How media works*

(* -- Though not really.)

Logged onto my old employer's product Sunday, and I was again reminded why "the media" is an evil cabal of liars and degenerates.

OK. So, no.

What I was actually reminded of is why we have a First Amendment, and why journalism done right -- especially local journalism -- is a vital cog in the machinery of a free society. What the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette did, see, was enlist local athletes and coaches to write guest columns, from a variety of perspectives, on why racial justice is itself vital to a free society.

Entitled "Voices For Change," the package did exactly what good journalism is supposed to do: Inform, enlighten and provide, yes, a voice for the too-often voiceless or drowned out. It made me proud to have worked there for 2/3 of my professional life.

It also got me thinking about the massive disconnect between the way media works and the way the public -- especially the part so easily manipulated by the demagogues among our leaders -- thinks it works.

That disconnect has never been greater, because America's chief demagogue inhabits the White House, where his absurdist rhetoric has been dismayingly un-presidential. When you consistently label the free press "the enemy of the people" and insist it traffics only in Fake News, that is not the language of the leader of a democratic republic. It's the language of totalitarianism -- strikingly similar, in delivery, tone and theme, to that of every tinpot strongman who ever goose-stepped down the pike.

The problem with this sort of rhetoric, of course, is that it works. It's the rhetoric of the aggrieved, directed at the aggrieved. And it preys on every dark suspicion and prejudice the aggrieved cling to. They need someone or something to blame for what they perceive as America's troubles, and demagogues like Our Only Available Impeached President are only too happy to provide it.

And so on the same day the JG ran its Voices For Change package, I stumbled across a Twitter thread that was all too familiar these days. In it, those convinced the news media really is a cabal of liars and degenerates claimed that wearing masks to combat COVID-19 was entirely "media-driven."

Which always makes me laugh, because I know how the sausage gets made. But it also made me daydream a bit about how a good portion of the public believes it gets made ...

(An American newsroom. Four o'clock on an ordinary afternoon. Budget meeting to determine what will run in the next day's edition of the Daily Blab.)

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: OK, what do we have on mask-wearing today? We haven't been driving enough people to look silly in the supermarket lately with media-driven stuff about mask-wearing.

METRO EDITOR: Well, we've got this doctor here we totally made up saying that wearing masks in public during this pandemic really does cut down on the spread of the disease.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Totally made up? I like that. What are we calling him?

METRO EDITOR:  Dr. Miguelito Loveless.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Wait. Wasn't he a character in the "Wild, Wild West"?

METRO EDITOR: Yeaaah, but ... no one's gonna remember that.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: I did. Let's change it. Let's call him "Fauci." Dr. Anthony Fauci.

METRO EDITOR: Well ... OK.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Good. Now, where's our national reporter? He hasn't made up anything good about Trump lately. Remember, our No. 1 priority is making Trump look bad. Keep in mind our journalistic creed: "A day without making Trump look like the swaggering buffoon he is is like a day without sunshine."

So what do we got?

METRO EDITOR: Well, we've got a pretty detailed piece here about Trump claiming a 75-year-old peace activist is actually an Antifa terrorist who faked his own skull fracture. And we've whipped up some footage of him saying no one since Lincoln has done more for African-Americans than him, and how he, a former B-list reality show star, knows more than all his generals about military strategy.

Also, we've got some great stuff  about him having some people in a park pepper-sprayed so he could do this photo op where he holds a Bible upside-down and pretends he knows what's in it. And claiming America has no racial issues while hiding in his White House bunker, behind a big fence, because Americans are marching in the streets over racial issues.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: What? Oh, come on. Surely we've got something more believable than that.

ASSISTANT METRO EDITOR: Hey, I know. How about we do a story where Trump wears a clown suit, rides a unicycle and plays golf in Florida with his buddy Kim Jong Un? We could have one of them say he shot a 22 and the other say he shot a 21.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Run that baby!