This is why Palmer Report has to exist

I’ve half jokingly said many times over the years that if the mainstream political media would ever start doing its job correctly, there would be no need for Palmer Report and I could be at the beach right now. I do think that Palmer Report’s increasingly savvy audience has managed to force the media to become more honest in some key ways. But for every step forward there’s another step back, as evidenced by the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times deciding at the last minute not to endorse a candidate in this election.

By now you likely know the story. Both newspapers were preparing to endorse Kamala Harris, but in each instance the billionaire owner stepped in and blocked it. This has been widely interpreted as the owners wanting Trump to win, or fearing retaliation if Trump wins. I think this is incorrect and I have a very different view. This tells me that these billionaire newspaper owners fully expect Kamala to win, and are doing this out of some egomaniacal attempt at not looking beholden to her once she becomes President. I think this is a lot worse than cowardice, where you at least just can’t seem to force yourself to do the right thing. This is opportunism, where you freely do the wrong thing for personal gain.

Of course this is backfiring in the form of widespread cancellations of subscriptions, as evidenced by the endless stream of social media posts announcing such cancellations. There is also widespread public backlash from employees of these newspapers, resignations, and an insane amount of overall bad press. Whatever these newspaper owners think they’re accomplishing in terms of street cred, suffice it to say that whatever smarts they used to become wealthy aren’t the same kind of smarts required to understand how a media outlet succeeds.

But even as these billionaire newspaper owners / idiots lick their wounds and try to figure out why their expectations for such a stunt didn’t match up with reality, they’re not the only problem. Even before wealthy individuals began turning media outlets into their personal vanity projects, the mainstream political media was still failing us. There wasn’t a billionaire owner to blame when the New York Times spent the entire 2016 election making things up about Hillary Clinton. And every single MSNBC host at the time eagerly went along with hyping Hillary’s imaginary email scandal for ratings.

The sad, tragic, pathetic, yet inarguable truth is that you can’t point to a single major media outlet that’s done an honest overall job of covering politics over the past decade. You may be racking your brain trying to think of an outlet, but no matter which one you name, I’ve got a counterexample ready. After all, I’ve have to wade through this mess on a daily basis for nine years.

None of this is to complain or lament, which I’ve often said over the years is a waste of time when it comes to fighting and winning. Rather, it’s a wake up call for me. We’re going to win this election. But we’re still going to be stuck with a political media that in a lot of ways is more of a dangerous cesspool than it was when I started doing this back in 2015.

So I’m going to do something about it. Once we finish winning this election, I’m going to find a way to build Palmer Report into the kind of juggernaut that can either scare the major media outlets into being more honest or just flat out put them out of business. I’m asking you to make one big final push right now so we can come out of this election ready to take over the political media scape. Help me fully fund this before election day so we can do this right: Palmer Report Fund

Much thanks,
Bill Palmer
Palmer Report