How are these people “mainstream?”

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Listen To You Tell Me Texas Friday 12/2/16


Why do we still call it the “mainstream media?” Who among the pretty TV news faces lives or works in anything resembling the mainstream of American life?

Who among those well-coiffed heads lives in a modest home on a modest street in a modest city like Terre Haute, Indiana or Amarillo, Texas? Who among them has kids in public school?

Looking at it from the other side, who in Terre Haute regularly dines where a glass of wine costs $20 and an entrée costs $50? How many people in the mainstream of your life have someone to drive them to work, someone to fetch their lunch and someone following them around to fix their hair?

How many personal assistants do you have? Who makes your travel arrangements? How frequently do you fly first class or by private jet?

How many commas are there in your annual salary? If you’re among the majority, not two.

So what, exactly, about the lives of our media elites is mainstream? The upper crust precincts of New York City and Washington, D.C. are about as far removed from the American mainstream as you can get.

The top executives, top reporters and marquee anchors at all of the ‘mainstream’ media outlets lead lives that bear little resemblance to the lives of us out here in the provinces.

No one is paying for your clothes. No restaurant will make space for you when it’s telling everyone else that calls that it’s fully booked that evening.

In all likelihood, your cell phone does not have in it the personal cell phone number of any show business celebrity, big city mayor, Fortune 500 CEO or cabinet secretary.

You drive yourself to work, fix your own hair and put your kids in public school. You’re raising a family, paying a mortgage, paying taxes and working every day in order to earn a middle class income that hasn’t kept up with inflation in a decade or more. You are likely more than a little bit concerned about paying for college and having enough for retirement.

It is you and your friends, neighbors and coworkers who comprise the American mainstream. You are part of the giant demographic cohort that media elites look down upon (when they bother to look at all).

Which explains why no one – repeat no one – in the ‘mainstream’ media saw the Trump victory coming. Not one.

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So cut off from the mainstream is the elite media cloister that none of the “experts” inside it were even vaguely aware of the growing unrest among the peasants.

Paid in the millions of dollars, given the best possible access and believing themselves to be the smartest in the room, our media elites completely and utterly blew it.

It’s time, then, for a new label. Let’s start calling them the ‘East Coast Media.’ That’s accurate. Or the ‘Parallel Universe Media.’ Even more accurate.

But enough with ‘mainstream.’ As they demonstrated in 2016, these people have no connection to the mainstream at all.

Paul Gleiser


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7 Responses

  1. Linda E Montrose says:

    These are not common everyday people. They go around with their heads up in the clouds and their fingers in their ears, not wanting to hear what the common people have to say. They look down upon us.That is why they never saw a Trump victory…they didn’t listen to what the commoners had to say!!! They may be one of us one of these days and just don’t know it yet!!!

  2. Richard Moore says:

    It is without any hesitation or any reservation, Paul, that I say I completely agree with you. I have been of the same opinion for years. Well said.

  3. This wonderful column should be on the editorial page of every paper in the country. While the East Coast Media won’t understand it, we commoners will. But the problem isn’t just the Elite Media. The problem is equally the political leadership, both Democrat AND Republican. Many hate Trump and see him as a threat. Trump is right to bypass the media and the political swamp, and take his message directly to the people. He may just be the real deal. If so, he’ll need common folks–the too long ignored–to hold their elected leaders’ feet to the fire, else they will keep to the status quo and our electing Donald Trump will gain us little.

  4. Example: Disgraced NBC anchor Brian Williams, exiled to late nights on MSNBC. His show is named “11th Hour,” because he does it at 11PM. That’s 10 in Texas, and 9 in Montana. How could y’all NOT feel talked-down-to by some guy in cuff links in New York.

    Old school: Movie critics and Consumer reports.
    New preference: Online user reviews. We trust strangers more than “experts.”

    Here’s the danger: Fake news.
    To many, Twitter is now “the news.”
    As the newspaper industry’s dance-of-death continues, editing and fact-checking will continue to suffer.

  5. Richard Anderson says:

    The best summation of the current state of affairs of the “fourth estate” I have ever read.
    Kudos sir!

  6. Emlg says:

    In Trumps’ case he was so out of the mainstream media ‘presidential fit’ that all they did was make fun of him, crack jokes and laugh out loud. When he did connect to common folk and spoke to their needs the media’s head started spinning. “How is that possible?”

    He was as serious about being a president as every other candidate. And qualifications of a president are pretty basic according to constitution; one must be 35 years of age, a resident “within the United States” for 14 years, and a “natural born Citizen,”

    The elites have you think that if you are not a ‘professional politician’ you have no right, but that is not what the constitution says. Glad he won, not that I am a Trump supporter but I did vote for him, better than the other options, but giving him benefit of the doubt, and he is shaming the media for their lack of unbiased news and their incorrect portrayal of him. They deserve it and can’t wait for true reporters to report the news, not fabricators.

  7. R. Eagleman says:

    Yes Paul, the overused term “mainstream media” is definitely an oxymoron. It is downright comical to watch, hear, and read articles by the “nattering nabobs” as they attempt to explain the results of this past election. They continue to be in denial about how Trump won, and refuse to accept the part that their blatant prejudice played in the Republican victories up and down the ballot. I must admit that the outcome was a little surprising to me, as the polls along with the political wizards’ predictions created a deep concern that our country had already moved too far to the left. Thank God that was not the case, and let us pray that we will not blow this last chance that He is giving us!

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