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I was specifically responding to the phrase "you have to throw out almost all mainstream media coverage of the Trump era".
The phrase 'almost all mainstream media coverage of the trump era the trump era' doesn't read like "on this topic specifically". Also, "The media are entirely captured". But people overstate things sometimes, if you meant this topic then whatever.
My broader point is that all kinds of media have been tied up in all kinds of lies for centuries, and your reaction doesn't really make sense with that context. Because it won't burn the industry's reputation to the ground (it didn't the last ten times). The media isn't entirely captured (WaPo regularly negatively reports on Bezos, many MSM journalists publish substacks now and didn't change their line at all, and substack simply isn't exerting editorial pressure as we can see from their hosting Moldbug's monthly "Coup All Democracies" articles).
When I said "almost all mainstream media coverage of the Trump era" I was referring to anything which talks about the Russian conspiracy theory or any of the countless other debunked claims about that entire affair, including reporting that is actively being put out to this day. I believe that this covers the vast majority of mainstream media reporting on Trump during that era.
And my point is that this represents a unique escalation of said lies and media involvement. The Trump/Russia story wasn't just breathlessly shouted about and reported on by the MSM at all times despite many people involved knowing it was false, the MSM was actually a direct participant in what happened - in order to launder the Steele dossier, the intelligence agents who wanted to spy on the Trump campaign leaked it to several media outlets and then used that reporting to justify a warrant when the Steele dossier itself would be incapable of doing so. You're right when you say that there have always been lies and I can think back to multiple times in my life where they just outright lied, but each time they eventually issued a mea culpa or accounted for it. This particular case is unique and novel because the direct media involvement and overwhelming promulgation of the Russiagate conspiracy theory means that they can't actually apologise or report accurately on these events in the future. If Jeff Bezos' Washington Post wanted to release an accurate story about what's happened, they would have to not just return a Pulitzer prize but admit that they have been lying to the public for several years, in many cases knowingly, and got major details in extremely important cases wrong. The NYT doesn't have a problem admitting that they got the Iraqi WMD story wrong, but they invested far more time, energy and credibility in the Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy and I don't believe they're ever going to admit their mistake unless they're forced to because it would represent such a stunning loss of credibility and prestige.
None of this constitutes an actual argument against my point. Negative reporting on Bezos is utterly immaterial (suppressing it would be worse for his PR than allowing that reporting to happen) when his newspaper's reporting actively advocates for and advances his stated political position (fuck Trump). Similarly, the idea that MSM journalists publish the same dreck they did before on Substack doesn't constitute an argument against my position at all, unless you think Substack qualifies as mainstream media. When I say "capture" I don't just mean the more direct professional incentives, but the softer and more cultural ones as well. A journalist who admits to any of the stuff that we now know is incontrovertibly true is going to become a pariah in their social circle in very short order, which means they just aren't going to do that unless they have to.
I don't think it was, and I think there are a large number of obvious examples of this. WMDs in Iraq, for instance, I think is more important.
Right, that eventually happened in every case. Hardly immediately! Often after a lot of investigation and debate. There have already been very limited walkbacks and apologies - this, or this or this or reporting on the durham report. And what will happen is - with time, the emotional and partisan valence of this will decrease, and organizations and people involved will become more willing to admit their mistakes. As happened with the iraq war!
I do not see how this is different from the WMDs situation, where fault was eventually admitted.
It's an argument against corporate power modifying the incentives of MSM journalists. Instead, the same kinds of people who weren't contrarian in the past continue to not be so on Substack, while the kinds of people who were perpetual contrarians against the establishment in the past, often at real outlets, (taibbi, greenwald, etc, and there are of course many different ways to be contrarian) continue to be so on substack.
The media was not an active and important part of the Iraqi WMD story, but they actually are a very important player in the Russiagate story. Specifically, they were involved with the corrupt origination of the Carter Page FISA warrant. At the same time, I think that the magnitude of reporting on the Russiagate conspiracy (including the stories where it was just mentioned) was far greater than that of the Iraqi WMDs story. If there's actually a transcript of all MSM tv news coverage out there we'd actually be able to settle this objectively but I'm not sure that such an archive is available to the public.
We're still seeing stories talking about the Trump/Russia collusion case this month.
https://time.com/6294254/biden-helsinki-trump-putin-nato/
They are STILL LYING! It has been close to 7 years now and not only have they not admitted fault/apologised, they are actively continuing to create the false impression that Trump colluded with Russia. I do agree that they eventually gave up and admitted fault on Iraq, but I am not so sure they were continuing to lie for quite this long, and I definitely don't believe that they kept on implying Saddam had WMDs after all the facts had actually come out.
I don't believe that it is corporate power exclusively that is modifying those incentives. There are multiple different ways in which the media was captured - continuing access to government agents who wish to leak information, cultural mores and memes (in the Dawkins sense rather than the 4chan one) among journalists, the complicated web of social connections that allow people to get hired... corporate influence is a part of that capture but absolutely not the entirety of it.
Because it works. First impressions count. Especially when you hear what you really want to be true, you will remember it for the rest of your life and do not listen to any rebukes or apologies.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll-idUSKCN1R72S0
Remember, as late as 2015, 51% of Republicans (and 32% of Democrats) believed that WMDs were found in Iraq.
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/poll-republicans-wmds-iraq-114016
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