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Bad news : how woke media is undermining democracy / Batya Ungar-Sargon.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, New York ; illustrations : Encounter Books, 2021Copyright date: ©2021Edition: First American editionDescription: 301 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781641772068
  • 1641772069
Subject(s):
Contents:
Joseph Pulitzer's populist revolution -- A respectability counterrevolution -- A status revolution -- The abandonment of the working class -- A digital revolution -- The lesson of the Trump era -- A great awokening -- A moral panic -- A rich debate in the black community -- Case Studies -- How the left perpetuates inequality and undermines democracy -- Epilogue.
Summary: "Bad News is a response to Thomas Frank's 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas." I ask the same question he asked about the right, but about the left: Why is the media obsessed with racism, even though it's getting objectively better by every measure we have? I argue that the liberal media is mainstreaming a woke culture war based on ideas that were relegated to the academic fringe as recently as a decade ago because it's in their economic interests to do so. It explores how digital media and social media supplied journalists, now part of the American elite, with an alternative way to feel like heroes while further consolidating power and wealth in the hands of the few rather than the many. The book then explores the larger context of the great American class divide, and how journalism has been both a product and accelerator of inequality"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 070.4493 U57 Available 33111010745590
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Something is wrong with American journalism. Long before "fake news" became the calling card of the Right, Americans had lost faith in their news media. But lately, the feeling that something is off has become impossible to ignore. That's because the majority of our mainstream news is no longer just liberal; it's woke. Today's newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including "antiracism," intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be?

It all has to do with who our news media is written by--and who it is written for. In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy , Batya Ungar-Sargon reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century--from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession. As a result, journalists shifted their focus away from the working class and toward the concerns of their affluent, highly educated peers. With the rise of the Internet and the implosion of local news, America's elite news media became nationalized and its journalists affluent and ideological. And where once business concerns provided a countervailing force to push back against journalists' worst tendencies, the pressures of the digital media landscape now align corporate incentives with newsroom crusades.

The truth is, the moral panic around race, encouraged by today's elite newsrooms, does little more than consolidate the power of liberal elites and protect their economic interests. And in abandoning the working class by creating a culture war around identity, our national media is undermining American democracy. Bad News explains how this happened, why it happened, and the dangers posed by this development if it continues unchecked.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Bad News is a response to Thomas Frank's 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas." I ask the same question he asked about the right, but about the left: Why is the media obsessed with racism, even though it's getting objectively better by every measure we have? I argue that the liberal media is mainstreaming a woke culture war based on ideas that were relegated to the academic fringe as recently as a decade ago because it's in their economic interests to do so. It explores how digital media and social media supplied journalists, now part of the American elite, with an alternative way to feel like heroes while further consolidating power and wealth in the hands of the few rather than the many. The book then explores the larger context of the great American class divide, and how journalism has been both a product and accelerator of inequality"-- Provided by publisher.

Joseph Pulitzer's populist revolution -- A respectability counterrevolution -- A status revolution -- The abandonment of the working class -- A digital revolution -- The lesson of the Trump era -- A great awokening -- A moral panic -- A rich debate in the black community -- Case Studies -- How the left perpetuates inequality and undermines democracy -- Epilogue.

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