Great news. Biden can even kill those who try to help him. And that’s what the media is figuring out. The triage is shockingly gratifying.
According to Yahoo,
The media industry has been rocked this holiday season by news of newsroom layoffs as outlets downsize to combat volatility in advertising, after an already-brutal year of job cuts.
In the last month alone, Condé Nast, G/O Media, Vice Media and Vox Media have all cut staff, most of whom already had layoffs earlier this year. (Vice filed for bankruptcy in June.)
Broadcast, print and digital outlets collectively saw 2,681 journalism job cuts in 2023, up 48% from 1,808 in 2022 and 77% from 1,511 in 2021, according to a report from employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
With a collapsing advertising-revenue model and more media companies experimenting with artificial intelligence to create content, the outlook for journalism is dimming, media analysts told TheWrap. The decline underscores the need for the public and even governments to fund news gathering if it is to survive in its current form and avoid widespread “news deserts,” they said.
“All available evidence suggests that the commercial future for journalism is especially dire,” Victor Pickard, a professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, told TheWrap. “We cannot simply let the market drive local journalism into the ground. I expect to see more legislative efforts, especially at state government levels, aimed at shoring up and even expanding local journalism.”
Worse than the media’s financial bloodbath, just look at the ripple effect under Biden.
Chris Cuomo is gone from CNN, as was his black girlfriend, Don Lemon. While Cuomo took a much lesser paying job at a news startup, Don Lemon hasn’t landed anywhere, at least from a media perspective.
The media is so bad that now even Biden is complaining about it. MSNBC reported,
“What’s your outlook on the economy next year?” was the question asked of President Biden as he departed the White House recently. “All good,” Biden declared, before adding: “Take a look. Start reporting it the right way.”
Interesting advice from the president, and it begs the question: How exactly should the press report on the state of the economy?
Inflation, for example, is still more than two and a half times what it was when Biden took office. It was 1.3% in January 2021 before rising to above 9%. Current rate: 3.1%.
The administration keeps insisting that inflation is falling and wants the media to echo that, but the claim is profoundly misleading. Why? You can’t arbitrarily pick a number from its worst point, like 9.1 percent inflation, and then claim that inflation is going down when it comes off that number, thereby implying that Americans are seeing and feeling relief when it comes to purchasing.
“Today’s report demonstrates continued progress bringing inflation down and lowering costs for American families. Inflation is now at 3.1 percent — down by nearly two thirds from its peak,” the White House said in a Dec. 12 statement.
Yet prices are still rising, just at a slower pace. The administration is just trying to make voters believe otherwise.
Consider that Biden now essentially begs the media to report his lies. And the delicious irony that in order to save themselves the media must report the truth.
It seems the polls prove me right. So goes the media, so goes the Biden message:
The American people certainly aren’t buying it, however. A December Fox News poll shows that only 14% of voters say they’re better off in the Biden economy, which is by far the most important issue heading into the 2024 election, with immigration and the border being second, according to the same survey.
It gets worse when looking at the latest numbers from Gallup: Just 3% of respondents in that poll agree with the administration that the economy is “strong.” Just 19% would call it “good.” And more than two-thirds, 68%, say the economy is getting worse.
One could argue that all facets of society suffer under Biden. But most others burdened by Biden don’t collude with him as the media has. So they cast their own fate. But it seems that for the moment the media may self-correct, for the sake of survival.
Regardless of the outcome, the media loses. Never will it regain its stature from the past. It will take quite some time to come anywhere close. But if they take baby steps in the right direction, they might save themselves for a few more years.
