MSNBC's name change won't help. MS NOW will still peddle the same liberal lies.
When I saw that MSNBC is changing its name to MS NOW, which stands for My Source News Opinion World, I had to chuckle.
The new acronym is the product of a divorce from NBC, but no amount of alimony can save the news network from its leftist bias. It might have a new name soon, but it will still be the same nonsense.
I'm not the only one to see the mainstream media's penchant for obfuscation and gaslighting. "Real Time" host Bill Maher recently made some profound remarks about the media that reinforce what I've seen for years.
During his Aug. 15 show on HBO, Maher spoke with a panel of guests about President Donald Trump's meeting earlier that day with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Maher ticked off positive things about Trump, like how effective tariffs have been and how anti-war Trump is.
Maher scolds news media about 'zombie lie'
Then Maher scolded the media: "But again, let's not have the 'zombie lie' that (Trump) is still backing Putin. Because first of all, he bombed Iran, that was a Putin ally. He didn't get out of NATO. He mended fences with NATO. So, and he put sanctions back on Russia, so, ya know."
One of his panelists, County Highway editor-at-large Walter Kirn, remarked, "You're really coming around Bill."
"There's no coming around. There's just what's true," Maher said.
A zombie lie has been defined as a falsehood that has been repeatedly debunked or proven false, yet continues to be believed and spread, influencing people's thoughts and actions.
I can think of several zombie lies that the mainstream media have perpetuated about Trump and conservativism. Take the latest peace talks over Russia's war against Ukraine. Trump didn't persuade Putin on Aug. 15 to agree to a ceasefire, so the meeting was immediately dubbed a failure.
Three days later, however, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders to continue discussing how to end a war that has raged for more than three years and that has killed and injured nearly a million for the Russian military and 400,000 for Ukraine.
Coverage out of the Aug. 18 meeting was much more positive. So, was Trump's summit with Putin really a failure or was the news media's rush to judgment driven by bias against the president?
And has the news media learned nothing from a decade of covering Trump as a political figure? I'd wait before smearing Trump's style of negotiations based on, oh, I don't know, the positive success of the past four months of trade deals and tariffs, but that's me.
The 2024 election is another obvious example. In hindsight, we can see that Trump consistently led the presidential race, but thanks to inaccurate polls and partisan news sources who suggested he was behind, the country was flabbergasted when Trump won reelection easily.
Trump won all the swing states, the popular vote and the Electoral College, but the tsunami caught the media by surprise because they were so committed to attacking Trump and promoting Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Zombie lies have had serious consequences for the American people and for our nation's image in the world. A Pew Research Center poll released in June found that America's image had declined among dozens of nations amid "low confidence in Trump."
Trump's successes have been underreported
That poll was published just days before Trump ordered stealth bombers to cripple Iran's nuclear sites, ending the threat of widespread war in the Middle East.
Trump also is attempting to broker peace between Israel and Hamas as well as Ukraine and Russia. He forced NATO allies to pay for more of their self-defense. And he's helped negotiate an end to lower profile conflicts involving India and Pakistan and Cambodia and Thailand.
On the domestic side, Trump has secured the southern border, the economy is doing better than many expected, stock markets continue to set record highs and in the second quarter, gross domestic product showed healthy growth.
Trump has made more progress in seven months than President Joe Biden did in four years. But most news coverage doesn't reflect that reality. And that is why Maher is scolding the media for telling zombie lies.
It's also why a name change won't help MSNBC. The network could rebrand 100 times and still not be any more relevant or truthful. Until the zombie lies are finally put to rest, Americans will be fed a skewed perception of what's actually happening.
As Maher said, "There's no coming around. There's just what's true." Hear that MS NOW?
Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.
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