Media ‘Main Character Syndrome’ – The Hill Achi-News

There is one topic that members of the media are more concerned about in 2024 than Donald Trump – “democracy.” The word “democracy” was said 34 times on MSNBC on Monday alone. Another 19 times on CNN, according to the TV Eyes database. It can often be followed by words like “himself.” Because democracy itself, you see, is at stake in 2024.

At least that’s what self-important, doom-scrolling, politics-brained Acela Media tells us – and most importantly, tells itself. The media has internalized these higher implications – the inflationary threat that comes from a third Trump presidential run and the very real possibility of a second term. And they have convinced themselves that their mission is literally to save democracy (itself!).

Take the recent panic we saw on CNN, when independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on the Erin Burnett show Monday night. Burnett pressed him on whether the “threat to democracy that Trump poses” is really equal to the “evil” of Biden. “I can argue that President Biden is the far worse threat to democracy,” Kennedy said, citing censorship efforts by the administration, as well as denying Kennedy himself the protection of the Secret Service. “It’s arming the federal agencies.”

This momentary distraction from the consensus narrative could not stand on CNN. Immediately following the interview, the network brought on its chief “fact checker,” Daniel Dale. Dale’s version of the fact-check simply stated that there was “no evidence” that President Biden was “personally” responsible for the Secret Service denial or the censorship, and then went on to explain why he it’s actually a good thing RFK was censored for it. posting “vaccine and other” misinformation.

No, the press cannot let the veil slip for even a second on the task at hand, which is to make the case to the American public that Donald Trump is a unique threat to America — maintaining a posture of attention and objectivity on fact based. They seem incapable of seeing that their efforts are having the exact opposite effect – eroding trust in the industry, while convincing none other than true believers in the “Resistance.”

But this is what happens when our previously nameless national journalists suffer from a collective “Protagonist Syndrome”, a term that has become more popular in recent years thanks to the rise of social media, where anyone can become is really an influencer. Philosopher Derek Parfit described our era as “the hinge of history” in 2011, and our narcissistic media elites have taken it to heart. They can no longer just report the news – no, they must guide our path correctly so that the course of history unfolds exactly as it should.

We saw this over the weekend with an inconsequential comment from “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker who got fired up by the Right Online left. After describing Trump’s recent attacks on Judge Juan Merchan and his family in the Trump hush money case in New York, Welker said it was “Yet another reminder that we are covering this election against the backdrop of a deeply divided nation” – an absolutely true statement.

But this was not enough for the main characters on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. MSNBC Contributor Ruth Ben-Ghiat he said he was “totally inadequate to the severity and scale of the threat.” Former CNN journalist John Harwood he wrote how Welker should have described it, like calling Trump a “troubled criminal” instead. New Republic contributing editor Nina Burleigh He said “Maybe the NBC suits think that having a brown female anchor on TV cancels out what comes out of her mouth.”

Have these people lost their minds?

The context here is important. This follows Welker and NBC helping push out newly hired contributor Ronna McDaniel last week because she was unacceptable rebellion-adjacent. That campaign was carried out on air by everyone from “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, who justified his actions by claiming that it is for “basic truth,” to Rachel Maddow, who ended the one-day television therapy session on MSNBC by attacking the “bad actors who are trying to use the rights and privileges of democracy to end democracy” (double portion of democracy!) .

OK – having the former head of the RNC get a check to give her political opinion is contributing to the “end of democracy.” No one really believes this, outside of the newsrooms in New York and DC.

Maddow interviewed Shepard Fairey, from a group called “Artists for Democracy,” on Monday night, who described how its goal as “saving democracy, to keep Trump from being re-elected.” Apparently Main Character Syndrome exists in the art world too.

It’s not just NBC. On ABC in February, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) took umbrage with George Stephanopoulos over the host’s “ridiculous” questions rehashing the 2020 election, and said he believed there were “problems” with the election that, including the social media censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop Story and noting the change in election laws during the Covid pandemic. The Washington Post’s “analysis” of that interview used this absurd headline: “JD Vance would have defeated democracy over right-wing nonsense.”

On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski read a large portion of a “letter from the editor” from the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper on “truth” and “duty” this election cycle.

“The media as we know it will not exist if they don’t do it the right way,” said her guest, Donny Deutsch, claiming that Trump will “call up various networks” and demand that they will fire some hosts if he wins again. It was hard to tell, but I think the former advertising executive actually believed this self-serious nonsense.

Brzezinski didn’t read it all, but the newspaper letter included this blunt and arrogant statement: “Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is.” I wonder what the readers of this paper should expect from the political coverage in 2024? And is it any wonder that local news outlets disappear with mission statements like this?

The ego of these thirsty “protagonists” has been unleashed. They are our heroes now. Because democracy is in danger — but thank goodness we have the journalists to save us.

NewsNation contributor Steve Krakauer is the author of “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” and editor and host of the Fourth Watch newsletter and podcast.