KURT SCHLICHTER: The Mainstream Media Chose a Side and Now It’s Paying the Price.

The MSM, of course, wants to have it both ways. It wants to be hailed as an institution composed of crusading truthtellers whose integrity and willingness to speak truth to power make them the cornerstone of a free society. Except most of them are really partisan hacks who lie endlessly for the liberal politicians they suck up to. Their relationship with Democratic politicians is less speaking truth to power than sexting their masters. When it comes to covering for their progressive pals, it’s “50 Shades of Newsprint” and the MSM eagerly chomps down on its ball-gag.

They don’t even bother hiding their agenda – apparently they noticed that no one believed their protestations of objectivity anyway and decided it wasn’t even worth the effort to fake it anymore. Donald Trump says enough dumb stuff on his own, but the MSM still feels it needs to misreport and misrepresent him. When he – quite correctly – suggested that there was something weird about Obama’s inability to place the blame for radical Muslim terrorism on radical Muslim terrorists, this became “Trump Says Obama Supports Terrorists.” When he pointed out some troops (Trump says he was referring to Iraqi troops) in the Middle East were corrupt (sadly, some were), this became “Trump Calls All American Soldiers Thieves.” If Trump says he inhales oxygen, the headline will be “Trump Admits He’s Just Like Hitler.”

But with Hillary or Obama, it’s the reverse. At best, they report on facts that manifestly demonstrate her guilt of multiple felonies and misdemeanors, yet make sure to undercut their own reporting by asserting she can’t possibly be indicted. The media can’t shut up about Trump U, but the $16 million the Bill and Hillary Graftatron 2016 nabbed from Laureate U? Apparently all the news isn’t fit to print.

The MSM is shameless. For example, when some gay Democrat radical Muslim slaughters LGBT clubgoers and then Anderson Cooper attacks the (Republican) Florida attorney general for not being sufficiently open to same sex marriage, it’s pretty clear whose team CNN is on. . . .

Sure, technology is causing disruption in the industry, but the MSM would be better able to weather the storm if everyone didn’t hate it and want to lock it out of the tornado cellar. The MSM has nothing but contempt for us, and now it’s getting it back in kind. Trump being mean to you? Aw, poor babies. Your newspaper going under? Here, hold this anchor.

I don’t worry about the journalists I respect – there will always be a market for quality. It’s the hacks and flunkies I won’t miss. And their misfortune won’t even earn a “Meh.” It’ll earn a smile.

It would be a shame to lose quality independent journalism that told the truth regardless of politics. But you can’t lose what you don’t have, and we don’t have much of that.