I have not watched cable news in about 15 years and yet, I’m a news junkie. Why is that? Because I realized that cable news kept me disinformed. Something awesome happened around 2003 in response to the Bush/Cheney presidency. Independent media emerged in response to the horseshit that the mainstream “trusted” news sources were peddling. Remember this years long turd from the New York Times? It wasn’t just The Times. They were all doing it. Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC for opposing the Iraq war.
The only good thing that came from that horrendous presidency, is that the mainstream media was exposed for being nothing more than stenographers for the establishment. Unfortunately, the majority of the generations that were consuming news at the time didn’t notice. But a decent percentage of us did, and upcoming generations totally knew it and never experienced disillusionment with mainstream media because they grew up knowing it was propaganda.
I did enjoy Keith Olbermann’s rapier wit during the Bush years. When Rachel Maddow took over his slot on MSNBC, I tuned in because I was a big fan of every iteration of her show on Air America Radio. She cohosted a show with Lizz Winstead, founding writer of the Daily Show and champion of women’s reproductive rights. She also cohosted a show with Chuck D of Public Enemy, a fierce fighter for progressive causes and equal justice. Maddow was a true progressive who really understood that the corporate takeover of our government was the reason for 90% of our country’s problems. She understood that a combination of republican neocon ideology and the military industrial complex were responsible for getting us into and keeping us in Iraq and Afghanistan. She knew that big Pharma is the reason why Americans can’t afford life saving drugs. She was a big supporter of then congressman Bernie Sanders.
So I watched her on MSNBC, not because I expected her to do the same type of show that she had done on Air America. At that point, I was acutely aware of the main stream media’s role in propagandizing the American people on behalf of the establishment. I watched because I believed that she would do what she could do within the constraints of working for corporate media to actually inform viewers. In the beginning, that’s what she did. Her shows were definitely not as informative as what I was getting from independent media, and she never really told me anything I didn’t already know but she was raising issues for “normies” that wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to.
As time went on, she was doing fewer and fewer stories about things that directly impact working people’s lives and focused more and more on DNC propaganda. Her show became the same old, same old partisan horserace hackery that everyone else was doing. I stopped watching entirely and listened to the podcast once or twice a week. The end for me; the moment when I realized that she was the most insipid person on cable news came during the 2016 presidential primary. She did one of her 40 minute monologues about a Supreme Court decision that vacated former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction on corruption charges. Basically they said that if someone lavishes gifts on a politician, and then that person gets state contracts, there’s no corruption unless there’s video evidence of a bag of cash being handed over while the politician clearly states that the donor will receive a lucrative contract in exchange. Disgusting, and definitely worth a 40 minute segment.
Less than a week later, Maddow had Andrea Mitchell on to discuss an allegation that Bernie had made against Hillary (remember, this was the primary). Bernie accused Hillary of illegally laundering money to her campaign through state democratic organizations. Bernie was lying. What Hillary was doing was not illegal anymore. It was not illegal because of another Supreme Court ruling. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court removed the aggregate cap on donations that an individual can make in an election cycle. The maximum amount that a single donor can make to a candidate of a party is $2,700 per election cycle. There was also an aggregate cap that capped the total amount that somebody could give during an election cycle. The Supreme Court removed that cap. That’s what made it possible for George Clooney to throw a $350,000 a plate fundraiser for Hillary. That $350,000 donation would get distributed to state democratic entities all across the country and then sent back to Hillary’s campaign. This is now perfectly legal because of SCOTUS, but it’s definitely corrupt just like Citizen’s United. So Bernie lied to try and get the media to talk about the McCutcheon ruling.
You would this was right in Maddow’s wheelhouse since she had just spent forty minutes on how the Supreme Court legalized corruption, right? Nope. She did a four minute segment with Andrea Mitchell about how Bernie lied, never mentioning the Supreme Court or uttering the word “McCutcheon” once. She didn’t even explain what I did about how the money gets laundered around and around. She just spoke about the ‘Hillary Victory Fund’ that the DNC set up and emphasized that they had also set up a ‘Bernie Victory Fund’, failing to mention that he never touched it. Way to outsmart Bernie and keep your audience in the dark Rachel. Bravo!
It was disgusting and insipid, and it’s an excellent example of how the “liberal” corporate media exists to manipulate liberals just as much as Fox News exists to manipulate conservatives. That’s when I decided that she had gone from being someone I respected to being the most insipid person on cable television. Yes, more insipid than Tucker. Why? Because while Tucker is a prolific liar, he does fundamentally believe in republican ideals. As one of the heirs to the Swanson frozen food fortune, he’s all for fucking the working class over in order to protect his inheritance through as many tax cuts as he can trick his viewers into supporting. He grew up believing that trickle down makes the world work. She knows better and decided to sell you out to the establishment that she knows has been robbing you for decades, just so that she can collect a fat paycheck for herself.
There’s absolutely no reason to fall for this crap anymore. There are a myriad of independent outlets, just like Air America Radio (long defunct) where Maddow once earned my trust.
For podcasts, there’s The Majority Report with Sam Seder. He’s another Air America alum. He has the best analytical mind I’ve ever come across and he’s totally unemotional about politics. There’s Indisputable with Dr Rashad Richey. He’s excellent on matters of racial justice. There’s The Young Turks. They will teach you to decode politician speak better than anyone else and they will teach you to spot how the main stream media is manipulating you. There’s Unbossed with Nina Turner. She will inform you on how establishment democrats are enriching themselves at your expense, while still giving you hope that we can undo this mess. Lastly, in the podcast category, there’s This Is Revolution. This one will make you the most uncomfortable if you’re switching from msm news but the more I’ve listened, the less uncomfortable I’ve become and the more they’ve won me over on some of their perspectives. They will give you the best world history lessons you will get now that the world no longer has the amazing Michael Brooks to educate us.
I do read the New York Times and The Washington Post every single morning because I think it’s important to stay on top of the corporate spin and they do occasionally do some good investigative journalism. I go to The Hill and Politico to get unvarnished establishment propaganda and to learn about who is turning on whom. There was a period of time when they were peddling fluff pieces full of effusive (unearned) praise for Mayo Pete and stories about Kamala Harris’ blunders. That made it clear that Biden was floating trial balloons in regard to replacing his veep in the next election. But to get the information that the msm won’t give me, I go to The Intercept, Pro Publica, and The Lever every single day. They have earned my trust the way Maddow once did.
I do, of course fact check everything I read. I actually fact check articles that sound good to me more than I fact check anything else. Trust but verify is my approach to news.
