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In her book, Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon surveys the mainstream media at large but quickly zooms into the New York Times as a case study to defend the thesis of her book. She posits the notion that the mainstream media entities have developed a business model that seeks to develop a niche audience that is highly educated, affluent, and liberal in scope (pg. 8). She goes on to say that there is an elitist mindset within these journalists that speak on behalf of a group of people they are completely out of touch with. Batya states that there was a time when journalists lived around and engaged in life with people of their same socio-economic class, i.e., the working class. But, times have changed, Sargon contends, and journalists have now become lifted up on pedestals, garnering celebrity status, along with millions of dollars. Such a claim can be made evident in a recent interview from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on The View where she states that everyone who — upon political events that took place the week of January 17–21, 2022 — feels “frustrated, sad, angry, pissed-off, feel those emotions; go to a kickboxing class; have a margarita; do whatever you need to do this weekend, and then wake up on Monday morning, we gotta keep fighting.” (Full interview link here: https://youtu.be/XNvOEHzvd-c?t=134)
I am not here to engage in a political discussion, per se, but rather compare what Batya puts forth to that of the statement given by Jen Psaki and simply ask a question: how many within the working class have time to do such things Psaki puts forth? Do such things properly fall into their purview?
These, of course, are rhetorical questions. I find Batya’s works interesting at the very least, and it should be noted that she is coming at this topic as a Jewish woman who is a self-described “lefty” and socialist; while she and I have different approaches when it comes to implementing solutions, but we generally agree with the problem(s) at hand. I highly recommend getting her book, or at the very least checking out a recent discussion she participated in at UC Berkeley School of Law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTf4JYfMuoI&t=1s.
I give this brief overview to simply assert that there are quite a few overlaps that could be applied in…
