American Media Has Fallen
Narcissist Media vs. Honest Media - Part II
In Narcissist Media vs. Honest Media - Part I, there was an important purpose in sharing how I grew up around my grandfather and uncle being passionate journalists, that I spent a fair amount of my formative years at their small newspaper at “the office,” and that my International Relations education required me to “read between the lines,” and to find accurate, unbiased and thorough investigative journalism.
The primary reason for noting these personal connections is to relay that I am not someone who would attack the American free press or any serious journalists lightly. In fact, I often found myself defending a fair amount of the mainstream media until around mid-trump trauma war 1, so it still goes against my natural inclinations to sound like I’m agreeing with those who have attacked honest reporting as “fake news” by saying something as extreme as, the American media has fallen.
To further expound upon CNI philosophy that clearly distinguishes between the opposing sides of narcissist media and honest media, given the current state and behaviors in American politics, it seems impossible not to conclude that most major and mid-level news outlets are now owned or controlled by entitled and/or malignant-type narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths predictably only serving their own personal interests.
Since these wannabe oligarchs have pathologically shown us they have zero concern for us non-billionaires or even preserving our democracy, they are telling us that if we want to keep America and ourselves free, we must finally start to seriously, forcefully and strategically fight for it, or it’s likely game over for a generation or more, because they want it all.
To start with the fundamentals of keeping freedom alive, it is now up to us as content creators with integrity and consumers desiring accurate information to pick up the baton in providing honest public-interest journalism, sharing more psychological education and finding financial support for such efforts, or else. Ergo, please support all worthy independent sources of good information like CNI to help America and everyone around the globe become better informed and hopefully more free.
Obviously on practical levels, having accurate information is the only way to know what’s really going on around us, in the world, and is essential in not becoming brainwashed by the propaganda of our enemies, misguided true believers, antisocial villains, or their useful narcissistic idiots all trying to manipulate us for the wealth, power and control they pathologically crave to soothe their easily triggered fears, insecurities and low self-esteem.
Underlying narcissist psychology
Indeed it is standard self-serving narcissist behavior to compulsively try to do everything in their power to weaken, discredit and/or capture as many information outlets and all other levers of power as they can, because the truth and popular sentiment are rarely on their side, once the pathologically selfish person they truly are is publicly revealed.
Most do seem to at least subconsciously know that if enough people really understand their disorder’s pathology, they would not get away with as much bad behavior, and they will be recognized as psychologically unfit for any job that requires them to put the interests of others above their own.
Maintaining their “mask of sanity” is also a key motivator behind malignant-types trying to desensitize society at large, such as condemning normal human emotions like empathy and sympathy, or by constantly showing trauma porn on their news outlets to keep viewers narcissistically gaslit and fear-focused.
Cheat Code: The more families, groups, organizations and societies become narcissistic, unempathetic and insensitive, the easier it is for the compulsively selfish, antisocial and cruel to “fit in” and appear “normal” in their midst, so they instinctively try to trigger these kinds of negative emotions and reactions as cover.
Another tell of a human without sympathy, shame or a conscience is they will portray such emotions as “weaknesses” the “strong” like them don’t have. That lack of humanity is used to justify their cruelty narcissistic abuse, by calling it “strength.”
Of course if malignant narcissists are allowed to keep lying and doubling down without challenge or follow-up questions from the media (looking at you CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash), they will keep going down their mutually destructive dark selfish paths forever, and will take all innocents the can with them.
Having the truth as a lifetime enemy is why narcissists lie like breathing, and this is also why they will lie, cheat and steal to control their public and private narratives. Given the choice between exposure vs. lying, cheating and stealing, which path do you think most dishonest egomaniacs will choose?
Remember, predatory abuser Roger Ailes created Fox News to counter mainstream media’s factual news that told the truth about Republicans like the Washington Post did to his former boss Richard Nixon, forcing him to resign the Presidency. In hindsight, Fox News was a Trojan horse let into America by Reagan’s removal of the Fairness Doctrine in order to destroy primary protectors of our democracy from authoritarian control.
A few decades later, the GOP’s owners appear to have succeeded in rendering the former Crown Jewels of our legacy media inert at best, captured and flipped to evil at worst, and also seems to have the remainder of the “free press” teetering on a knife’s edge, fighting for survival.
The narcissistic capture of honest media is so vast and widespread that now everyone with even a moderate subscribership who writes with integrity is now a crucial part of saving America’s free press, journalistic traditions and democracy itself.
Crossing the Rubicon
Sometime after I crossed the Rubicon of acknowledging that most negative behaviors of corrupt politicians, judges and government employees (and the oligarchs who buy them) always seem to perfectly align with the traits, tells and symptoms of the psychological personality disorders related to narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, it became increasingly impossible to ignore the fact that almost all of my favorite journalists, media personalities and politicians kept revealing that they really had no understanding of the psychology, or how the Republican Party’s every word and action seemed to perfectly align with the traits of malignant-types of narcissism.
After all these years of trump’s grandiose malignancy, one would think it should all be obvious to anyone as well informed as a good journalist, but instead there are still so few who can or will articulate any psychology other than to declare, “I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t speak to that.”
