Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy

Often times I want to challenge myself to try and comprehend a social phenomenon occurring in what is easily observed in our country. I'm old enough now to reserve judgment or draw conclusions about issues until I have completed at least some due diligence in understanding an issue from multiple perspectives. At the core, I found myself wondering why it was so difficult to get factual news and reporting on the issues that our country and society face. Bad News provides insight and research from an accomplished journalist to help bring light to why a large segment of the U.S. citizenry is longing for representation and a voice for the outsiders; those who are not part of the meritocracy. It was well written, and I will read it again as there was such an abundance of relevant information that it deserves more than one time.

Batya Ungar-Sargon is a descendent of a gadol b'Torah Rabbi Emanuel Gettinger (father) and the grand-daughter of the Volozhin Rosh Yeshiva. Brains, clarity, compassion (and good-looking too!).Bad News covers journalism in the United States from the mid-19th century up to today's train wreck. Perfect reading for someone, like me, who long ago has abandoned much U.S. media and instead seeks news about current events from overseas (Deutsch Welle; France24; Neue Zürcher Zeitung; NHK; FT).Bad News helps one make sense of the saturation propaganda wars in which we all are immersed 24x7. The book is so well written; a pleasure to read. Precise, clear, definitive, lively, practical, and with heart.

Author and Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon makes a compelling series of points about "woke" journalism and she has a strong hook for it as well; five years prior to the election of Donald Trump, we saw the media begin to focus on systematic racism and generating articles around "people of color", "racism", "slavery", "oppression" and other key words to generate more clicks (since online journalism lives or dies by this) and by enacting paywalls, then pandering to that very audience. Certainly part of the reaction could be due to the almost casual racism that Trump displayed and that this, along with other issues in society, created situation where liberals swung even harder to the left in response. She also points out, though, that this has much more to do with class than it does with politics or race and that, with the ascension of journalist to the elite status, they have become disconnected from their roots which were in the working class. There they championed the working and middle class and were part of the same class themselves acting as advocates for change in an increasingly class stratified society.That shift from working class to elitist for journalism has impacted the power and ability to move people the way it once did for journalist; it also explains to a degree the increasing distrust about journalist and journalism in a society where public trust was once much, much higher. Instead of focusing on class, journalists have decided that the only guilt that matters is guilt around racial inequality not around economic inequality which impacts everyone. By artificially elevating race above all other concerns (and, yes, it IS a concern but it isn't the only one that is impacting the average American citizen)and focusing on the language of wokeness at the expense of an economic situation that is inherently unequal and damaging the economic prosperity of all Americans, abandoning their role as those who fight for the underdogs instead participating in an ideologic scorched Earth policy that "believed" in the "white supremacy" of America.The author makes a lot of compelling points and has solid research to document this shift. She also points out that part of this movement was designed to counter the impact of Fox News and the loss of an audience to that network and adding to the increasing polarization of the cable news media. I don't know that I buy all of her conclusions but she does make a strong case for this and it also mirrors the alienation that is occurring among the two tribal groups--the right and left--and the more extreme reaction/lack of cooperation among both sides of the political spectrum.The author doesn't conclude that the news media itself is to blame for this alone but that it has syoer charged two extreme movements (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC all share the blame for this but so do print media that are online such as the New York Times, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, New York Post and other "corporate" newspapers with an online prescence). As each has contribute to the moral panic (in the words of sociologist Stan Cohen that the author quotes) that has fed a culture war eating at the fabric of American society without creating the opportunity for truthful, direct dialog. Politicians have also played their role in this redefining moment that has created a culture war that acts like an acid eating at the foundation of our Republic and undermining it.Again, I find her argument compelling and it provides considerable food for thought even if I don't agree with all of her examples nor with all of her conclusions.

The author does a good job criticizing the media for its devotion to wokeness and the moral panic it has been distributing for the last few years. Of course, that's not new although she does it better than many others have. What's new and different is that she attacks the press from the left.The author writes that the media's devotion to identity politics and to racial and sexual identity has covered up the most important division in America today - class division. In her telling, college educated elites of all races have more in common with each other than with anyone from the working class. And, regardless of race, working class people have more in common with each other than they do with the elites.The working class has been falling behind the elites economically since the 1970s. While the media has been giving blanket coverage to the wokeness issues, there has been little coverage of the economic issues of concern to the working class - globalization, immigration, wages, she says.Because of the focus on wokeness, the media generally try to create a divide between the elites and the working class on social issues. And that means casting the working class as ignorant bigots. With more exploration of class issues, that would likely different and the country would be better off for it.I recommend this book.

