Thanks for publishing this, The Contrarian. I'm loving this audience -- so many people committed to truth, unlike far too much of today's legacy media. As I explain on They Stand Corrected, truth=facts+context! https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/
Thank you for publishing this important piece. I'm glad the author has decided to publish on this sub-stack. Sadly, sub-stacks have increasingly become the source of truth while corporate media caves to financial pressures.
Yup! That's also why They Stand Corrected exists. I spent 20 years inside big mainstream media (NPR and CNN). They're not doing the key job: telling truths, always joshlevs.com/the-podcast
Josh, you are absolutely correct in pointing out that most people do not have the time to keep themselves properly informed on politics, or anything else for that matter. I have been retired for a number of years now and it seems like I spend more and more hours every day to stay informed on all the things I'm interested in, but politics definitely takes up most of that time.
For the last 20+ years the MSM has been more concerned about clicks and profits than journalism. This "both sides" nonsense has made the MSM "reporters" in lieu of having journalists on their payrolls. Some ask "tough" questions but there is no challenging the answers because it's more important to the MSM that those being questioned come back on their shows in lieu of providing intelligent information to the public.
The Reagan tax cuts resulted in the rich becoming richer and the start of the destruction of the Middle Class. The Bush II tax cuts resulted in, again, the rich getting richer and Obama having to bail out the Country. The Felon's tax cuts nearly completed the destruction of the Middle Class, the rich getting richer and Biden having to bail out the Country.
Now with the Felon's tariffs and the GOP Congress looking to give tax breaks to the very wealthy, just as in the 1920s, the rich will get richer and the Country be damned.
The real problem with the "both sides" nonsense is that it gives Republicans a legitimacy they don't deserve and creates an implicit conservative bias.
The news treats the public the same way the Republican Politicians do. They operate under the assumption that we are all completely uninformed, too lazy to read and to busy to catch up on the news from legitimate news sources. I agree with this article but do think that it is our responsibility to seek out real news. It does not take that much time. I am 68 and work full time, keep house for myself and my six cats, and do all of my own yard work. I don't have a lot of free time but do make sure I get informed. I don't watch TV news, and take a few minutes each day to check our NPR, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Politico ( if they don't piss me off too much) and of course The Contrarian. As a voter it is our responsibility to stay informed. We can't just hope that we are fed the truth, we have to seek this out and make informed decisions as to how we process what we are receiving. I think that those who are too trusting, lazy, or apathetic about politics are now seeing the result of what happens when someone like Trump is voted into office. I don't hold out much hope that corporate media will all of a sudden start acting responsibly. We are not a third world country yet and most people have access to real news. For those who don't, we need real messaging from the Democratic Party, on a daily basis. The truth does matter, and hopefully people will wake up to the fact that it takes some effort on our part to make sure that we are getting real information. Our Democracy depends on this.
Potentially passing a bill that decreases tax revenue while saying that tariffs will bring in more revenue.. what a joke. If we import less because Tariffs are too high...we won't see an uptick in tariff revenue. If people buy less because the costs of goods are too high.. we won't see more revenue. If other countries boycott our goods, we won't see more revenue. Geez, even I can figure that out!
That set of facts and realities is exactly why most intelligent Democrats stopped watching the mainstream media years ago. At least newspapers offered occasional op-ed pages and letters to the editor, and sometimes reported news in context.
But those days are gone, too. As the GOP's plans (dating from the 1980s) to end caps on media ownership to encourage corporate consolidation and bias, eliminate the "equal time rule" and public service requirements, and do everything else in their power to distort the news into pro-GOP propaganda, many of us gave up on print, too.
So how do we teach media literacy to an illiterate population? The GOP has spent 40 years eliminating education in Civics from middle school upward, replacing history books with pro-christian nationalist propaganda, and stacking the courts. I don't see any way out of the Putin-light "republic" they've erected since Reagan's ascent almost half a century ago -- except one: hubris will allow, push, pull, or impel them to go too far (as they are doing now, under Project 2025), and to go so very much too far that our system will collapse.
They want to own everything and return to feudalism. They're well on their way to both. So let us be ready to make them own it all, and we'll finally have a new American revolution that will bring them down far harder than they have brought us down.
For we REAL Americans, we're survivors, adaptable, accustomed to managing, living without when necessary, helping one another out, finding a way. But they -- the oligarchs -- couldn't fry an egg on a stovetop; the only option they have ever used is escape, via yachts, planes, secret overseas investments, and the like.
