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Do they? What's the evidence that they're aware of the fact that this kind of thing would hurt their credibility? I remember as far back as 2016 during Trump's first campaign, I was among a tiny minority of Democrats complaining that there are more than enough honest ways to criticize and denigrate Trump, and that constantly reaching for hyperbole or even just lies would only hurt our ability to make any criticisms of him and other politicians in the future. We were shut down for "tone policing" or just ignored, and, sure enough, over the following 4 years of his presidency and continuing for 4 years after that, we've seen the trust in media keep going down. And the explanation for this has always been adding more epicycles about disinformation, Russian propaganda, low-information voters, and the like, instead of just owning up to the fact that when you don't speak credibly, your credibility declines in the eyes of the audience. At some point, when someone just keeps making the same obvious mistake over and over again that harms them, one has to conclude that, somehow, that mistake isn't that obvious or even understood by the person.
I also have to wonder if there's an evaporative cooling going on, where journalists who could recognize the constant self-destructive behavior of self-inflicted injuries to credibility that much of mainstream media engages in quit and did their own thing, and thus the ones remaining are only the most deluded ones.
I think there's a phenomenon where, once an industry goes left, it goes all the way left. In the 1970s something like 40% of journalists were Republicans. Today it is like 4%.
Somewhere along the line, a tipping point got crossed where it becomes almost impossible to be right of center in a newsroom due to social pressure.
We've seen the same thing happen in academia and primary school teaching as well. A tipping point is reached, the institutions become explicit left-wing organs, and they lose public trust.
It's unclear how this process can reverse. We probably need to defund and replace the institutions. X is doing a great job of doing that for journalists.
Well, I know there's some sort of "law" some political commentator coined, that says that any organization that's not explicitly right wing eventually becomes left wing. There are certainly enough examples that calling it a "law" doesn't seem obviously ridiculous.
The part I don't understand quite so well is why it happens to such an extreme extent like that 40% - 4% shift you say happened in journalism. From a purely cynical, selfish perspective, knowing the opposition better allows one to defeat them better - there's even a cliche saying, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," that alludes to this. So if I'm cynically running a left-wing organization in order to crush the right-wing, then I'm going to want to populate it with at least enough right-wingers that we can learn from. From a good faith perspective of wanting to make the world a better place through leftist values and policies, it's obvious that blind spots develop when you're surrounded by people with similar values and beliefs. So if I'm a bright-eyed idealist running a left-wing organization in order to improve the world, then I'm going to want to populate it with at least enough right-wingers to provide real, substantive criticism of the weaknesses and pitfalls of our values that I and people who agree with me can't recognize.
Which leads me to conclude that there are no real adults in the room, and everyone's just cynically aiming for the betterment of their own careers and status among peers, and if that results in their organization becoming ineffective or evil, then, well, hopefully that'll be after they've retired and the younger generations can deal with that.
This is the thought I had from seeing a related phenomenon in the field of entertainment, where over the past couple years, we've seen companies burn 8-10 figures in producing works like the films Indiana Jones 5 or The Marvels, TV shows Rings of Power or The Acolyte, video games Concord, Star Wars: Outlaws, or Unknown 9: Awakening. I would have expected that the cynical selfish greedy decisionmakers at the top would have put a stop to it before all that money was sunk. But, well, it's not like it's their money - it's their investors' money - and even if they were to get fired, they at least gained status among their peers by greenlighting such things. That's the best I've come up with.
Conquest's Law(s): https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/conquests-laws-john-derbyshire/
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Sure, but there's two things working against you. First is the reason that many people who genuinely want to be thin are nevertheless fat: lack of will power to not do what feels good in the moment. You may recognize fully that you need some conservatives on staff, and go out and recruit them, and nonetheless find that you simply don't have the will power to stand up for them when they (and you by proxy) are attacked by your allies, or even to grant them with a similar level of respect and authority that you would give to your allies. So, they end up leaving for less hostile environments, as would be totally expected.
The other is the principal-agent problem. You may want conservative on your staff, you may even be a conservative yourself, but if enough of your staff are willing to actually torpedo your organization and are credibly able to do so, you may find that your hand is forced and that your only options are a completely left organization or none at all. In this sense, the left engages in some union-adjacent workplace activity to effectively force a closed shop. Once you're in this situation, it's going to be very difficult to get out without replacing almost your entire staff and also countering their efforts at sabotage in the process, a difficult task even before we consider the effects of solidarity from other left media institutions.
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