Bad News

How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy

By: Batya Ungar-Sargon

Narrated by: Batya Ungar-Sargon

Something is wrong with American journalism. Long before “fake news” became the calling card of the Right, Americans had lost faith in their news media. But lately, the feeling that something is off has become impossible to ignore. That’s because the majority of our mainstream news is no longer just liberal; it’s woke. Today’s newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including “antiracism,” intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be?

It all has to do with who our news media is written by—and who it is written for. In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century—from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession. As a result, journalists shifted their focus away from the working class and toward the concerns of their affluent, highly educated peers. With the rise of the Internet and the implosion of local news, America’s elite news media became nationalized and its journalists affluent and ideological. And where once business concerns provided a countervailing force to push back against journalists’ worst tendencies, the pressures of the digital media landscape now align corporate incentives with newsroom crusades.

The truth is, the moral panic around race, encouraged by today’s elite newsrooms, does little more than consolidate the power of liberal elites and protect their economic interests. And in abandoning the working class by creating a culture war around identity, our national media is undermining American democracy. Bad News explains how this happened, why it happened, and the dangers posed by this development if it continues unchecked.

©2021 Batya Ungar-Sargon (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

The News Is Very Bad

The News Is Very Bad but this book tries to point the way back. I give the author credit and respect.

Balanced, informative, and insightful

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I purchased “Bad News”, but I was impressed by the author’s willingness to appear on conservative, mainstream, and liberal media to discuss her book and opinions. “Bad News” is the best book I have read on the historical and current state of the news media in the US. Refreshingly, it is neither a liberal nor conservative polemic. Finally, the author provides terrific advice on how to heal the wounds of division and polarization in our country.

Incredible read!

Thank you Batya for offering your insightful commentary! As a member of the left, your book framed so much of our culture-war discourse in a brand new perspective.

Thoughtful

I could listen to Batya narrate all day - her book is well researched and well argued.

Batya for President!

This woman is remarkable. She hit the nail square on the head regarding identity politics and the issues dividing the country. God bless this woman

Classless Society? Bad News lens reveals classes

I graduated from U. Wisconsin-Madison in 1968 with a mass communications BA. Film was my goal, but being in the Vietnam War era, I enlisted in the Navy to save my skin.

Visiting European cities and not needing a car, I became interested in City planning, so I got an Urban Affairs degree.

Learning from Batya the evolution of national journalism, which differed from the local reporters I dealt with, matched my experience. The emergence of elite media to serve the elites was an easily verifiable insight.

I think the planning profession has the same problem. Unaffordable housing for the past 20+ years is a consequence of 1950s zoning, which had been developed from the early 1900s on for segregation. Redlining was segregating too. Federal home financing excluded Blacks from Levittown-type developments into the 1960s.

Suburban development was far from workplaces, another consequence of zoning, requiring more cars and higher housing costs. This escalation began in the late 1970s when job offshoring began.

The woke college grads of suburbia are that market the digital media serve. No longer racially segregated, it is economic now. It is the same privilege of wokeness the liberal media cover.

The suburbs have outsized political power because they know how to make the system work for them.

That success is proof of merit makes me think of woke liberals as a Secular Puritanism. Like the original Puritans, worldy success was evidence of being among the chosen.

This book is important in explaining the disconnect between the political parties and the working people. Security is the primary purpose of community. That's the conclusion I came to from 35 years as a regional planner.

Batya's recommendations are essentially "community motive," a term used by Aldo Leopold in a 1944 essay. Though not published until the 1990s. It is what managed the profit motive throughout history, the behavior of elders and religions the primary teachers.

Secular elites are often disconnected from that. In this respect, they miss the built-in response option for coping with the depression that failures, small or large, that competitive society delivers.

For more insight listen to "The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life" by Lisa Miller.

Leftists honest analysis, interesting perspective

Surprisingly great read from this unknown to me lady.! I definitely dont agree with everything in here that is her opinion, such as Trump saying racist things over and over but well worth my time! Very well researched, I may buy the hardcopy as well and read it again.Good work!

Tried of the one-sided finger-pointing

A thoughtful and balanced view of our current social and political environment. Unlike many, Ungar-Saron has done the research, providing facts to support her conclusions. I also enjoyed her reading her own work.

Facts about the current state of our Republic.

This is a guide for a better USA, get to downloading already. I'm on the hunt for the next one.

Logical concise

Great history of NY Times - much of this historical perspective has never been brought to anyone’s attention. A very tight sociological framework is presented that is very hard not to agree with. Best perspective I’ve read.