Question: If a reporter isn’t committed to ferreting out the truth, wherever that truth leads; if “adversarial” applies to only to one side and not the other (in fact, the other side, in varying degrees, is being aided and abetted), is the reporter practicing journalism?

Obvious answer: No.  The reporter isn’t reporting, and journalism is merely a ruse.  What’s being undertaken is propaganda.  No exaggeration.  Propaganda, it is, and mainstream media practitioners are “propagandists.”  It’s high time to brand both as such and make it stick.

So you’re thinking this is much adieu about nothing.  Generally, the public has been onto the MSM for years.  Politico just ran a story: “Opinion of Media Never Worse.” 

The article led with:

Record numbers of Americans consider the news media to be “immoral,” “inaccurate,” and “biased,” a new poll says.

A plurality of Americans, 42 percent, said that the press was “immoral,” compared with 38 percent who viewed the news media as “moral” — a record high according to an annual Pew Research poll on the media.

But follow the link in the Politico article to the Pew Research analysis.  You’ll find this tidbit:

While the press’s overall reputation in many areas has declined, majorities continue to say that news organizations care about how good a job they do (62%) and are highly professional (57%). However, these evaluations also have slipped somewhat since 2007.  

The Pew Research study is a decidedly mixed bag.  Clearly the public is suspicious but ambivalent about the MSM.  Majorities want to give the MSM the benefit of the doubt.  Our side’s task is to persuade more folk that the MSM’s intent is ill, and their motives are contrary to what authentic journalism is about… that the MSM serves a master, and hoodwinking news consumers is critical to their service.

The Hillary-Trump contest is – to date – the apex of propagandizing for a side.  Is there any need to cite chapter and verse?  Just scan the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post.  Or tune into MSNBC or CNN.  Prime example: Clinton’s evident health problems are given short shrift – with a “nothing to see here” shrug – and then swept away.

But bias for Hillary is beyond flackery.  The MSM is shilling for much more than a candidate.  Hillary’s just a vessel.  The MSM works for a worldview and agenda that overarches any given election.  The point of electing Hillary has nothing to do with fondness for her (it’s scant among the MSM), or any belief in her virtues (they’re justifiably suspect).  Hillary, corrupt?  Doesn’t matter.  It matters that she’s elected to further the “remaking of America”… to consolidate and advance a leftist agenda… to, not incidentally, keep the ins, in, with all the money, power, access, and influence that attends.

Does the MSM care that Hillary, suffering health problems, is elected and possibly compromised in her duties as president?  That with the nation facing critical issues and compelling threats and challenges, she could be incapacitated or – heaven forefend – die in office?  It’s a cynic’s game.  Husband Bill or Tim Kaine is as capable – more so, actually – of getting the right results.  The names change, but the game remains the same.        

The MSM are serving a regime (Rush was brilliant in his labeling the Obama administration as “The Regime”).  The regime – statist in makeup – has aspirations and aims, and must have control to achieve its ends.  Propaganda is a tool for control, in its acquisition and retention.  The MSM is an organ of the regime.   

The left has long grasped that words and language matter; they shape thinking that shapes action.  The right, not so much, with some exceptions.  Years ago, again Rush very artfully and vividly began labeling the MSM the “drive-by media.”  But the Republican establishment (predictably) and, yes, the conservative establishment have failed to take up Rush’s lingo.  Undignified.  Too conflictual.  Unlike Democrats and the left, which rarely have a problem sharing blunt language and spreading it far and wide.   

Sure, the GOP establishment complains about “media bias” at times, doing so in measured language.  The conservative establishment isn’t hesitant to criticize, though more typically tries to indict the MSM through description and voluminous supporting evidence.  Well and good, but the MSM isn’t being tried in a court of law.

The arena is the public, wherein voters reside.  Reason alone won’t sway most folk.  You’ve got to appeal to their emotions; you need to paint a simple and stark picture: the MSM are the black hats – shills for one side trying to trick average folk with omissions, half-truths, and outright lies.  No one wants to be duped, and that’s the MSM’s Mission # 1: playing news consumers for fools.

Long about the 1960s, something called “advocacy journalism” took root, which is a concoction of the left.  No less a source than Wikipedia has this to say about the practice:

Advocacy journalism is a genre of journalism that intentionally and transparently adopts a non-objective viewpoint, usually for some social or political purpose. Because it is intended to be factual, it is distinguished from propaganda. It is also distinct from instances of media bias and failures of objectivity in media outlets, since the bias is intended.   

The MSM is all about advocacy.  That part about advocacy journalism distinguishing itself from propaganda is gobbledygook; its misinformation, a head fake.  How often have the facts about Democratic misrule and liberal policy failures in Detroit motivated the MSM to put a glaring light on the gross breakdowns there and call out the perpetrators?  Facts aren’t getting in the way of the MSM’s “nonobjective viewpoint.”

The MSM is much more inclined to inform us that stubborn historical and institutional racism account for Detroit’s miseries.  And there’s just not enough taxpayer money spent and government provided to help the poor blacks of the Motor City.  Or… [Fill in the blank, so long as it doesn’t indict Democrats and liberals].

Of course, someone is bound to cherry-pick MSM reporters who shoot straight.  Big deal.  It’s not the few, but the many, who define the profession – and the profession (that includes publishers and editors) is about propagandizing.  The MSM serves one party and one worldview.

Changes have occurred in the news marketplace over the years, welcome changes.  Thanks to cable, the internet, social media, and technologies, the stranglehold that the MSM enjoyed on news dissemination is no more.  Consumers do have more choice.  But the MSM’s market share is still too great and it needs to be slashed.   

Further delegitimizing the MSM is the means; marginalizing them is the end.  Tagging them propagandists is one way to make that end happen.