Fred on journalists

The iconoclastic Fred Reed lays it out.

Do you wonder why the legacy media are such puzzled otherworldly twits? Why, for example, they had no idea what was happening in the recent election? Why they seem to know so very little about America or much of anything else?

Some thoughts from a guy who spent a career in the racket:

Ask journalists when they were last in a truck stop on an Interstate, last in Boone, North Carolina or Barstow, California or any of thousands of such towns across the country. Ask whether they were in the military, whether they have ever talked to a cop or an ambulance crewman or a fireman. Ask whether they have a Mexican friend, when they last ate in a restaurant where a majority of the customers were black.  Whether they know an enlisted man, or anyone in the armed services. Whether they have hitchhiked overnight, baited a hook, hunted, or fired a rifle. Whether they have ever worked washing dishes, harvesting crops, driving a delivery truck. Whether they have a blue-collar friend. Know what the Texas Two-Step is, have been in a biker bar.

Now do you see why Trump surprised them?

Next, ask how many went to fancy schools like Oberlin, Swarthmore, Amherst, the Ivies, Bard. Ask how many even know someone who graduated from a land-grant school. Ask whether they know an engineer.

Now look at how much they write about each other for each other. Look at the endless coverage of what Maddow said about what Hannity thought about O’Reilly’s harassment of soft-porn star Megyn  and how much she might make at CNN. Ask how much time they spend comparing ratings. They are fascinated by themselves.

Ask them how many have ever worried about paying the electric bill, had to choose between a new winter coat or paying the cable, or known anyone who did.

They don’t know America, and they don’t much like it.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

As a corollary to what Fred is saying, see also this report, where Dylan Byers of CNN admits that "most reporters are stuck telling the story of the progressive future as envisioned by Obama and Hillary".  He does so on camera, too - there's a video clip at the link.  I don't know whether or not his fellow talking heads agreed with him, but it made sense to me.  Mr. Byers and the journalists he describes, like the overwhelming majority of mainstream news media staff, come from the circles Fred Reed outlines so well.  They have no idea how out-of-touch with most of America they really are.

The same applies to many on the left-wing, progressive side of US politics, of course.  They just don't get it.  They're so far out of step with 'traditional' American values that they can't understand the rejection they foment when they try to force their non-traditional values on us.  Consider the congressional election in Montana last week.  Many commentators simply couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that the Republican candidate not only won, but raised over $100,000 the day after he body-slammed a left-leaning reporter.  It was because his supporters would probably like to have done the same thing to the reporter, if not worse - but reporters can't admit that, because if they did, they'd also have to admit that they've made themselves the enemy of 'traditional America'.

That's nothing new, of course.  Consider attempts by the left to demonize Chick-Fil-A, or Memories Pizza in Indiana.  They also failed miserably - and they will continue to fail across America, because the left just doesn't get it.  Most of us don't buy into their agenda, and we won't in future, either.  Unfortunately, the reporters who are pushing that agenda don't get that reality, either - or, if they do, they refuse to report it.

Peter