The doghouse here is kind of small, but we got good sounds and they're wall-to-wall.

 Let's get everyone caught up to speed.

 Beady-eyed fascist Tom Cotton, using only one hand, wrote a column for The New York Times that advocated using the U.S. military to "restore order" by stopping protesters from protesting black people being repeatedly executed by police officers without trial across the country and, specifically, the obvious murder of George Floyd. Everyone who didn't get a blue-vein throbber at the idea of black people and uppity kids who don't worship authority being torn to shreds by high-powered weaponry threw a fit.

 Cotton - as well as the Times' op-ed honchos like James Bennet and Bari Weiss - caught all kinds of shit not only from Twitter but also the Times' own staff who felt the Senator's erotic fan fiction put them in danger. Considering we've seen an almost unprecedented amount of violence from police against journalists and we live in a country where the President repeatedly calls them "enemy of the people" on a quiet day, they're probably on to something.

 Now, I'm not going to lie. I have not read Cotton's no doubt sticky and slightly stained column and I'm not going to. Beyond everything else, fuck Tom Cotton, the right-wing shit head. He's sufficiently shat the bed to the point where I really don't feel he's owed anything but contempt, and anyone arguing that the might of the U.S. military should be turned against citizens needs to be battered, deep fried and served with coleslaw.

 Furthermore - and this is the nub of this drivel, we'll get to it in a moment - The New York Times doesn't deserve the respect or attention it gets. Jamelle Bouie is one of the sharpest commentators on race and politics in the business and no one can touch Paul Krugman when it comes to explaining why economics is a massive amount of bullshit. The rest of them? Garbage. David Brooks and Brent Stephenson, for example, I think are only employed to distract the public from realizing how dumb they each are.

 We might as well get into it. During the lead-up to the Iraq War back in 2003, the Times under the watchful eye of Judith Miller repeated every slap of half-baked bullshit the Bush Administration pooped out to justify their unnecessary, illegal and completely disastrous war against a group of people who not only had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11 but also who we've been bombing the shit out for over a decade at that point. Day after day, they'd print gibberish that would get shot down by the blogging world before clock-out time, and never once did they admit that their sheepish stenographic was leading us into a war that would bankrupt the country, destroy our standing in the world, kill untold numbers of people, and permanently fuck those who survived.

 I really can't find the words for how awful they were unless you were paying attention, and it seems a whole hell of a lot of you weren't. Every criticism you hear from the left about the "MSM" comes from those days. And it's not new. One of the reasons Woodward & Bernstein scooped the shit out of everyone with Watergate is the Times was vigorously ignoring that there was anything there. They threw softballs at Hitler and Mussolini almost right up until the Axis Powers declared war on the United States. Hell, during the Draft Riots of 1863, the publisher of the Times turned Gatling guns on the protesters who didn't feel particularly inclined to die in some Virginia hellhole because a rich dude payid his way out of service.

 It wasn't just the Times, though. CNN, The Washington Post, MSNBC, the television networks, and all the big-time journalistic outlets did little to nothing to push back against the litany of lies from the Bush Administration. Conservative commentators and Fox News will tell you they were just this side of the Daily Worker, but if you're still playing for that dance you've got no one to blame but yourself.

 And finally - yeah, I know - we come to the meat of the issue. The big-time, corporate media like those aforementioned newspapers and TV stations all have one thing in common: profit is more important than informing the public. Since moving back home, I've found myself reconnecting with a lot of the guys my dad used to hunt with. Eventually, they'll ask if I'm still writing and I'll say "yes," and before it's over, they'll ask me, "Matt, just what is the problem with the media?"

 Again, profit. That's the problem and source of any issue anyone has with the press. Well, apart from those dingbats who think the media's failure to keep Trump's ass sufficiently moistened is evidence of how much they hate America, apple pie, Mother, and cheating on your taxes. These are all businesses, which is sort of silly since all publications have to make money if only just to pay to keep the power turned on. But these are big time businesses. The Times is worth $5.6 billion dollars. Fox News is worth around $21 billion.

 So what can we derive from this? For one, the whole point of having that much money is everything you do (or don't do) is geared towards keeping that money and making oodles more. Secondly, if you're running in those circles, your primary inclination isn't to shake the boat too much to stop that filthy lucre coming in. I've heard from outsiders for my nearly 30 years in the journalism bidness that "the owners don't interfere with the news side" and that may be more naive than thinking all cops always tell the truth.

 What I'm getting to is this. It's perfectly in character that the New York Times would publish a pro-fascism op-ed from a sniveling Arkie pigfucker who probably wears the necklace of ears he got in Iraq around his wang. That is the Status Quo. Those in power really, really want the George Floyd protesters to stop making a big deal about cops killing black people just whatever and really, really, really don't want anything to happen that cuts into profit making. People ask - with genuine curiosity, I'm sure - why the scream, heavily armed yay-hoos demanding state governments reopen Pottery Barn and Sizzlers last month didn't result in violence.

 

 It's quite simple, really. That's what the Powers That Be want. They want you out working yourselves to death for barely livable wages so some board member can buy a golden yacht off the stock price increase. They want you out there buying useless shit and eating garbage food and spending, spending, spending. Good, loyal proles, that's what they do. The bad, disloyal ones forget the police aren't here to protect and serve them, but are here to protect profit and serve the rich.

 So, with all that in mind, let's tie it up and pinch it off. The Times, despite what your uncle on Facebook claims, has no problems with Trump, the GOP, cops in general, and the police state in particular. If you're shocked the smooth brains on the Opinion page see no issue with encouraging a violent crackdown of the bad plebes, then you have no one but yourself to blame. Grow up and get a helmet.

 That doesn't mean they're worthless, or any other source of big media, for that matter. A journalism professor of mind was fond of trotting out the old quote, usually attributed to erstwhile WaPo Publisher Phil Graham, "Journalism is the first rough draft of history". There's a certain truth to it, that the meat-and-bones of reporting is getting "just the facts". Years of op-ed writers, jumped up drive-time deejays behind anchor chairs on television, and college drop-outs with trust funds have caused most people to think journalism is all opinion. Well, that's part of it, sure. What I'm doing here is journalism of a sort.

 But when people get undone because the AP doesn't follow every headline about Trump with "and everything he said was a goddamn lie," they're missing the point. Reporters are supposed to report. They could do a much better job in presenting what they report, no doubt about that, but complaining that the press doesn't push back on every single lie that rolls out of the goofy bastards cake hole is indicative of one of our biggest culture problems: we're lazy.

 It's true. We're lazy and want people to think for us. Fox News scored a big goal with the whole "We Report, You Decide" deal. Of course, they of all people didn't mean it, but that's sort of how it's supposed to work. And that's why, as craven as the Times editorial stance is, they can still be a useful source of information. You're looking for fact, not truth. The truth is rarely told during working hours, to paraphrase the Good Doctor, and everyone has a bias and agenda. 

 People think media is supposed to be unbiased, but that's friggin' stupid and naive. A medium's bias is always there, whether it's ideological or merely not pissing advertisers so as to keep the rent paid and the power on. The trick is recognizing that fact of existence and not letting it cloud your judgement.

 That's right, friends and neighbors. The media isn't going to change anytime soon no matter how much shame we dump on them. So it's up to you to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, even when the wheat sticks in your teeth. You're going to have to actually think and use that three pounds of meat between your ears for something apart from half-remembering Bee Gees lyrics.

 Don't be scared, though. It can be done. Just takes a little effort, is all.