Dear idiot media:

Dear idiot media—

I am sorry to address you rudely, but the enormity of your current practice of “news gathering “ is so dumb and so dangerous to the country that I must resort to linguistic violence to get your attention. I am talking to you if you write or edit for the NYT, or NPR, or NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, or any formerly respected news source. If you personally think that Pres. Biden’s candidacy is teetering, or that DJT’s acceptance speech is worth covering, then I’m talking to you. Because with the call for Mr. Biden to step down, you are hip deep in a story you created yourselves, and to pretend that a man who is a confirmed liar and fabulator is worth talking about because he went on for ninety minutes betrays your abandonment of all pretense to be news gatherers, much less to be savvy and smart ones. You are driving your own customers away, and you deserve to be ignored.

To begin with the most infuriating stance you’re taking, that DJT is newsworthy, you are ignoring facts your audience have been gathering for nine years (often from you). This means you are treating us like dolts with a mental age of seven and an attention span of 3.5 seconds. DJT is a person who has devised five different ways to betray his own country, been impeached for two, and would be in jail now except for the unequal treatment afforded rich criminals in this country. It seems to have dawned on none of you that the primary reason he’s running is so he can keep on collecting political contributions to pay his lawyers. To keep him out of prison. At the age of 77. The majority of your audience saw the mob attack the Capitol on 1/6/21, and watched the congressional hearings that a followed. That was the third treasonous act he committed. The first was his quiet alliance with V. Putin; the second was his attempt to blackmail our ally Ukraine into fabricating some dirt on his political enemy, Joe Biden; the fourth was his wholesale theft of secret documents from the White House, and the fifth is his ongoing campaign to convince American voters that the 2020 election was stolen. Your audience is aware of all these facts, and would be grateful to hear nothing more about this aberration of a politician until he’s finally sentenced for something. And his sentencing should appear on p. A28 of the NYT or in one sentence at the end of your newscast or commentary session. Enough! Much, much more than enough!

Now, for the story you fabricated: the disastrous editorial call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the race. Because he is old and didn’t turn in a great “performance” at a debate with the aforementioned serial liar and fabulator. Ten minutes of Biden’s political career, and the NYT and many others are ready to tell him to quit. Gentle journalists: there was no story there to begin with, but you made one up anyway, and gave it all the coverage it didn’t deserve. Now you’re following the aftermath of your own “news” stories, and obsessively covering defections in the President’s own party. You insist that this is an ongoing news story when many in your audience are tearing their hair out at your folly. You, the media, who created these “stories,” seem prepared to deprive the country of the only legitimate candidate running for president this year. Not only is Joe Biden the only legitimate candidate, but he’s coming off 3-1/2 years of stellar performance in the job of being president. If some in the country are largely ignorant about what he has accomplished, this, too, is your fault.

I’m not demanding a thousand word apology to the President, or your prosecution as dangerous spreaders of disinformation. I’m asking that you top and reflect of how you got from journalism school to where you are today, and quietly mend your ways. Editors: stop hallucinating stories that aren’t there, and journalists, start reporting from the real world your audience lives in. Look back on the eventful sweep of the history of this republic from 1776 to now, and then rate your current contributions to that history. Have a glass of scotch and your confessor, if you have one, handy. Then get up tomorrow morning and do your jobs.