From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' on GoLocal24:
Three prominent journalists at CNN were fired the other week for inadequately sourcing a story linking Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge-fund manager and Trump confidant, to a Russian investment fund supposedly being investigated by the Senate. That is as it should be, although I doubt that we’ve heard the last about Mr. Scaramucci’s past activities.
One difference between the so-called mainstream media and Republican-Trumpian outlets as Fox News is that the former’s journalism is almost always much more rigorous than Fox and other Trumpian-style outlets. CNN, The New York Times and the Washington Post, et al., make mistakes but they correct them. Fox, such allied newspapers as The New York Post and right-wing radio talk show people assiduously avoid making corrections or apologies, however erroneous their reporting and conspiracy theories.
Even many Trumpians, whatever their wishful thinking, tend to believe reporting from the “mainstream media’’ more than from the likes of Fox News, let alone such sleazy operations as Breitbart News and the pro-Trump National Enquirer.
As for “the mainstream media,’’ note that the most watched cable news outlet is Fox and two of thetop five newspapers in America are owned by the Republican propaganda organ called News Corp. – The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. And the consolidation of the radio business has resulted in right wingers having far more broadcast radio outlets around America than the left or the middle. Listen to your car radio as you drive around America.
Meanwhile, I’m saddened by the decline of the quality of news reporting in one of my alma maters – The Wall Street Journal. While the news reporters used to report without fear or favor on activities of both Republican and Democratic administrations, now they usually shy away from looking into the dubious activities and those in the administration of Donald Trump, who is a close ally of News Corp. czar Rupert Murdoch.
