“Breaking news” has helped create distrust and apathy on the part of the public. No one cares about the next turn of the wheel in a court case, because it will be appealed to a higher court anyway. … Another study about global warming? Who cares? We’ve heard that before, right? Another frantic newscaster chagrined and overwrought at Trump’s latest misdeed? What else is new?
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Shame renders apologies meaningless because it transforms actions into identity. You didn’t offend me; you are offensive. You didn’t make a mistake; you are a mistake. And if apologies are meaningless, why bother to apologize? If there’s no hope for forgiveness, why bother to change? Those are the questions Trump’s followers have been asking for a long time, and he gave them an answer: Don’t.
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In a desperate attempt to retain their audience, newspapers and broadcast networks changed their mission. Instead of simply reporting the facts, they started interviewing spin doctors on both sides of the political fence. In short, they replaced devotion to the truth with a quest for balance as their prime directive.
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If you tell the public you don’t care about a president enlisting foreign aid to undermine an American election, do you think anything less will somehow matter? Hunter Biden? Hillary Clinton’s emails? Hey, Republicans, nobody cares. Nobody, anyway, except the people who already watch Fox News and are all-in on your politics of grievance, outrage, and resentment.
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Since the book came out, a few more clichés have entered the mainstream — and become embedded there like the shell of a popcorn kernel that digs in underneath your gums and refused to be dislodged by Waterpik, toothpick or fingernail. Perhaps the most ubiquitous of these is a single two-letter word that it seems like half the people interviewed on cable news channels. It’s the “y’know” of 2020, except it’s worse because you can’t avoid it by tuning the speaker out halfway through the first sentence. It’s the first thing out of their mouths.
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With confirmation bias firmly set on both sides and the old media template of unbiased watchdog in shambles, people stopped trying to figure out what was true and what wasn’t. With so many competing messages from so many biased sources, they threw up their hands and just decided to believe whatever their own side was saying.
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