the overall piece; readers should consider clicking on the link and reading the whole thing.
We do not have all that much to add here, other than to say that we thought it useful to point out that many outlets are being forced to reinvent themselves due to the new political context, and to remind folks that we think every single day about whether we are being as fair-minded as we need to be, given that one branch in that road leads to "bothsidesism and sanewashing" and another branch leads to "partisan screeds." (Z)