(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . How the NY Times, Washington Post and Politico Pave the Way for Tyranny [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-10-07 Anticipatory Obedience In his book On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder describes “obeying in advance” as the key ingredient in a free society becoming a tyranny: After the German elections of 1932, which permitted Adolf Hitler to form a government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed. Here in 2024 United States, the election hasn’t even happened and major media outlets have a monthslong track record of obeying in advance of a possible tryrannical regime. It takes the form of serious reporting of absurd claims, applying different standards of outrage and condemnation to campaign rhetoric, filming an empty podium for an hour rather than giving that space to another candidate and unthinking and uncritical repetition of outright lies. Share Salient Examples of U.S. Media’s Anticipatory Obedience Meidas Touch is an excellent YouTube channel that recently hosted Mark Jacob, a former news editor, who gave a long list of examples of leading U.S. media outlets obeying a potential Trump administration in advance. The video, Ex-TOP News Editor Reveals INSIDE SECRETS of Media Failures, is below. x Different Standards for Different Candidates Drawing from insights from the Meidas Touch video, let’s first look at different standards for judging behavior in news coverage. Chrissy Noem killing her puppy. She is being held to account because Trump decided she was disposable. If Trump said it was OK, then they would defend it. CNN — 1998 The Trump sex scandal. Trump is escaping the kind of salivating press coverage that dogged former President Clinton about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. See the picture below, from a CNN article in 1998. Somehow, the Stormy Daniels scandal is treated differently. The nature of press attention is muted and not tied to the illegal payoff of a porn actress to influence an election - a Federal crime. No less than the Pew Research Center did an exhaustive review of the articles about the infamous blue dress with Clinton’s bio matter on it in “ A Chronology of Stories on the Blue Dress. ” Nothing like this excruciating examination was done for Trump’s sex scandal. There’s no Congressional hearings about the sordid details of Trump’s encounter with a porn actress. The press are not reporting multiple stories about exactly what sex happened, where and how. Lopsided coverage of a sex scandal Share The Tell with Christine Axsmith Romantic entanglements. Both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Fani Willis had romances with ethical entanglements. Marjorie Taylor Greene had an affair during her campaign and used campaign funds to do it - a crime. Not one single political reporter in GA ran the story. Fani Willis was in a romance with an attorney whom she appointed as a special prosecutor. She was internationally excoriated. See below. These are just two examples of the kind of anticipatory obedience that major news outlets engage in. We will discuss more in the future. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/7/2275261/-How-the-NY-Times-Washington-Post-and-Politico-Pave-the-Way-for-Tyranny?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/