White House
Much of the legacy news media, if not outright dead, are being held aloft by what medical staff would call “heroic measures” to stave off the inevitable. And they have only themselves to blame.Somewhere in the bowels of the CNN Building in Atlanta is a video clip that has been on file since the channel began in 1980. The footage is of a military band performing “Nearer My God To Thee.” The explicit instructions are that this particular tape is not to be released for broadcast “till the end of the world confirmed.”
Morbid perhaps, but Ted Turner can’t be disparaged for thinking of the big picture. His CNN was going on the air with the then-traditional national anthem and would stop for nothing until the apocalypse. This being the dawn of the Eighties it was far easier to imagine the end of history descending with an inevitable conflagration of nuclear holocaust.
Thankfully, those fears abated a little more than a decade later. But the “end of the world tape” still exists, ready to be deployed in circumstances that can not be readily calculated.
CNN might well be broadcasting until the final moments of humankind. But its clout as a prestigious news leader has certainly met its demise. A network that boasted of an audience of millions during the Persian Gulf War is today measured in tens of thousands. It’s not even shown in most airport terminals anymore. CNN is now profusely bleeding staff, particularly in the months since the 2024 election.
CNN and much of the rest of the legacy news media, if not outright dead, are being held aloft by what medical staff would call “heroic measures” to stave off the inevitable. And they have only themselves to blame.
The moment has arrived to vigorously address this.
When the Internet first came into widespread use, it was envisioned that it would bring with it the end of gatekeeping. Never more would the spread of information be controlled by a few “professional” outlets. Every individual could be his own publisher, and even become a live news broadcaster as the technology further evolved.
It has taken more than thirty years, but that time has come. Indeed, it has been with us for a while already. Now at last it is being fully engaged with. When online broadcasters like Joe Rogan command regular audiences in the tens of millions while longstanding network broadcasters struggle to maintain a hundred thousand viewers, there has been a dire sea change that cannot go unacknowledged.
Trump Administration 2.0 has a glorious opportunity before it. And that is to end the mainstream press’s influence as it has come to be known and reviled.
What do outlets such as the New York Times and CNN have besides the weight of their collective history? What have they contributed lately to the great calling of covering the news without favor and letting the chips falls where they may?
<img alt captext="White House” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/its-time-to-cleanse-the-white-house-press-corps.jpg”>Because whatever moral impetus that the legacy media has had is long spent. The calling has been disregarded for sake of ideologically driven “infotainment” that has long propelled an agenda in contention with most of the American people.
No, it is not the end of the world. But it certainly is the end of a paradigm that has persisted for far too long. Such things can be startling, even intimidating. But in the final analysis they are inevitable. It’s assumed that journalists are to be absent of bias. That is an unrealistic expectation. Reporters and editors and news anchors are as human as the rest of us. And whether we like it or not we each bring our agendas to bear upon all that we do.
News reporting is no different. The real trick, however, is to be actively aware of that bias, and to make a conscious and earnest effort to mitigate that factor. In this, the mainstream press in vast part has failed completely. And there must be consequences for that.
Maybe once upon a time there was cordiality, even outright friendliness, if not hearty agreement between the president and the press corps. Some of age might remember the network journalists jovially interacting with Ronald Reagan and he with them. But those days are long gone. The inheritors of that media’s mantle have thoroughly disregarded any respect that their forebears had for the office and its occupant.
There was a sense of ethical duty among the press then. Some essence that propelled them. But there is no such momentum today. The major networks and legacy print media can no longer claim the moral high ground. The past decade and a half have especially shorn off the veneer of objectivity, beneath which is naught but stagnation and mediocrity and bold-faced partisan motives.
The Trump Administration would do well to not only actively acknowledge this, but to take active steps toward adjusting to the new era. There does exist a myriad of new media outlets that can fill the need for responsible journalism that will watch the administration so that the citizens can hold it accountable. Indeed, one might suggest that there are even “opposition” outlets that could be allowed a presence. But they would be honest ones. There is no need to further tolerate those that are disingenuous about their agenda and of their coverage. And that is what The New York Times and ABC and MSNBC and their kind are and have been doing, for much longer than any sensible citizenry should continue to tolerate.
It would be a marvelous moment if, a few days into the new administration, Karoline Leavitt announced to most of the existing press corps that “Your service has been duly noted, however, we have come to the conclusion that your audience sizes do not justify your presence here. Now please turn in your credentials at the door.” And then as they are leaving the room, the incoming next generation of media are escorted inside and shown to their seats. Imagine the long-compromised White House correspondents being made to give way to bloggers who until a few days earlier had been writing from living rooms and coffee shops, now allowed to robustly cover the goings-on in the most powerful executive office on Earth. Maybe American Thinker can have a correspondent posted at the White House.
The establishment media would scream bloody murder. Perhaps its outlets should be given a chance to justify their presence. Submitting a ten-page single-spaced white paper would suffice, to be published on the White House website for public scrutiny. Let the American people decide for themselves if the legacy press has merited having a much-coveted presence in the White House media room.
The podcasters and bloggers such as Joe Rogan may not be unbiased, but they are at least forthright. And that is what the American people and the world at large deserve. The White House press corps should be a vibrant and energetic lot, with each member driven to pursue the truth of the matters at hand with all abandon. They can and should be held accountable by their peers, but especially by the free market.
Can “traditional” news media like CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, and even the supposedly venerable New York Times successfully argue that they have maintained journalistic ethics and integrity in their generations-long coverage? Or is it time to let them be surpassed by otherwise common people who have demonstrated the capacity to respectfully ask hard questions and expect no less than straight and solid answers? Who also, it must be recognized, have vastly larger audiences that appreciates those qualities.
These are questions that it is time to address.
Christopher Knight is a longtime blogger at theknightshift.com. He has also written for The Western Journal and The Federalist. He has recently finished writing his first book.
Image: White House
