MSM: The Buggy Whip of the 21st Century +Videos

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer  /  TheBurningPlatform.com

Well, you have certainly had one heck of year, haven’t you? I can’t imagine how it must feel to be you right now. This time last year you were yucking it up with your buddies in the White House about how Obama was going to ram through as many executive actions as he could to push the immigration debate into the ‘win’ category. How’d that work out for you? From there you went right into a National Lampoon-style daily snark against the guy you said didn’t stand a chance of winning and that went even better, right up until November 8th.

So why bother trying to keep up with the pretenses? In the grocery business, they’d say you were past your sell by date. There was a time when you had not only a purpose, but a mandate and those must have been heady days indeed, the gravitas and respect measured out in equal parts from every quarter of America. I remember well the way my own Grandparents would hang on every word uttered by the distinguished clergy of the time; Huntley, Brinkley and Cronkite.

If there had been room on the walls their portraits would have hung beside the ones of JFK and FDR, so admired were they for their earnest and judicious reporting on the comings and goings of our political leaders and the events of the day. Later, guys like Woodward and Bernstein turned themselves into nerdy Batmen, flipping the script on the powerful and turning up the pressure until their only recourse was to clamber on a helicopter and wave grimly not only to the public but any legacy that may have been hoped for. Good times, indeed.

But then something happened. You got a little full of yourselves and began to see your role in the public sphere, not as one of watchdog and members of the estimable Fourth Estate, but as quasi-celebrities and political insiders. Your leanings had always been left wing, but for most of your history, you managed to keep it under your hats, to at least pay some sort of lip service. What made you think America needed more talentless hacks who wanted to turn this country into a humorless version of a Rob Zombie flick, in Spanish? What were you thinking? At least the weathermen got it right sometimes.

Of course, power is an intoxicating beverage and drink deeply from the well you did. I believe it was Lincoln who said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” That’s a Lincoln quote you guys must have overlooked when you mined that shaft dry and one that you ought to have taken to heart but then I give you far too much credit. Of course, I’m jaded to the same degree that I’ve been deceived, a moral form of spirit level. You can only lie to people so many times before they leave you to your wolves and baby, the wolves are hungry.

Listen, this isn’t meant to be some kind of gloating/dance on your grave celebration of your untimely demise, it’s more of a deathbed consolation like you’d see on an episode of Intervention. It’s not that we don’t love you, but it is your fault, like completely and totally. I am literally crying as I write. What were you thinking? You had it all and you blew it, big time. Those White House Press Dinners you did were a bad idea. You should have kept at least a pretend distance between you and your Tiger Beat heart-throbs, but no, you had to rub elbows with the creme de la creme and pretend that you were part of their circle.

I hate to break this to you, especially when you’re so vulnerable, but they really weren’t that into you. Kind of like that dog that Democratic Presidents always get right before they move into the White House to show how down to earth they are and then send off to the vet for the shot right before they move on to Chappaqua or Kalorama- that’s you. It must sting to discover how unimportant you really are to the people you thought you made. I can hardly think of you guys without the image of Fredo in my mind, making his moving case to Michael.

I hate to use a Trumpism to make the point, but if the shoe fits.

Sad.

So here we are, the dawn of a new era and you guys are still trying to convince yourselves that you’re relevant. You come up with ways to explain your career Stalingrad, inventing terms like “Fake News” that get hung around your neck like a gasoline-soaked tire by bloggers who don’t even own a printer but still manage to write circles around entire networks. Great stories with real implications are buried as fast as you can dig their graves and nonsensical sidebars feature in your daily routines like angels dancing on pinheads, which they are.

It would be amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic, the moral preening and posturing about integrity when anyone with a dial-up and two fingers can find examples not only of your shallow depth but flat out dishonesty. A nationwide media version of Pontypool isn’t that funny when someone rubs your nose in it, is it? Well, to everyone who isn’t you, it is.

Let’s just admit the truth, for once, for old times sake. It’s over, this run you’ve had. Like hoop skirts and buggy whips, some things get retired for all time and that’s you. I know you don’t want to believe it no matter how much we keep telling you but really, it’s time to pack your s*#@ and get the F*#! out. The news has it that you’re being replaced with people with a lot more integrity and depth and the good news is you can still watch the goings on, only you won’t be there.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/02/01/mainstream-media-the-buggy-whip-of-the-21st-century/#more-142193 

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