Two examples of how traditional media show contempt for their audience

It's a feature, not a bug

I am tired. I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years.

Velvet Underground

I wanted to share two recent examples of the way in which the mainstream/legacy media continue to show contempt for their audience, and to say that, even after more than twenty years of watching this stuff up close, it still amazes me. It is incredible to watch them constantly shoot themselves in the foot like this, to the point where you have to conclude that it is a feature rather than a bug; that to whatever extent the media are acting as a “watchdog on power” they, in fact, operate most of the time as a servant of the status quo, corralling audiences with the intent of imparting the views of power rather than challenging those views.

How else to explain their ongoing sneering—direct and indirect—at the most engaged members of their audience, the sort of people who read newspaper editorials and watch specialist political programs?

The two examples are also a great illustration of how these guys live in a bu…