Really? It seemed so 10 out of 10 obvious when I rated trump with the Mayo Clinic’s symptoms of NPD in 2019. Am I missing something?
In the early times of politician trump, I could understand most media figures’ reluctance and inability to discuss his psychological dysfunctions because they didn’t know of the empirical science. However, almost a decade later it seems even more shocking how many in the media still can’t or won’t speak usefully about the underlying psychology that provides an explanation to the roots of all evil.
Just a few days ago, we saw the seemingly tough, smart and honest journalist Jim Acosta say farewell to his prime spot on CNN. What a strange coincidence that a right-wing billionaire with connections to trump bought controlling interest a few years ago and ever since their more honest, hard-hitting reporters have either been let go, forced to play ball or relegated to reduced roles. However, as great as Acosta is, his farewell revealed that he still has not made the necessary psychological connections.
Honestly, I was a bit shocked that he does not see that most large-scale free press has already crumbled and I was quite disappointed that he was putting the responsibility on “We the People” to save something that has already fallen.
As has been stated previously in CNI, yes it is up to “We the People” as the last line of defense to save our free press and democracy, but we are in this situation because of the near total collapse of our honest investigative media, while good investigative journalist Acosta is still essentially claiming it’s solid.
Additionally, he should know the free press is not something “We the People” can easily save right now because most of it has already been captured by powerful forces who only submit to strength or fear, and the only media narcissist trump and his cabal will protect are those who flatter and support them. So newsflash Acosta, almost all the major free press has already crumbled.
Acosta is right that “We the People” are the last line of defense to save our free press, but to say it will only crumble if we allow it is well past midnight bs. Narcissist millionaires and billionaires and their dark forces have legalized most of their dystopian, anti-democratic, self-serving dark fantasies over decades by funding their wholly owned subsidiary, cut-throat legal firm and conscienceless lobbying group, also known as the Republican Party, in name only.
How does Acosta not see that most of American legacy media is currently dead or dying because the once proud and protective private guardrails of the American media such as The Washington Post, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, The L.A. Times, Axios, Facebook, Threads, Twitter, his own home CNN, and most others have been seemingly captured, destroyed, or completely toxified by a narcissist, or a cabal of them.
Once again, the most likely explanation is that like so many other smart journalists, Acosta has little to no understanding of narcissists and how they compulsively try to control everything, which has led this smart person to wrong conclusions.
Key Takeaways
As the above indicates, your most important takeaways are:
Most honest American media has fallen after being captured by malignant-types of narcissists.
From a CNI perspective, “corporate media” should be called “narcissist media” instead, because their leaders have been acting far more like malignant narcissists than merely greedy narcissistic CEOs.
One must know with certainty that a predictable part of all narcissistic disorders is that they instinctively crave controlling all information about themselves, anyone they prey on, and all those who could have power over them, because the complete truth is rarely on their side, so they know they must create alternative facts to justify themselves.
The vast majority of even the best journalists and experts are completely in the dark about narcissist psychology, and thus have unwittingly contributed to American media’s fall to the dark side.
Indeed it needs to be known by everyone around the world and especially honest journalists that when someone puts out or demands self-serving propaganda and/or repetitive solutionless trauma porn, that is powerful circumstantial evidence that strongly indicates you are looking at some form of malignant-type narcissist trying to manipulate the public for their own benefit, or they are giving a perfect impression of someone trying to do so.
Either way, narcissist media and those wittingly or unwittingly serving them must be forcefully called out, countered and educated if possible, because there is no difference in the short, medium, or long-term psychological damage done to our free societies, when “the news” reported serves as grooming for the same selfish, oligarchic and authoritarian worldview that all malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths always seem to crave and end up on.
In Part III coming soon, we will continue to go down the narcissist media rabbit hole and begin to explore solutions.
And now the lies, gaslighting about the Inauguration. For me the wake-up call was 8 yrs when Spicer had to go before the journalists and public and reinterpret the photos of the Mall. The insanity of watching someone describe more people than were actually present had me thinking twilight zone experience. Now we’re off where a President is so confident that he releases his own cryptocurrency on the eve of his inauguration and so monetizes his office from the get go. If the press doesn’t hammer this then it is another example of its failure. I’ve cancelled the WP. Maybe I’ll pick up the Boston Globe. So far MSNBC ( unlike CNN) is still hanging in there.
I had an inkiing that the Fourth Estate was in trouble and risking failure when I watched CNN constantly running "informative" stories like Conan the Giant Lobster, but at the time excused it as a new news format trying to find ways to fill lots of airtime.
A few years later the husband recommended reading Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and in the decades since I've slowly learned just how prescient he was.
The last straw for me was in 2015,when I watched the now infamous Morning Joe laud Trump and call him Friend of the Show, giving him free air time to spread his fabulisms, and give little time to any other candidate that might have half a clue how government actually works.
Since then I've sought out more foreign news, which still can report actual news depending on the outlet, and indie journalists, and just being in conversation with regular people.
Last year, as the corporate media obsessed about Biden's age, while ignoring obvious dementia in old man Trump, I finally had enough. I cut off the last connection I had to corporate media.
After reading you for some while, I now wonder how many presenters of supposed news themselves have personality disorders, and how many are just regular people who got poisoned by the allure of money and fame. It's an easy trap to fall into.