WSJ: Americans don’t trust the media because ‘consensus they are told is unassailable truth will often turn out to be false’
The Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed the mainstream media’s “conformity” to false political narratives throughout 2021, calling out its most notorious offenders for pushing stories that reflected a particular set of values and typically favored Democrats.
In a Thursday editorial, the board listed the year’s worst media “narratives” that ended up being proven wrong, from liberal outlets initially refusing to consider the lab-leak theory of the origins of COVID-19 to the clear advocation of the Steele dossier as proof of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, and argued they were the reason many Americans no longer trusted the media.
“The year 2021 that ends this week wasn’t the return to normalcy that President Biden promised, but it was invaluable in one respect. This was the year when the conformity that characterizes American politics and media was exposed for its mistakes as never before,” the board wrote.
“By conformity we mean the progressive political and media consensus that forms quickly around an issue and then reinforces itself no matter the competing arguments or new information,” it added.
The board argued that such conformity was about a shared set of political values and preferences that led to the same conclusions being reached about a particular event from those in the progressive media, who reinforced the “narrative” of a story. It specifically pointed to The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, The New York Times and The Atlantic as examples.