Mark Levin’s ‘Unfreedom of the Press’ lays bare the true nature of the media

The mainstream media claim to be neutral arbiters of “the truth.” In reality they are the de facto propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. In his latest book, “Unfreedom of the Press,” LevinTV host Mark Levin rips off the mask and lays bare the true nature of the media.

The media go to great lengths to attempt to hide their blatant bias and propaganda. In doing so, Levin argues, “The modern media are destroying freedom of the press from within: not government oppression or suppression, not President Donald Trump’s finger-pointing, but present-day newsrooms and journalists.”

To prove this central argument, Levin goes beyond the daily tug-of-war between conservatives and the media over inherent bias. In his hallmark style, Levin reaches back into history to show not only the existing media bias, but the deliberate design of that bias and attempts to hide it.

The press has always been biased. Levin takes the reader back through American history, showing the path from the open press biases during our Founding to the modern, laughable, insistence that bias does not exist.

From the Founding through today, the press has taken sides and advocated for them. The difference is that today, the media are determined to hide under the false patina of impartiality, neutrality, and so-called truth. During most of the republic’s early years, the press proudly announced which side of the political divide it was on, often right in the name of the newspaper. Today’s press has morphed into a single party behemoth, the “Democratic Party-Press,” all the while pretending it has not.

The turning point, as Levin shows through comprehensive sourcing, was the Progressive Era. The prevailing wisdom of that time was that the “scientific” method could be applied to all things, including governing and the press. Rather than providing information from a particular point of view, it was determined that the media should be neutral observers and apply the scientific method to journalism. The myth of the objective newsman was born.

But during that time, the seeds of the activist media were also planted. During his presidency, Woodrow Wilson set up a team to help spread propaganda to shed a favorable light on his actions. Those methods, when applied by future university-trained journalists, are how those employed in news-gathering began to see that they could use journalism to make a societal difference. Thus the modern activist press was born.

The most chilling example of the switch from news-gathering to propaganda came during the rise of Hitler’s National Socialist Party and its treatment of the Jewish people. Levin’s chapter outlining how the American press, led by the New York Times, downplayed the full horrific nature of the Holocaust alone makes this book a must-read. The Times actively ignored wire reports and its own news-gatherers to shield the American people so much that when the true barbarity of the Nazi regime was finally shown, many couldn’t believe it.

This narrative-setting by the Times was also seen in its employment of Walter Duranty, who was an effective mouthpiece for the Stalin regime after the war.

After laying the groundwork exposing how the press arrived at its current state, Levin closes with a look at the media’s treatment of President Trump and their attempt to work the nation into a frenzy.

The prevailing media narrative paints Trump as a singular “unprecedented” threat to cherished norms and the constitutional stability of the nation who reached office by colluding with Russians. In the media’s collective mind, Trump is also the greatest threat to press freedom in the nation’s history. Levin shows that is pure hogwash.

In attacking Trump, the media either show an ignorance of or purposeful disregard for history and facts. On threats to press freedom, Levin details how John Adams had rival newspapermen tried and convicted; during the Civil War, Lincoln’s government went after the press; and during World War I, progressive darling Woodrow Wilson used a law he signed to put political opponents in jail.

Levin tackles other media falsehoods about Trump and knocks them down one by one.

Levin’s media critics – those he often terms the Praetorian Guard media – will argue that this book is just a blatant attempt to defend Trump from the media. While Levin convincingly destroys those narratives, what he’s truly done is shown just how nakedly partisan the modern media are. That’s why his critics will not want people to read “Unfreedom of the Press.” The book will be released on Tuesday, May 21.

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