amgreatness.com/2019/08/26/our-tawdry-untrustworthy-fourth-estate/
The ongoing affair between the nation’s top law enforcement agency and the news media resulted in another hookup last week when CNN announced the hiring of Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI.
McCabe, a vocal Trump foe who opened a criminal investigation into the sitting president of the United States in May 2017 during his short stint as acting director, was fired by the FBI last year for lying to federal investigators.
He played a key role in concocting the Trump-Russia collusion hoax; wrote a book filled with animus toward the president; and remains under a grand jury investigation. Last week, McCabe’s lawyers met with federal prosecutors who are deciding whether to indict him for perjury.
So, of course, CNN hired him last week.
“They Literally Know Nothing”
Once upon a time in America, journalists embraced their role as the nation’s whistleblowers; the so-called Fourth Estate could usually be trusted to expose government corruption and name names. A generation of J-school graduates strived to be the next Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward, digging for their own Watergate moment.
But that all changed in 2008 with the candidacy of Barack Obama. The press served as a bodyguard for the 44th president, overlooking major abuses and failures during his tenure; suggesting that any legitimate criticism of Obama or his policies was rooted in racism; and regurgitating any administration-fed talking point as fact.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s “mind-meld” advisor, admitted as much when he told a reporter how the White House brainwashed the media: “The average reporter we talk to is 27-years-old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns,” Rhodes bragged to the New York Times magazine in May 2016. “That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Then along came Donald Trump.