They won't find it easy to survive the long prison terms (or hanging) the new Nuremburg trials will condemn them to.
I appreciate this article, but already knew about this issue. More importantly, what do you recommend we do about this egregious lack of push back from legacy media? I have chosen to follow Republican reps on Facebook who push false information and comment on their posts. Does this help? What can I do?
This is what my podcast is about! Email executives of news agencies. Send them links to my fact checks. CC me and I can reply all with bccs to lots more people at all these news agencies. :) see theystandcorrected.substack.com
In practice, words matter more than the truth. The former Republican Party (now the Trump Party) has always been better at finding the most useful lying words & phrases (like the invention of the "tax relief" phrase). All politicians throughout history have lied at times. Leaders often can't tell their people the whole truth because the people can't handle the truth. Lies that confirm one's biases always sell better than the truth and one's biases are often the creation of lies.
Seems to me like the fix for the mainstream media problem is for people, en masse, to abandon mainstream media. Seriously! Why do we patronize compromised institutions who we used to be able to trust to report the truth? No truth?! Go away! You no longer serve a useful purpose, so I'm not giving you a place to crowd my intellectual and civic space with bullshit. I'll turn to individual, reputable journalists in alternative media. Thank you very much!
I'm glad you wrote this piece. It's infuriating to have the GOP skate by on the idea that they know anything about finance, business or economics. They don't. All they know are talking points from the fictitious reality concocted by the right wing media-sphere. They also don't know anything about defense - the lack of action to fire Pete Hegseth is my prime example. They willfully don't know anything about health care or the environment.
Thanks for publishing this, The Contrarian. I'm loving this audience -- so many people committed to truth, unlike far too much of today's legacy media. As I explain on They Stand Corrected, truth=facts+context! https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/
Thank you for publishing this important piece. I'm glad the author has decided to publish on this sub-stack. Sadly, sub-stacks have increasingly become the source of truth while corporate media caves to financial pressures.
Yup! That's also why They Stand Corrected exists. I spent 20 years inside big mainstream media (NPR and CNN). They're not doing the key job: telling truths, always joshlevs.com/the-podcast
Josh, you are absolutely correct in pointing out that most people do not have the time to keep themselves properly informed on politics, or anything else for that matter. I have been retired for a number of years now and it seems like I spend more and more hours every day to stay informed on all the things I'm interested in, but politics definitely takes up most of that time.
Thanks! And yup - a failure to understand this is a big part of what happened in the election. https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/do-you-see-yourself-reflected-in
For the last 20+ years the MSM has been more concerned about clicks and profits than journalism. This "both sides" nonsense has made the MSM "reporters" in lieu of having journalists on their payrolls. Some ask "tough" questions but there is no challenging the answers because it's more important to the MSM that those being questioned come back on their shows in lieu of providing intelligent information to the public.
The Reagan tax cuts resulted in the rich becoming richer and the start of the destruction of the Middle Class. The Bush II tax cuts resulted in, again, the rich getting richer and Obama having to bail out the Country. The Felon's tax cuts nearly completed the destruction of the Middle Class, the rich getting richer and Biden having to bail out the Country.
Now with the Felon's tariffs and the GOP Congress looking to give tax breaks to the very wealthy, just as in the 1920s, the rich will get richer and the Country be damned.
Re putting clicks over journalism - absolutely. Mix that with how the search for "narratives" has overtaken the search for facts, and you've got a disastrous concoction! https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/attack-of-the-victim-narratives
The real problem with the "both sides" nonsense is that it gives Republicans a legitimacy they don't deserve and creates an implicit conservative bias.
Both-sidesism is a huge problem in today's media, in multiple ways!
Fact check: True
Josh, spot on. MSM is almost as much to blame for our current situation. They have normalized so much of the right wing Trumpsk craziness.
Yes! And thanks.
The media are part of the oligarchy.
