In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, NBC’s Meet the Press anchor, Chuck Todd, did what he’s been doing for a while now, which was to act like a social scientist researching the confounding reason why so much of the public, particularly conservatives, don’t trust journalists in the national media.
“The right has an incentive structure to utter the misinformation,” Todd told the magazine, referring to his own belief that there’s a rash of lies and untruths that are pushed by Republican officials and conservative media for sinister purposes. He added a little later in the interview that “one of the things we don’t fully appreciate in mainstream media on these attacks is that it’s become fun to attack the press, if that makes sense, on the right. It doesn’t matter if we’re right or wrong, attack them anyway.”
With great delusion, Todd blamed the media’s unpopularity on Trump for having “turned this into sport.” He said, “People that are the loudest chanters of fake news and accusatory of us are the ones who, under a lie detector, would probably take our word over any word they’ve heard from the other side on whether something was poisonous or not.”
It’s as if Todd was born on Election Day 2016. Before Trump, there was Fox News. Before Fox News, there was Rush Limbaugh. Before Limbaugh, there was Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon.
Attacking the media for political effect is not new. Trump didn’t create it. Most importantly, the attacks are not without merit.
Nowhere in Todd’s interview does he come even close for acknowledging the media’s own fault in public distrust, particularly with regard to Trump. How many times did we hear that the “walls are closing in,” that the “noose is tightening,” and that we were “at a crossroads” with the endless Russia investigations?
That ended with a 400-page report about how no one in Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with Russia. But never mind that.
The media lie, mislead, and fabricate with impunity, and yet why the public, especially conservatives or Trump voters, generally can’t stand journalists is a great mystery Todd wants to explore.
If NBC wants to do a TV special on “misinformation,” it might start with an autobiography.
