"I got trust issues because people got lying issues.”
I don’t know who first said that, but I confess. I have trust issues.
It seems that I’m not alone. According to a survey by the Edelman 2021 Trust Barometer, trust in the establishment media is at an all time low. Here are some of the results from that survey:
· 56% believe that journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead.
· 58% think news organizations are more interested in ideology than facts.
And, for me, here’s the biggest take away:
· only 18% of Republicans trust the media, versus 57% of Democrats.
Hmmm…I wonder why that is?
Let’s take a look at what just happened this past week.
I’m pretty sure everyone remembers a year ago in June 2020, amidst the George Floyd riots all over the country, there was an incident in Washington, D.C. that drove the Trump-hating media into a frenzy. U.S. Park Police cleared protesters in Lafayette Square, a park near the White House. Shortly after the park was cleared, President Trump walked through the park to the historic St. John’s Church which the protesters had set on fire the night before. His message was that lawlessness would not be tolerated in D.C. or any other U.S. city. The media went nuts. The New York Times headline shrieked, “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church.” CNN breathlessly screamed, “Peaceful protesters forcibly moved for Trump photo op.”
That theme went on for days in the 24-hour news cycle. It was just another chance for the mainstream media to stoke the left’s propaganda of what a reprobate Donald Trump is.
Never let an opportunity go to waste, as they say.
Well, guess what? The narrative was wrong. It took a whole year, but the Inspector General of the Interior Department finally released a report this week, stating that law enforcement officers “cleared the park to allow a contractor to safely install anti-scale fencing in response to destruction of federal property.” It’s interesting to note that support for Joe Biden shot up drastically after that incident, according to political data analyst, David Shor.
Another media narrative that recently crumbled is the one regarding Trump promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine (a drug in use for over 60 years to treat malaria) for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Mass media outrage ensued immediately because obviously, if Trump said it, it had to be wrong. They even went so far as to accuse him of murder because a couple in Arizona drank fish tank cleaner that had chloroquine in it.
Well, lo and behold, a year later, a report comes out that the use of hydroxychloroquine coupled with zinc nearly triples the chance of survival for severely ill COVID-19 patients.
Another media narrative crumbles.
Here are a few more narratives that have disintegrated:
The Wuhan lab-leak theory. A year ago, it was "solid science" that the COVID-19 virus came from bats sold in a wet-market in Wuhan, China. Even Dr. Fauci himself told us the same thing, along with a "scientific consensus” among the most elite experts in virology. But Donald Trump said he had seen evidence that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. The media, like a pack of baying wolves, labeled him a racist, a loony-toon, and worst of all, a kook conspiracy theorist. Now that Trump is out of office, the lab-leak theory is suddenly trendy.
It can’t be a conspiracy theory if it’s a fact, right?
How about the collective media outrage when the story came out last year that the Russians were offering money to the Taliban as a bounty on U.S. troops?
Nope, fake news. Another story bites the dust.
Finally, the media story that I personally find to be one of the most despicable, is when it was reported that Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Military Cemetery in Paris because he didn’t want to visit a cemetery “filled with losers” and that soldiers who get killed are “suckers.”
This story crumbled when Former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, himself no fan of Donald Trump, said unequivocally that he was there for the discussion to cancel the trip to the cemetery and he never heard Trump say that. He later confirmed that statement again in an interview with the New York Times. Fourteen other staff members who were also there never heard it uttered.
How contemptible and shameful that the media would run with such a patently false story just two months out from the election and then sit back smirking while they watched the world burn.
How much better would life be if the news media’s pants really did catch fire?
Yeah, I got trust issues. Don’t you?
UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, there are some rumblings about another government/media cover-up. It’s beginning to appear that the Capitol protest on January 6th may have been co-organized by government agents from the FBI in order to frame MAGA and Trump supporters. Revolver News filed a report about it. Also, here is a Fox News segment from Tucker Carlson explaining what’s taking place. It’s all still early and a lot of information is being withheld; but like all of the examples above, in about six months or so, the truth begins to trickle out.
They say, where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire. I’m smelling smoke on this one and it may be the government’s pants.
“Things come apart so easily when they’re held together with lies.”
– Dorothy Allison
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