Two days before Christmas, the Washington Post published a column by one of its own, Post columnist Eugene Robinson, headlined:
We cannot abide Donald Trump’s wish for a compliant news media
Fight the president-elect’s attack on independent journalism with a pro-truth stance.
In this gem, Robinson begins by saying:
“Anyone who doubts the incoming Trump administration poses a serious threat to independent journalism has not been paying attention. An attack is already underway — and we journalists must not allow ourselves to be intimidated.”
To which one can only reply with a considerable burst of outright laughter. In fact, Robinson has it completely backwards.
The Washington Post and its allies in the so-called “mainstream media” are anything but being about “independent journalism.” They are central players in what is much more accurately known as the “liberal media.” They themselves are the compliant ones who have long ago abandoned “independent journalism” to take sides - one side - in the political arguments of the day.
Examples? Back before the 2024 election, in October, the New York Post was headlining:
More Washington Post staffers resign over paper’s failure to endorse Kamala Harris
Editorial board members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts resigned in disgust because the paper wouldn't stand for democracy.
“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman, who took home the Pulitzer Prize last week and first joined the paper in 1982, wrote in his resignation letter, which was posted on X. “I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”
Roberts, another longtime employee of The Post who first joined the paper as a student intern while studying at Harvard University, said she was resigning due to the paper’s refusal to endorse Harris.
“I’m resigning from The Post editorial board because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is about as morally clear as it gets,” Roberts wrote in her resignation letter. “Worse, our silence is exactly what Donald Trump wants: for the media, for us, to keep quiet.”
This is an echo Robinson’s supposed “independent journalism” at the Washington Post. Why didn't he just resign?
The same situation arose across the country at the Los Angeles Times.
Unlike Robinson, over in the New York Post, columnist Michael Goodwin reported the reality of the media’s fanatical and decidedly non-“independent journalism.” The headline:
The left-wing media created their own crisis and now have to pay the price for repeatedly attacking Donald Trump
Goodwin wrote:
Even as defeated Democrats try to decide who they are and what they believe in, their media handmaidens face a crisis of their own.
The comeuppance against their politically driven bias has arrived — and it’s proving to be expensive in more ways than one.
….ABC News and its chief Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos fell into another trap.
They put their agenda of defeating Trump ahead of the facts and the law, and, faced with depositions that likely would have supported his claim of defamation, ABC caved.
In a settlement, the network forked over $16 million for a Trump library and his legal fees, and had to publicly say they “regret” Stephanopoulos’ false claims that Trump had been found liable for rape in a civil case.
Ouch — the apology surely stung much more than the money.
And it isn’t just major newspapers that have the left-wing bias problem. Fox News shared with America the study by our late-night comedy expert Alex Christy:
Late-night TV, SNL's boring anti-Trump scold routines go unheeded: ‘Well, f---! It happened again’
Late-night hosts melted down the night after Trump's 2024 victory after making him the butt of 98% of their political jokes
Colbert, Kimmel & Co. went “all-in on pro-Democratic and anti-Trump humor.”
Yet with all of this out there, not to mention oh so much more, in the way of a decidedly far left -leaning media, there is the Washington Post’s Robinson saying: “And, when Trump takes office, the threat will escalate. Perhaps dramatically.”
The real threat to American democracy is the central fact that Robinson simply ignores. That central fact being that the Old Media has overwhelmingly abandoned the idea of “independent journalism.”
And, it should be noted, this problem has been around long before Donald Trump came on the political scene. Read the memoirs of Republicans like 1964 nominee Senator Barry Goldwater, former President Richard Nixon, the Bushes and others from the GOP side of the aisle and there is reference to the liberal media and the hard fact in that person’s days on the active political scene they had to deal constantly with a far left-leaning media.
Example? In August of 2018, The Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard took a look back and headlined:
Public’s media hate, fanned by Trump, started with George. H.W. Bush
Bedard wrote:
“Former President George H.W. Bush had it a lot better than President Trump. Economic growth was humming at 5%, his polling was high, and he was on duty in the Oval Office when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union crumbled.
But the press attacked him and as he headed to defeat to Bill Clinton, Bush became the first president to publicly rip on the media at campaign events, even handing out red hats [and bumper stickers] with the words “Annoy the Media: Re-Elect Bush” on them.”
Former Bush aide Mary Matalin was blunt:
Matalin isn’t surprised the public has turned on the press again. “The assaults on freedom of speech, religiosity combined with the hypocrisy of a Ruling Class exempting themselves from all the degenerative policies they imposed on the electorate, created a combustible environment and Trump picked up the fire starter,” she said.
In short? The idea being pushed in The Washington Post by one of its own, Robinson, is completely upside down and backwards. He ends by saying:
“We work for the people, not the president. Whenever it’s necessary, we’ll remind the president that he works for the people, too.”
Suffice to say, when large media organizations present themselves as doing “independent journalism” when in fact they are about furthering a far-left wing agenda, not independent journalism, they are not “working for the people.”
The irony? The American people have long gotten on to this game of the media pretending to be doing independent journalism when they are doing the opposite.
In October of 2024, the Gallup poll organization headlined:
Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low
Trust in political and civic institutions highest for local and state governments, lowest for media and Congress
The story reported:
“For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% of Americans express “not very much” confidence.”
There is a reason for this. And when a Washington Post columnist so prominently denies the reality of that reason, media credibility takes another hit.
