River News: Our View

So there we were one day recently, sitting around with the The Wall Street Journal in our laps, wondering whether to actually read it. For a long time, The Wall Street Journal survived in our minds as a reputable — at least a more reputable — corporate media newspaper.

Oh sure, we knew its reporters were whacked-out leftists just like every other mainstream media rag. At least there were the editorial pages, which fairly rocked. You could count on Kim Strassel to give the establishment the middle finger, and the editorial board, while no fan of Donald Trump, realized his policies actually made America’s economy better again.

But then Joe Biden got elected and the neoconservatives jumped on board the Ukraine train for war, war, war, and things began to change. Suddenly, overnight, the Journal was warmongering in every editorial sentence, and even Strassel quit giving the establishment the middle finger.

Trump got it instead.

Still, there was a certain respect for journalistic rules and parameters and ethics. There was a decorum, meaning even the accused were treated as innocent until proven guilty. In other words, ask tough questions and don’t mince words, but be fair, and, above all, don’t print wild speculations that double as thinly veiled and often libelous accusations.

That’s what just about everybody on social media was doing. Over there, everybody had gone nuts — saying anything they wanted about anybody they wanted to slur, with nobody paying any attention to facts. What began as Trump Derangement Syndrome soon became We’re-All-Deranged Syndrome.

But, with newspapers like The Wall Street Journal leading the way, there was, deep down, a feeling that maybe, just maybe, social media would become more like traditional newspapers. Maybe they would quit the unsupported distribution of unsourced or anonymous propaganda — most of it spread by the government —  and maybe social media platforms would take responsibility for the content they allowed others to post on their sites.

And maybe, just maybe, Congress would step in and ensure both free speech and accountability, you know, just like libel laws hold newspapers and other traditional publishers accountable.

We yearned for the days when high standards would return, like those The Wall Street Journal followed.

Of course the pandemic came along and things went the other way, from bad to worse. The social media platforms shot down respectable scientists, and dissidents who tried to ask questions about public health and vaccines were deplatformed. The Biden administration put in place a massive censorship regime, and Congress, far from assuring more free speech, threatened platforms with punitive action if they didn’t censor more than they were already doing.

Hysteria and defamation grew.

Along with all this, major newspapers threw caution to the wind, becoming more and more like their social media counterparts rather than the other way around as they lost readership and popularity. They began to take down anyone in their way, sometimes friends as well as foes, with absolutely no accountability and no thought as to their recklessness. 

It wasn’t just labeling people politically — those who engage in political warfare invite categorization — it was the space of personal libel and slander that journalism had once refused to invade.

Suddenly people were accused of being murderers without any evidence. They were accused of being pedophiles. And abusers. Some observers have called the last decade the Golden Age of Defamation.

It’s a vicious circle, of course. Newspapers become more desperate the more unpopular they are, and they are ever more unpopular as they lose more and more credibility.

The New York Times has long been an example of this kind of reckless journalism. Earlier this month, it showed its colors once again when it published a piece in which it decided, in a 5,000-word missive, to speculate about Taylor Swift’s sexuality, opining that she just might be lesbian or bisexual — all without a shred of actual evidence.

The piece by Anna Marks explored what apparently are hidden clues in Swift’s lyrics, not to mention all those rainbow colors she uses in her shows: “What if the ‘Lover Era’ was merely Ms. Swift’s attempt to douse her work — and herself — in rainbows, as so many baby queers feel compelled to do as they come out to the world?”

Compelled to do? How’s that for an attack not only on Swift but on the entire LGBTQ community from a supposedly progressive newspaper.

Well here’s another clue for you all: Progressives aren’t really progressive anymore, at least in the sense of the old term, which meant, among other things, standing for equal rights for women, tolerance, free speech, and civil rights.

The kind of attack Marks launched on Swift is in no sense tolerant; it’s an insinuation that Swift is oppressed, partially hemmed in by her own self-imposed constraints as well as the larger patriarchal society, and not permitted to “come out.” 

Funny thing is, just prior to Christmas the left-wing outfit known as Media Matters had just proclaimed that “right-wing” media had been going after Swift all year, calling her a “fake Christian, a Democratic agent, and possibly a witch.” Well, now, according to The New York Times, she’s also likely a closeted queer. Maybe they were trying to be inclusive.