A facinating history on how news papers came into being, and how their purpose has, with few exceptions, been co-opted by left wing politics. A wake up call to America and the world is what this fine author has provided. We are being manipulated with falsehoods and bias reporting. No wrong doings no matter how bad are being investigated or uncovered unless they can find it in a conservative venue, And if they can't they creat fictional stories and run those instead. So dangerous for America and what it used to stand for. The founding fathers are collectively rolling over in their graves..

AWESOME

Die Journalistin Batya Ungar-Sargon legt eine unterhaltsame, aber auch ernüchternde, mit vielen erhellenden Beispielen illustrierte, schonungslose und beeindruckend recherchierte Bestandsaufnahme der heutigen Verhältnisse in den US-Medien und woken Milieus vor.Die Analyse der sozialen Psychologie von Täuschung und Selbsttäuschung, von selektiver Wahrnehmung der Realität und einseitiger Berichterstattung bietet einen Vorgeschmack auf die medial und akademisch generierte Hysterie um Identität und Rasse, die uns blühen könnte, wenn wir die Beurteilung der Gegenwart nicht mehr dem Verstand überlassen, sondern den Gefühlen, der ideologischen Manipulation und der „moral panic“ – d.h. der moralgetriebenen Panik oder Korrektheitspanik. Wir sind noch nicht so weit, aber die Richtung scheint vorgezeichnet, sie droht direkt in die Angst-Gesellschaft zu führen.Da könnte man sich nur wünschen, dass die Autorin ein paar Jahre bei uns verbringt und eine gründliche Diagnose unserer sozialen Gesundheit erstellt, die alle ernst nehmen sollten, vor allem die Politiker. Bücher mit ähnlicher Thematik von Douglas Murray, Birgit Kelle, Gad Saad “The Parasitic Mind”, Greg Lukianoff und Jonathan Haidt “The Coddling of the American Mind”, Victor Davis Hansen “The Dying Citizen”, Helen Pluckrose und James Lindsay “Zynische Theorien”, Ralf Schuler “Generation Gleichschritt”.

An excellent analysis from the inside. As an Australian, I was still able to appreciate the insights because so much of our culture borrows from the USA.

The author asserts that the media has become 'woke' and undermines democracy by getting the lower class to vote against their own best interests. And why is the media woke? Again, the author suggests that the media has become dominated by a group of people that have found themselves as members of a societal elite - being highly educated and having high incomes (or familial support - and therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the very same elite that they might once have decried.The author - as I discovered later - was a 'woke' editor and had something of a shift in thinking due to results of a 2018 Yale study that she mentions both in the book and as part of interviews. Yes, I was aware of the study its implications but the media certainly had more important things to talk about (ice-cream, koi fish, etc.) The result of that was - as I understand it - the catalyst for the current title.The book identifies a number of key moments in the increasing focus on race, gender, etc and how these play out in a never-winnable cultural war that hides the greater issues more common among people than we might otherwise see with more starker focus: the issues of income inequality and the considerable wealth gaps that exist between the elite of society and those of the more working class.I don't know that the book fundamentally proves its thesis: that is, that journalism is now filled with the elite and therefore they want to maintain the current status. Ms Ungar-Sargon provides some introductory chapters on this transition but provides little in the way of demographic evidence. I also felt that the overall impact and its argument strengthened had the author given a more detailed look into media consolidation and ownership. There are certainly some large investments by various 'philanthropists' who are then well served by ready editorial control. It may be that editors at all magazines are part of the elite and so invested in maintaining the current economic system that they quash any dissent but I do believe the machinations are one step beyond where it's presented here.Democracy - something I passionately believe even though I'm not in the US - requires a population engaged with the political system and supported through the complexity of current issues with a viable media; we no longer have that. And I've had another opportunity to watch the author being interviewed and it's astonishing for many who might be used to watching 'mainstream' media, that it's entirely possible to be clear, clever and articulate and even considerate of contrary opinions.I hope that this is the start of a broader trend for media to shift but, as above, I think the various interests of those that largely define what the media will discuss won't allow any sort of fundamental shift. I've really enjoyed the clarity of the author in highlighting the issue and for trying to 'start a conversation' about issues both in the media and the greater issues in society. I sometimes felt myself attacked so ferociously by the media that I would once have considered the author to just be another that would denigrate me and call me various labels. I was heartened to see during her interviews that I'm far more progressive and socialist in my views than I would have considered. I realise I just don't want to be part of the current left as it descends into this idiotic void of wokeness.