In terms of ownership of most big media organizations, that's true. https://theystandcorrected.substack.com/p/media-money-mess
The news treats the public the same way the Republican Politicians do. They operate under the assumption that we are all completely uninformed, too lazy to read and to busy to catch up on the news from legitimate news sources. I agree with this article but do think that it is our responsibility to seek out real news. It does not take that much time. I am 68 and work full time, keep house for myself and my six cats, and do all of my own yard work. I don't have a lot of free time but do make sure I get informed. I don't watch TV news, and take a few minutes each day to check our NPR, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Politico ( if they don't piss me off too much) and of course The Contrarian. As a voter it is our responsibility to stay informed. We can't just hope that we are fed the truth, we have to seek this out and make informed decisions as to how we process what we are receiving. I think that those who are too trusting, lazy, or apathetic about politics are now seeing the result of what happens when someone like Trump is voted into office. I don't hold out much hope that corporate media will all of a sudden start acting responsibly. We are not a third world country yet and most people have access to real news. For those who don't, we need real messaging from the Democratic Party, on a daily basis. The truth does matter, and hopefully people will wake up to the fact that it takes some effort on our part to make sure that we are getting real information. Our Democracy depends on this.
Fiscally irresponsible.
Potentially passing a bill that decreases tax revenue while saying that tariffs will bring in more revenue.. what a joke. If we import less because Tariffs are too high...we won't see an uptick in tariff revenue. If people buy less because the costs of goods are too high.. we won't see more revenue. If other countries boycott our goods, we won't see more revenue. Geez, even I can figure that out!
If the regime will lie about talks with China then they will lie about anything. He’s also lied about Ukraine and Russia war and Israel and Gaza.
That set of facts and realities is exactly why most intelligent Democrats stopped watching the mainstream media years ago. At least newspapers offered occasional op-ed pages and letters to the editor, and sometimes reported news in context.
But those days are gone, too. As the GOP's plans (dating from the 1980s) to end caps on media ownership to encourage corporate consolidation and bias, eliminate the "equal time rule" and public service requirements, and do everything else in their power to distort the news into pro-GOP propaganda, many of us gave up on print, too.
So how do we teach media literacy to an illiterate population? The GOP has spent 40 years eliminating education in Civics from middle school upward, replacing history books with pro-christian nationalist propaganda, and stacking the courts. I don't see any way out of the Putin-light "republic" they've erected since Reagan's ascent almost half a century ago -- except one: hubris will allow, push, pull, or impel them to go too far (as they are doing now, under Project 2025), and to go so very much too far that our system will collapse.
They want to own everything and return to feudalism. They're well on their way to both. So let us be ready to make them own it all, and we'll finally have a new American revolution that will bring them down far harder than they have brought us down.
For we REAL Americans, we're survivors, adaptable, accustomed to managing, living without when necessary, helping one another out, finding a way. But they -- the oligarchs -- couldn't fry an egg on a stovetop; the only option they have ever used is escape, via yachts, planes, secret overseas investments, and the like.
They won't find it easy to survive the long prison terms (or hanging) the new Nuremburg trials will condemn them to.
I appreciate this article, but already knew about this issue. More importantly, what do you recommend we do about this egregious lack of push back from legacy media? I have chosen to follow Republican reps on Facebook who push false information and comment on their posts. Does this help? What can I do?
This is what my podcast is about! Email executives of news agencies. Send them links to my fact checks. CC me and I can reply all with bccs to lots more people at all these news agencies. :) see theystandcorrected.substack.com
In practice, words matter more than the truth. The former Republican Party (now the Trump Party) has always been better at finding the most useful lying words & phrases (like the invention of the "tax relief" phrase). All politicians throughout history have lied at times. Leaders often can't tell their people the whole truth because the people can't handle the truth. Lies that confirm one's biases always sell better than the truth and one's biases are often the creation of lies.
Seems to me like the fix for the mainstream media problem is for people, en masse, to abandon mainstream media. Seriously! Why do we patronize compromised institutions who we used to be able to trust to report the truth? No truth?! Go away! You no longer serve a useful purpose, so I'm not giving you a place to crowd my intellectual and civic space with bullshit. I'll turn to individual, reputable journalists in alternative media. Thank you very much!
And who has bailed out the country after Reagan, the Bushes, and Drumpf tanked the economy? Yup, Democrats. (Oh, I forgot Hoover.)
I'm glad you wrote this piece. It's infuriating to have the GOP skate by on the idea that they know anything about finance, business or economics. They don't. All they know are talking points from the fictitious reality concocted by the right wing media-sphere. They also don't know anything about defense - the lack of action to fire Pete Hegseth is my prime example. They willfully don't know anything about health care or the environment.
"Fiscally responsible GOP"
That is one hell of an oxymoron.