The Mainstream Media Ignores You

As the election begins to enter its final stretch, each campaign’s surrogates are circling the crucial swing state of PA in an attempt to galvanize voters. The new health czar of the right, RFK, Jr. made a stop in Lancaster county last week, flanked by Calley Means and Dr. Phil to address an enthusiastic crowd of MAGA and Make America Healthy Again supporters.

I had already heard most of the talking points that Kennedy and Means espoused and by now, most of those reading this piece probably have, too. Depending on where you get your news, this newly formed alliance between preventative health and medical freedom advocates and the Republican party is either the world’s greatest conspiracy theory or a movement that will truly revolutionize health in America.

As obsessed as I am with all things health, the tales of corruption that plague one of the largest politicized industries in the country — healthcare — were not the most interesting issues of the evening. More fascinating to me was the corruption plaguing journalism and the increasing divide that separates the media from those they are supposed to serve. (READ MORE from Jennifer Galardi: Food Fight: Competing Visions for America’s Health)

Walking into the MAHA event in Manheim, PA, I felt right at home. Maybe that’s because I’m from rural Pennsylvania and those were my people. The ones who work on the farms, in the factories and small local businesses and those who sing along to the country music that served as the background soundtrack for the evening’s event.

Manheim is the type of town where people get as fired up for a Friday night high school football game (or wrestling match) as most people do for an NFL Sunday big stadium game.

However, sitting from my post in the media pen, I felt removed, cut off from those eager to hear from some of the men spearheading this new populist health movement. From my perch, I didn’t feel very populist. I rose from my seat out into the masses.

I flitted about the crowd introducing myself as a reporter to ask them what brought them to Lancaster county and why they support the MAHA or MAGA movement.  Almost every person cast a suspicious eye. Some flat out asked, “for who?” with palpable distrust. When I told them the outlets I wrote for, guards dropped.

Attendees’ reactions characterize the growing adversarial relationship between Americans who live in what is fondly known as “flyover country” and the press. And while this skepticism may have intensified around the Covid lockdowns, the mainstream media has done nothing since then to convince everyday Americans they give a rat’s behind about them.

I won’t say the elite media despises the commoners. After all, “the media,” like the government, is an impersonal behemoth, incapable of compassion and empathy.

However, the media is comprised of individuals; journalists, writers, and producers whose job it is to tell the stories of the people who live in this country — not just ones that they agree with. Yes, it is also their job to report facts, but even facts relay a story. When facts are incomplete, or one sided, or deemed “misinformation,” or not facts at all but manipulated data, a partial, if not false, story emerges. A story that can very easily demonize or dehumanize a segment of the population altogether, just like the comparison of Trump’s historic rally at Madison Square Garden to a 1939 Nazi rally does.

The result has been an explosion of more independent media such as podcasts, Substacks, and increasingly, social media. About a third of U.S. adults say they regularly get news on YouTube and Facebook with Instagram, TikTok, and X coming in third, fourth, and fifth respectively.

This has given rise to the “man on the street” type journalism which produces, for example, a very different portrait of what’s happening in the aftermath of the hurricane in North Carolina than what the liberal dominated media reported. These boots on the ground accounts are filling in for the stories that mainstream reporters are supposed to be covering. Mainstream reporters who seem to have, if not disdain for the people they share a country with, then a complete lack of curiosity. (READ MORE: Can America Afford To Be Healthy Again?)

It is this apathy and disdain that now fuels the news cycle, further polarizing us. If there’s anything I do not want to become as a writer, it is apathetic.

Those Whom the Media Will Not See

I tried to strike up with a couple of the other reporters in the press area. When I told them who I wrote for, the conversation ended. They did not seem to take any interest in learning more about the people that packed the event, with many having to stand on the periphery due to lack of seating.

People like an overweight pharmaceutical executive who “dropped in half,” according to his friend, from better eating habits and avoiding the foods RFK Jr. and Calley Means are warning cause skyrocketing cases of disease and obesity. A man who told me that “a whole other side of the world open[ed] up” when he stopped eating processed food. “It’s just not the way you look it’s how you feel. It’s kind of like an awakening,” he said.

Or an older woman who, with her hat full of “Kennedy 2024” flare pinned to it, was very concerned about Kennedy’s alignment with Trump at first. But, after “doing lots and lots of research,” feels Trump has enough integrity to keep his promise to make America healthy again and is confident there will be lots of change in the right direction.

She said there has been no “ill will” from “this side of the fence” referring to those who support the new rabble rousers of the Right.

Despite attendance of at least a few hundred people, there was not much reporting the day after the event from the local newspapers where a tv celebrity like Dr. Phil coming to town would normally be considered newsworthy. Kennedy was simply described “as a leading source of misinformation about vaccines.”

Multiply this local population by thousands of counties all over the country and you have millions of people who feel ignored and shunned. People who the mainstream media, from behind their computers and Iphones, watch but do not see.

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