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ALPERN AT LARGE - sI admit to being caught off-guard, and without any good explanation offered to me, when this moderate-conservative writer (probably to the right of many who read CityWatch) saw that the L.A. Times was NOT going to endorse any candidate for President in perhaps one of the most contentious races in our nation’s history.
Then the Washington Post, and then USA Today did the same (!), and I couldn’t help but wonder...what the heck is going ON?
As one of my favorite teachers in my medical training once told me, “I don’t know why...and neither do YOU!)
In other words, ask ten different people, and you’ll get ten different answers...
...and almost all certainly basing their explanations on their own personal agendas:
1) Are the Orange Man and the Cackler just both so odious that the mainstream/legacy press threw up their collective hands and said “Bleeagh!” to both of them?
2) Are the mainstream papers recognizing that pissing off half of America and losing market share to more conservative media outlets is costing them business?
3) Are the major newspapers fearing a vengeful backlash from Donald Trump should he return in victory to the White House?
4) Or, as per the daughter of L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, is it out of protest for the Biden/Harris Administration’s handling of the Israel/Gaza conflict?
Who the heck knows, but I’m just a medical doctor...not a spin doctor...and the truth lies well behind the spinning and lies and distortions.
There’s big money in taking sides that can be either won or lost to papers (and universities, too), and maybe the oligarchs of the media decided that the “vital center” described by former President Bill Clinton needed catering to.
Because it really does appear that there really IS an oligarchy, now made present and known to both libs and cons alike.
Those of us oldies remember the “Point-Counterpoint” of 60 Minutes (and for which SNL’s Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd did a deliciously clever satire on for a few key sketches back when SNL chose to ALSO not take political), and that there used to be merit in having BOTH conservative and liberal standpoints.
Usually the big debates do require just that—a debate—to hash out the tough issues.
But now we have partisanship on steroids in our major cities, with leadership bearing anything BUT shared and competitive political viewpoints:
For example, Chicago, S.F., L.A., and New York have liberal Democrats, very liberal Democrats, AND a few moderate Democrats...but few to no Republicans...to help make the big decisions.
And too many in those major cities have concluded that “hey, that’s the way it SHOULD be...’cuz those GOP guys are weird, they’re bigots, and maybe more than a little Hitlerian”.
Of course, when one considers how many conservatives, moderates, and even liberals are fleeing blue states to red states, and when one remembers the whole taxation-without-representation thing that helped start the U.S. Revolution, it’s clear that maybe the media, being the spokespeople of the Democratic Party, have shot their cred away.
By and large, the rural-minded majority of the U.S. colonists fled the groupthinking cities of Europe—they were tiring of hearing the same ol’ same ol’, and were scared of being imprisoned, canceled, or threatened with financial or physical repercussions of disagreeing with the ruling classes.
And the major legacy/traditional media have proven themselves to be failures in journalistic impartiality and critical thinking, to the extent they’ve realized that either:
1) They tie themselves to the left-wing subscribers, and SCREW the more conservative readers or watchers (they’ve done that for decades, now), or
2) They abandon their editorial boards, or at least limit-set with them, because the editorial boards’ bias is too intertwined with the rest of the paper or news (which may be their new modus operandi).
But heck, I don’t know...and neither do YOU...as to why we’re seeing what we’re seeing at the Times, the WaPo, and USA Today.
But closer to home, I very much DO see this, and now I very much DO say this:
If the L.A. Times editorial board is going to support George Gascón for re-election, while the City and County of Los Angeles is descending daily into ever-worsening chaos, then maybe the paper’s editorial board does need to be limit-set!
And ditto for the L.A. Times editorial board opposing Proposition 36.
Let the “smart people” who think they know so much resign, and let some “dumber” people who listen to the majority make their more grounded (and credible) recommendations instead.
And if that means having some left-wing subscribers bail out and end their subscriptions, as legion after legion after legion of conservative and even moderate readers bailed out before them for decades, then so be it.
I still keep an e-mail/online subscription, but then I yearn to read all sides of the issues, and I’ve read the Times since I was a kid...but I read it with a fearful anticipation I’m going to read a modern-day equivalent of Tass or Pravda (the old Soviet propaganda media from the Cold War, for you young-uns).
So maybe the major press/media hierarchy is confronting its own inner demons...or maybe just watching their sponsorship and relevance fall below to new depths because of lost credibility.
But as I my eyebrows rise ever higher about the sudden lack of presidential endorsements, I await the armies of more balanced and/or conservative journalists and professors being hired.
Because the legacy/traditional stalwarts of the major media, and the legacy/traditional stalwarts of academia, have developed an incestuous oligarchical relationship as to BECOME “The Man”, instead of once FIGHTING “The Man”, and they need to act to avoid an unbalanced, ultra-biased leap off a financial cliff.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