As we understand it, Taylor Swift is a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community but has denied being part of it, and the Swift camp, ahem, swiftly denounced the piece, as a source close to the singer-songwriter told multiple media outlets: “There seems to be no boundary some journalists won’t cross when writing about Taylor, regardless of how invasive, untrue, and inappropriate it is — all under the protective veil of an ‘opinion piece.’”

To be sure, various lyrics, colors, and even dropped hairpins offer no more evidence of “guilt” — and that seems to be The Times’s message, that she is guilty of something — than does a body without a murder weapon. They simply could be statements of support, if in fact they are clues at all.

The point is, does anybody really care? There’s no “there” there in the column, except for capitalizing (excuse us, collectivizing) on Ms. Swift’s current status a cultural god, and its publication was to create social-media styled clicks. It had nothing to do with journalism.

And so, as we read all that, we had to ask ourselves, had the entire media world imploded to the point that even friendly celebrities are subjected to the most vile forms of pseudo-journalism?

Mostly, we concluded. Except at least, there was still The Wall Street Journal.

Or so we thought.

And then the other day, right on the front page, there was a front page story in The Journal basically accusing Elon Musk of being a criminally crazed drug addict — all without any evidence.

In the article, The Journal alleged that, among other things, Musk used “LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.”

Ah, the sources are anonymous people who have witnessed his drug use or are “people with knowledge of it.” 

What does that last phrase — people with knowledge of it — even mean? Oh yeah, I heard that Joe Conservative beats his dogs and shoots cats, so I have knowledge of it. As we once reported, a state official once launched a bogus investigation into the alleged illegal killing of eagles after he overheard gossip from strangers in a cafe. Does that constitute knowledge of it?

In other words, these people didn’t see Mr. Musk use drugs and they didn’t attend the parties, they were just told about them, and that gossip was enough to base a front-page story on.

There was more: “In 2018, for example, he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles. The next year he partied on magic mushrooms at an event in Mexico. In 2021, he took ketamine recreationally with his brother, Kimbal Musk, in Miami at a house party during Art Basel.”

Somehow the article left out the evidence to support such claims. Indeed, all through the piece, the article offered up not one single source to validate its allegations.

True, Musk did smoke marijuana on the Joe Rogan show, but that’s a far leap from being accused of felony drug use. And critics were quick to point out that the reporters, besides lacking named sources or other evidence, stitched together years-old gossip and then bundled that with prescription drug use to come up with their story.

As Alex Berenson points out, too, while the article does point to “specific instances in which Musk supposedly used LSD and magic mushrooms” it offers no dates, no times, and no specificity at all over his alleged use of cocaine, the club drug MDMA, and ecstasy.

Bottom line, Berenson wrote: “[T]he Journal is reckless beyond belief in claiming that his public behavior shows he is using psychedelics or any other drugs.”

Musk himself pointed to a post showing the massive decline in newspaper advertising revenue — from $49.3 billion in 2006 to $9.7 billion in 2022 — as an explanation why newspapers like The Wall Street Journal “are so desperate that they will torch their integrity.”

Torch their integrity is right. We have reached a point where the corporate media has completely abandoned journalistic standards. What you get are Swiftie and Muskie substitutes — they taste good going down but too much consumption could kill you, like too many doughnuts, or your liberties.

Not that there aren’t reasons for the attacks. Likely as not, progressives are miffed because they are convinced Swift is in fact part of the LGBTQ community and are angry that she has denied it. As for Musk, well, we know why the establishment is after him — as one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, he poses an existential threat to globalism and censorship and is a beacon of hope to those who hold out hope for liberty.

That these media outlets can get away with it speaks to the lack of standards and coincides with the wholesale eradication of standards across the cultural spectrum in the modern progressive era. 

Meritocracy has given way to diversity, equity, and inclusion advancement — which is why we end up with people like Claudine Gay leading Harvard with just 11 published texts, many of them apparently plagiarized. It’s why vaccines are approved these days after a few tests on mice, and offered up to the public on a wing and a prayer. It’s why manufactured things just don’t last the way they used to.

There are no standards anymore.

It’s all the result of the subtle but very real triumph of leftist ideology. In the ideal progressive and collective world, no one stands out and everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominator. That can only happen if you destroy standards.

And everyone must conform to your expected cultural role — or else. This attitude long ago captured the corporate world and most media. Apparently it has even taken up residence in institutions like The Wall Street Journal.

That’s the ultimate red flag. It’s later than we think, and the outlook isn’t pretty. Maybe that’s why Taylor Swift hides in her closet, and Elon Musk spends his days doing nothing but doping up.