{"id":370609,"date":"2021-11-22T07:08:57","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T04:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/media-have-ditched-middle-class-book-argues\/"},"modified":"2021-11-22T07:08:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T04:08:57","slug":"media-have-ditched-middle-class-book-argues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/media-have-ditched-middle-class-book-argues\/","title":{"rendered":"#Media have ditched middle class, book argues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Media<\/a> have ditched middle class, book argues<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>As books go, 2020 was meritocracy\u2019s annus horribilis. Daniel Markovits warned of \u201cThe Meritocracy Trap,\u201d while \u201cThe Tyranny of Merit\u201d earned Michael Sandel several book-of-the-year awards. Both books pointed to meritocracy\u2019s potential to legitimize inequality beyond the point of tolerability. They overlooked, however, the media\u2019s role in covering for this deepening inequality. In \u201cBad <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a>: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy\u201d (2021), Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon argues that \u201cthe identity culture war has allowed journalists to cast our nation as hopelessly divided along partisan and racial lines as a smoke screen for the actual impenetrable and devastating division that\u2019s h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ening along class lines.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Most of Ungar-Sargon\u2019s book documents firsthand what she calls the \u201cmoral panic\u201d currently gripping America\u2019s mainstream media, brought to a fever pitch by the killing of George Floyd in May last year. This panic, she argues, is intertwined with a much older trend: the media\u2019s drift away from the values and concerns of America\u2019s working class. The book begins by tracing the rise of populism in the mid-19th century, ignited by such journalistic luminaries as Benjamin Day and Joseph Pulitzer, who sought to sell newspapers with content relevant (if often sensationalistic) to working men\u2019s lives. Despite the seemingly unbridgeable class divides of the Gilded Age, Day and Pulitzer\u2019s so-called penny press, with its focus on labor, corruption and crime, emerged as a knowledge equalizer and tool for empowerment. As the American economy moves toward comparable levels of inequality, today\u2019s media are playing the opposite role \u2014 catering almost exclusively to the interests of urban, upper-class liberals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignright\">\n    <\/aside>\n<p>Ungar-Sargon points to three major trends driving the transformation of once socially eclectic mass media into today\u2019s class-skewed press. First, a \u201crespectability counterrevolution\u201d has stigmatized working-class culture as unworthy of media attention, pushing the urban press to cater to the tastes and interests of American sophisticates instead, as epitomized by The New Yorker. Second, a \u201cstatus revolution\u201d has turned journalism, once a primarily middle-class profession, into an upper-class one, with aspiring writers and reporters from humble backgrounds having to scramble through a succession of apprenticeships just to get their first job. Third, advertising has replaced subscriptions as the media\u2019s main source of revenue, even as the industry consolidates into five major national conglomerates at the expense of a fast-disappearing local press. Combined, these trends have meant that increasingly upscale journalists cater to equivalently upscale and liberal-minded readers, while the remaining few outlets addressing the working-class become conservative outliers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The most decisive \u2014 and complex \u2014 factor in the media\u2019s social and ideological stratification is the Internet. With its information bubbles, echo chambers and the customer-engagement funnel, \u201csocial media has sacrificed the quality of journalism on the altar of the egotism of individual journalists.\u201d Staff writers and reporters are caught in a battle for online likes and shares, leaving less time for the face-to-face reporting that was once journalism\u2019s bread and butter. Then along came Donald Trump, with his branding of the press as \u201cenemies of the people.\u201d Ungar-Sargon writes that the 45th president gave the mainstream media license to push working-class whites even further away from their editorial lens. Because mainstream media saw Trump as a foe of the journalistic profession itself, they treated the policies advanced by his administration, such as stronger border security, as sinister \u2014 even as many of these policies won the approval of voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/AFP_9T44ZP.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"Donald Trump\" class=\"wp-image-20225070\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/AFP_9T44ZP.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/AFP_9T44ZP.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/AFP_9T44ZP.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Donald Trump had called the press the \u201cenemy of the people.\u201d<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">MANDEL NGAN\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Generational change has also been a factor. Older cohorts of journalists understood that their trade thrived on diverse viewpoints and dogged reporting; the younger generation of digital natives view their role \u201cless as understanding their subjects and more as sitting in judgment over those they disagreed with.\u201d This woke cohort is intent on spreading its crusade to the wider society. \u201cFor all the talk about fighting for racial equality,\u201d Ungar-Sargon writes, \u201cthe re-racialization of American life through a woke culture war was simply the next phase in the status revolution of journalists \u2014 and who they viewed as their readers.\u201d Steeped in critical race theory and postmodernist thought, the younger journalists have brought to the newsroom an \u201cobsession with race that elegantly papers over a truer chasm in American life \u2014 economic inequality.\u201d Focusing on race thus deflects attention from the privilege many of these young journalists (regardless of their color) enjoyed on their way to professional success.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/USA-CHINA_COMMERCE-CONGRESS.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"Sen. Tom Cotton\u2019s\" class=\"wp-image-20225162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/USA-CHINA_COMMERCE-CONGRESS.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/USA-CHINA_COMMERCE-CONGRESS.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/USA-CHINA_COMMERCE-CONGRESS.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>The New York Times staff revolted after they published Sen. Tom Cotton\u2019s op-ed.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Tasos Katopodis\/Pool via REUTERS\/File Photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This generational turnover in personnel has in turn imperiled longstanding editorial practices. Editors once held ultimate power over what got published; today newsroom mobs often wield that power, as evidenced by the staff revolt after <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/03\/opinion\/tom-cotton-protests-military.html\">The New York Times published Sen. Tom Cotton\u2019s op-ed<\/a> calling for troops to quell the rioting and looting following the death of George Floyd. \u201cWhat\u2019s so shocking about this censorious development in American journalism,\u201d Ungar-Sargon explains, \u201cis not that online activists would try to use their power to enforce their views, but that an older generation of journalists \u2014 people who should, who do know better \u2014 would capitulate to the pressure.\u201d Ungar-Sargon reckons that the onus for restoring sanity to our mediascape lies with all consumers of the news. By choosing wisely which outlets we read and keeping politics at arm\u2019s length from the rest of our lives, we can push back against the media\u2019s degeneration into a polarizing force in American life.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Jorge Gonz\u00e1lez-Gallarza (<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JorgeGGallarza\">@JorgeGGallarza<\/a>) is the co-host of the \u201cUncommon Decency\u201d podcast on European issues (<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UnDecencyPod\">@UnDecencyPod<\/a>) and an associate researcher at Fundaci\u00f3n Civismo (Madrid).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Reprinted from City Journal<\/em>\n                        <\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/11\/21\/media-have-ditched-middle-class-book-argues\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Media have ditched middle class, book argues&#8221; As books go, 2020 was meritocracy\u2019s annus horribilis. Daniel Markovits warned of \u201cThe Meritocracy Trap,\u201d while \u201cThe Tyranny of Merit\u201d earned Michael Sandel several book-of-the-year awards. Both books pointed to meritocracy\u2019s potential to legitimize inequality beyond the point of tolerability. They overlooked, however, the media\u2019s role in covering&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":370610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/shutterstock_1681584364.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[119911,17209,40445],"class_list":["post-370609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-11-21-21","tag-books","tag-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}