Corporate media establishment forsakes truth for narrative
Nothing new, but more examples today
Someone close to me once asked if I write just to get people’s goat.
“Not at all.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Go out of your way to get people’s goat.”
It’s a matter of perspective.
I don’t care if my cultural betters like me or not. I kind of did at one point until I realized these people ruin my life every single day—often by their mere existence.
My mission in life is not to live up to an absurd and evil secular standard that champions every little thing the left wing of society trots out there.
I care about objective moral standards of truth and decency.
How someone else’s “feelings” are impacted is not in any way a concern of mine.
Evil does exist in this world.
Yet our corporate media—far from being enemies of evil or champions for truth & justice—is wholly compromised in today’s culture. The media today loves for Americans to feed on the slop they give us. Most people line up at the trough.
“Good” Americans and “responsible” citizens of the world think nothing of falling in lockstep with the current global warming fear-mongers, for instance. Yvon Chouinard’s recent move to “give away” his company, Patagonia, to “fight climate crisis” is seen as heroic, though it is not clear—other than within the melioristic do-gooder class in which he exists—that there is a crisis at all.
I have nothing against Chouinard personally. I had beers with the guy years ago and found him to be a nice fellow. His view of the world and his politics are just misguided. It is completely normal for someone wrapped up in a leftist cocoon to act in such a way.
More examples?
Who really questions the official narrative of the war currently going on in Ukraine? Maybe it’s not “Joe Biden good” and “Bad Vlad Putin bad.” Perhaps a little more nuance in one’s thinking could indeed help?
How about the grand scale of cowardice that was exposed when the “covid” regime took over in March of 2020. Even though I knew most of what they had us all doing was bogus from the start, I freely admit I didn’t do enough to stand up to the regime at the beginning. Understandably, it is still hard for most folks to realize they were duped by the whole thing, even to this day.
The American public also has no issue defending its utterly corrupt regime in Washington and the ruling class who has free license to ruin your life. We’re told we can vote them out if we don’t like them, I guess. This misses the point entirely.
The list goes on… and on… and on.
Today, though, a minor scandal involving Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre got dusted-off. It is a story that re-emerged on a day where a popular basketball coach, Ime Udoka of the Boston Celtics, also got in some hot water for an alleged affair carried out with a member of the Celtics organization.
The sports media is many things, notably dumb and cowardly. The corporate sports press rarely does reporting that could be called “hard journalism.” Almost to a man—or woman—they abandon a story when the truth starts competing with the grand narrative it has concocted.
Journalism is “storytelling,” after all.
Racism is always a good fallback when and if the narrative starts to crumble.
Thus, the case today with two seemingly unrelated stories. One about Favre’s relationship with the Mississippi state government, a volleyball stadium, and a welfare fund. The other about Udoka’s dalliance with someone who wasn’t the star actress mother of his own two children.
Neither are particularly bright guys, let’s be honest. I don’t have a relationship with either fellow, but I know people who do.
But both are or were very good at their craft. Favre in quarterbacking. Udoka in coaching basketball (and hitting the corner 3).
As for Favre, The New York Times says about a proposed $1.1 million that Favre purportedly had funneled through him to build a volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi:
“Far more than that payment has been exposed in a billowing scandal that has stretched considerably beyond Mr. Favre. A motley assortment of political appointees, former football stars, onetime professional wrestlers, business figures and various friends of the state’s former Republican governor all stand accused of pocketing or misusing money earmarked for needy families.”
The Times continued:
“None of the three have been charged with crimes and all have denied wrongdoing. But even the most cynical observers in Mississippi have been dumbfounded by the brazenness of the activity in the allegations and how deeply it reflected the inequities baked into the history of a state with the nation’s highest poverty rate.”
If you know anything about Mississippi politics—and you should because we briefly wrote about it back in August …
… then you should know that these kinds of shenanigans are nothing out of the ordinary. Heck, “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase is involved, as is one of my former heroes (at least as a football player), Marcus Dupree. I am more surprised when a scandal does NOT touch a famous person in Mississippi.
Keep your head on a swivel, Coach Prime.
Yet we’re led to believe today that it is “racist” to call attention to Udoka’s actions maybe because we don’t know all the details. But with Favre, as long as he is the white, hick, Southron, that on the surface looks fairly “conservative,” a persona that the public already knows about, then he is fair game—no matter how messed up the media gets the facts.
I don’t know if Favre was complicit in fraud or anything “illegal”—I kind of doubt it based on what I know of the case. But I do know the “optics” are pretty bad for the ol’ gunslinger.
Same with Udoka. I have no idea what is going on in his private life—don’t care either—but it is a rush to judgment for all the regular Association “newsbreakers” to craft a narrative to be gobbled up by the masses on an otherwise slow news day it seems.
I, for one, would like to see the Udoka story disappear entirely simply for the fact that I see it as an achievement that someone who I competed against in basketball as a youngster is now extraordinarily successful in the field. That’s my bias shining through.
Yet that’s not good enough for people like loudmouth morning sports host Stephen A. Smith who knows “there’s plenty of white folks out there doing their thing. I don’t see the information out about them.”
Thus, afraid of A. Smith and his band of flying monkeys, the cowardly media—instead of addressing this claim—moves on to an easier target: Favre.
Yet, the Favre story has been marinating for at least two years and loudmouths on Twitter and elsewhere have been repeating the regular corporate media talking points over the last several days anyway.
But columnist Jason Whitlock has questions even when it comes to the Udoka issue:
“Why are we hearing this? Stephen A. Smith is asking that question as it relates to Ime Udoka. Easy answer. If Boston doesn't expose it, they get accused of racism, same as BYU. Everyone goes with the trope of how racist Boston is.”
It’s as if the sports media doesn’t have racism to fall back on, they have no news. No news, no job.
Thus, racism rules the day, even when and where it clearly does not exist. Look no further than Duke – BYU volleyball.
It is a sad state in today’s corporate media.
Oh by the way, the courageous New York Times reports that the “volleyball stadium was not actually part of the lawsuit,” and that “Mr. Favre has repaid the state $1.1 million — though the state auditor has said he still owes $228,000 in interest.”
Oops.
This is an insane story.
What was—and still remains—more insane however is the Penn State – Paterno case that created a media firestorm in November of 2011. In this one, the corporate media got nothing right and ruined many people’s lives and reputations.
In yesterday’s podcast with John Ziegler, we dive into the case again. John was with us for Episode 77 of Sportlanders the Podcast.
You can find yesterday's podcast, its show notes, and the link to Ep 77 of Sportlanders here:
Brian O’Leary