It must be a tough time to be a regime journalist. Corporate media went all-in to try and stop President-elect Donald Trump, and in the face of the best-funded propaganda machine in human history, voters rejected Democrats and the press, as if any semblance of a distinction remains, with massive Electoral College and substantial popular vote victories for the soon-to-be 47th president.
Legacy media outlets have been reeling for years due to their “ideology über alles” brand of reporting the news, with many companies laying off large swaths of their newsrooms. CNN finished 2024 with the smallest audience in the network’s 45-year history. Consistent as they are, albeit consistently nefarious, corporate journalists have predictably avoided any attempt at self-reflection, opting to repeat the unhinged behavior that sent their audiences running for the hills.
Only a journalist could look at the deadly Southern California wildfires that were caused by the negligence of Democratic politicians and think, “How can I make this about me?” And the journalists did not disappoint. In an act of unbelievable callousness and deranged self-importance, CNN published a piece Monday titled, “Soon to be out of a job, Meta’s fact-checkers battle a blaze of wildfire conspiracy theories.” If you are thinking, “Even for CNN,” you are not alone. The piece is a new low for perhaps the lowest iteration of the profession that was once called journalism. “Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke, a former CNN journalist turned “fact-checker.” Yes, journalists, fighting deadly wildfires is exactly like spending your days censoring opinions harmful to the electoral prospects of Democrats. Nailed it.
Of course, the real concern for journalists is not that “misinformation” may abound surrounding the California fires but that their death grip on the flow of information has been irreparably damaged. Regime-friendly media already lost X when mercurial billionaire Elon Musk took the company private in 2022, and their ability to deplatform Republicans and mislead the voting public took another major hit this month when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the decision to end the company’s fact-checking program in favor of community notes (similar to X).
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.
If you’ve been following the media for any amount of time, you already know journalists couldn’t let such a reasonable decision stand. The result was the most hilarious headline in the history of publishing. “Mark Zuckerberg says ending fact-checks will curb censorship. Fact-checkers say he’s wrong,” wrote Kate Gibson of CBS News. The piece is full of supercilious fact-checking journalists complaining about losing their positions as attack dogs of the Democratic National Committee.
“Our work isn’t about censorship. We provide accurate information to help social media users as they navigate their news feeds. We did not, and could not, remove content. Any decisions to do that were Meta’s,” whined Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org.
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About the “accurate information” fact-checkers love to reference: Perhaps Robertson was referring to the claim that the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian misinformation? Maybe she was referencing the fact-checking community’s yearslong assertion that COVID-19 could have come from anywhere besides a lab leak in Wuhan, China?
Corporate media’s goose is cooked. They lied about President Joe Biden’s failing health. They lied about the origins of COVID-19 and the efficacy of both its vaccines and lockdowns. They exaggerate the sins of Republicans and run interference for Democrats at every turn. November’s election was a test of the waning power of the press, and corporate journalists were revealed as the paper tigers that they are. Let the censorious “fact-checkers” and Democratic comms stenographers in legacy media scream into the abyss. They have never had the United States’s best interests at heart, and those of us who care about the truth can take it from here.
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
