Commentary: Advocacy media is a helpful antidote to the stultifying reporting of corporate news
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The cruelty and chaos emanating from the Oval Office has had both an enraging and a deadening effect. Like shell-shocked civilians hunkered down in a bomb shelter, we are numbed by the steady stream of vindictive and largely unconstitutional executive orders that have pardoned lawbreakers, alienated our allies, demonized the innocent and subverted our legal system.
With each sickening swing of Elon Musk’s DOGE wrecking ball — medical research, education, Social Security, museums, libraries, mental health clinics, food for the poor — our democracy and our way of life are crumbling before our eyes.
And while it’s true that journalists can’t tell a credible story if their hair were on fire, the caution with which mainstream media are bearing witness to our unfolding national catastrophe is unnerving.
In addition to covering the daily barrage of breaking news, CNN helpfully provides background by tracking the 139 executive orders Trump has issued so far as if this were the Final Four instead of the end of democracy as we know it. Here’s a sample of the breezy intro text:
“President Donald Trump’s second term is off and running with a cascade of executive actions signed in his first weeks and more promised in the weeks to come. Trump has vowed to enact a sweeping agenda and reshape the federal government, saying in his inaugural address that ‘the golden age of America’ was starting and naming priorities such as immigration, trade and national security.
“Catch up on what you need to know about Trump’s actions in office.”
For good measure, CNN provides a link to the full text of each executive order. But nowhere is there a critical word about the legality or impact of these draconian orders. CNN is owned by Warner Bros./Discovery. It’s a chilling example of how caution, rather than critical reporting, can affect the tone of the coverage in corporately owned media.
Now consider the excellent report by PBS’s Lisa Desjardins on March 20 of Republican Rep. Mike Flood’s volatile town meeting in rural Nebraska:
“Inside a heated town hall where a Nebraska Republican faced backlash over Trump’s policies” [5:38]
It captures the deep-seated concerns about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, cuts to Social Security, medical research and veterans benefits — and the role played by Elon Musk.
These days, I’m finding advocacy media a helpful antidote to the stultifying reporting of corporate news. The Unpopulist is a good example of principled, but by no means cautious, news and analysis on our current crisis.
It’s a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, a relatively new virtual think tank composed of largely conservative and libertarian critics — but also some progressives — who are responding to the rising tide of authoritarianism in the U.S. and around the world with insight, intelligence and outrage.
Consider the Unpopulist’s approach to tracking Trump’s abuses of power, Executive Watch. Unlike CNN’s breezy box score, it’s a comprehensive, easily searchable database that gives the full picture of Trump’s illicit actions in office. Even-handed it ain’t, but it’s a bracing assessment of presidential abuses of power on five measures: personal grift, political corruption, presidential retribution, power consolidation and policy illegality. Well researched, well written, humane and empowering.
The reporting and analysis seen on The Unpopulist has the capacity to kindle the bipartisan outrage that will be essential in the coming days for people of good will, regardless of their political orientation, to stand up to tyranny and fight back.
Speaking of fighting back, thousands of veterans protested against Musk’s savage cuts in Washington March 14. And though local broadcast media covered the event, it never made it as a top story on CNN or the New York Times. I can’t imagine why not.
One of the untold media stories of the moment is the absence of information about forthcoming demonstrations against Trump’s executive overreach. In an absolutely nonscientific experiment over the past several weeks, I’ve been googling “Upcoming anti-Trump demonstrations near me” in various cities and towns across the U.S. The search results mostly consist of protest coverage that has already happened rather than upcoming events.
Is this because protests are poorly organized? Possibly. Are local media not publishing stories of upcoming demonstrations? Maybe. Without local coverage of planned protests, search engines have nothing to harvest. Or are search algorithms actually designed to suppress dissent?
The true test comes on April 5, when the democracy advocacy group Indivisible has organized widespread protests. Will masses of people upset about Trump’s travesties be able to find out where to assemble? Or will there just be next-day reports of thinly attended demonstrations?
As of this writing, when I google “Upcoming anti-Trump protests in Bellingham” there’s nothing but old news. And that’s bad news for us all.
— By Joan Connell
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