Power outage

Coming to Southern Pines on May 2, The Power of the Press is promoted as a conversation between local newspaper publishing executives. It is hosted by the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities. It surely will be enlightening to hear from former Raleigh News & Observer publisher Frank Daniels Jr., currently chairman of The Pilot, and the paper’s current publisher, David Woronoff.

The presumption that the press wields power has, through much of America’s history, been premised on a commitment to objective reporting about current events. In its relentless pursuit of the truth, the press would curry no favor with powerful people and expose deceit, ethical lapses, corruption, and crimes.

A powerful press bears a tremendous burden of responsibility, and in many communities across the land, publishers and editors remain vigilant in demanding objectivity and fairness. But any pretense of same within large, corporate-owned news organizations, both in print and broadcast “journalism”, has been deteriorating at an alarming rate. Some have declared a legitimate American mass media already deceased.

It has been death by insanity. The major news networks, and cable’s CNN and MSNBC (MSDNC, as it is known within some Washington circles), along with formerly iconic newspapers, foremost among them The New York Times and The Washington Post, have become delusional about their reason for existence. It is rooted in a singular mission: to rid the White House and the U.S. Presidency of Donald J. Trump.

What is frustrating about this pretense of legitimacy among the mainstream media among Washington lawmakers, policy influencers and at least half of the voting-age population is that it obscures real legislative progress inside the gates of “The Swamp”. The mainstreamers are drowning in breathless accounts of collusion, special counselors, dossiers, hookers, porn actors, and pre-dawn raids on citizens, even as the nation and its economy are riding a rising tide.

Consider recent developments that ought to encourage Republicans and independent voters, who still believe America’s strength lies in embracing her values and free-market capitalism.

The Washington Examiner reported late last week thusly: Manufacturing hiring rises to highest level since before the recession.

“Hiring in the manufacturing sector in February rose to the highest level since before the Great Recession began, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported (April 13). Manufacturing hires rose to 380,000 in the month, the most of any month since November of 2007, the month before the recession officially began.”

On another significant initiative, U.S. House Republicans are weathering fierce opposition to reducing by millions the numbers of Americans dependent on food stamps. Reports Politico.com:

“House Republicans unveiled on (April 12) a farm bill that would impose stricter work requirements on millions of low-income Americans receiving food stamps — a bid to enact a small slice of the GOP welfare overhaul.”

It is a sticky debate owed to the inclusion of food stamp allocation in what is essentially longstanding legislation intended to address farming industry support. Food stamps account for 80% of funding to the legislation. But entitlement reform is a battle worth fighting. It will unfold largely ignored by the mainstreamers, who will note in passing that Republicans are merely vying to “take away” food stamps from the poor. The alternative, unreported, is to liberate Americans from needing food stamps to buy food.

If the press presumes to have power it would literally press lawmakers to make their cases on key policymaking debates. Instead, it shamelessly ignores any news that might vindicate Trump era policies, and acts as an accomplice to the radical left when it attacks spending reforms as assaults on helpless citizens (which some Republicans have buckled to as evidenced by the recently passed obscene omnibus spending bill). Bottom line: The MSM allocates almost no time to policy reporting.

Across human history, every socialist government that has seized power and sought to make its citizenry 100% dependent eventually has crumbled into chaos and unimaginable poverty. And they share one other common denominator: a press entirely lacking in power, owned and operated by ruling elites.