Every now and then you read about a recall of bad food. Some company’s product is discovered with botulism, contamination, rotted stuff canned or packaged. The company throws out all their stuff, cleans and purifies their plants, submits to state inspection and clean bills of health.  All the markets that bought the stuff purge their shelves and trash it.

              That’s how you keep consumer confidence that what you’re selling isn’t poison garbage.

              Except where it comes to news. The information industry is rightfully protected by the 1^st Amendment. Subject to defamation limits, an information provider is free to write whatever he wants. We the people are also free to choose what source to buy from. Increasingly we’re choosing not to buy.

              Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event? | The New Yorker So writes Clare Malone in a widely discussed article in the New Yorker Magazine.

              “Publishers, brace yourselves—it’s going to be a wild ride,” Matthew Goldstein, a media consultant, wrote in a January newsletter. “I see a potential extinction-level event in the future.” Malone details famous brands from the NYT to Gawker’s layoffs, shrinkage, and outright closure. Our familiar information stores—the A&Ps and Krogers of News– are fast joining the dinosaurs. Reasons given: internet, stupid public.  But noticeably missing? For too long, the News Stores just sold bad chicken.

               “What are you TALKING ABOUT?!?”  

OK: here ya go: Recently Donald Trump—the guy they all hate—gave a speech in Vandalia, Ohio attacking Biden’s policy toward the auto industry, particularly coming competition from China.

              “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole, that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not gonna sell those cars.” Bloodbath refers to the economic impact of PRC competition on the industry.

              WHOOP! WHOOP! HAIR-ON-FIRE! “Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer accused Trump of doubling “down on his threats of political violence.” The memo went out: CNN, Reuters, CBS, NYT,  Yahoo, Politico, ABC, WAPO, MSNBC, LATimes, all followed suit. After a few days of pushing bad chicken, the News Stores moved on. No shame, just “here, we got more!”

              How about the Hamas Gaza War? The frankly anti-Israel media pushes the wildest tales of Palestinian casualties and Jewish perfidy, from the thinnest of sources. Remember last October? Israel supposedly bombed a hospital and killed hundreds of people?

              Hundreds likely dead in Gaza hospital blast, as Israeli blockade cripples medical response | CNN

“Palestinian officials say hundreds were killed by a massive blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, as humanitarian concerns mount over Israel’s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave’s population. Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed Tuesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. Many victims are still under the rubble.”

              First off: “Palestinian Health Ministry? That’s HAMAS, you fools! It’s like quoting ‘German Health Department’ in 1943. Second, the “massive blast” was an Islamic Jihad rocket that went off in the parking lot. It didn’t even touch the hospital. The Media bandwagon that rushed to megaphone Hamas’ lies? Not a peep of retraction. Pounds of contaminated food sold—buyer beware!

              Finally, remember the Trump-Russia Collusion? How could you forget it? Everyone was pushing those Chicken Wings for years. The Durham durhamreport.pdf (justice.gov) by special Prosecutor John Durham detailed how the whole mess began as Clinton campaign operation and snowballed into federal law enforcement malfeasance. Trump was innocent. But after years of selling rotted, botulism-laced product, has any one media source from the New York Times on down admitted error? Nope.

              Like “Love Story,” selling news means never having to say you’re sorry. Just off to the next day’s shrieking. But after decade after unrepentant decade of selling bad chicken, enough customers are wising up. Poll after poll shows public trust in media in free fall. Information-sellers are relentlessly shedding viewers and subscribers. Now the Extinction-Level Event is openly predicted.

              Unlike the original dinosaurs, the Newsies have only themselves and their bad chicken to blame.