Supercut: 2024’s Most Mortifying Media Moments

If there is a trend we've discovered over the last 8 years of creating this year-end compilations, it's the corporate media's increasingly transparent desperation to ensure Americans obey our self-appointed philosopher kings. And it's probably for this reason that trust in the media collapsed this year to historic lows. Their objective has become less about holding powerful accountable on behalf of the people, but rather trying — increasingly in vain — to hold the people accountable on behalf of the powerful.

Whatever you think about Trump, he clearly represents everything they despise. And serving as Trump's official opposition has become their defining identity. As in years prior, the world is overflowing with sensational scandals, intrigues, and incredible insights into the future, but in the hive-mind of the corporate media, Trump's the only beat worth covering.

So don't blame us when you notice that most of this year's most mortifying media moments are political. Their obsession is not something we're able to cure.

So with that curtain-raiser out of the way, let's meander back through this year's most cringe-inducing moments of media failure.

10.  One of the saddest parts of carrying water for the DNC is how the corporate media, by extension, also found itself having to carry water for Joe Biden. In July someone at the White House had the bright idea of labeling viral clips of Biden's dementia as "cheap fakes." Being cheap fakes themselves, the thought manipulators at CNN/MSNBC/etc. all dutifully began employing this term themselves.

9. In an attempted "gotcha," CNN's British reporter, Donie O'Sullivan visited Trump rallies and interviewed MAGA voters about their thoughts on "democracy." When Mr. Sullivan was corrected that the United States is a republic, not a democracy, O'Sullivan became incredulous, reaching to "experts" like Anne Applebaum to explain that anyone who disagrees with progressives' contemporary notion of the United States being a pure democracy are themselves fringe cranks hellbent on "attacking democracy."

8. Trying to breathe enthusiasm into Kamala's comatosed candidacy, professionals of journalism volunteered as hype men at the DNC Convention, informing viewers the energy inside was absolutely electric. Ultimately when it came time to manufacture ratings for Kamala's primetime address, CNNMSDNCABCBS circulated rumors of an imminent Beyonce performance ... but the beehive was not to be, and that DNC fable turned out to be just as fake as the crowds they were paying to attend Kamala's rallies.

7.  Needing some kind of boogeyman to strike fear into the hearts of their dwindling audience, America's accredited journalismers latched onto Project 2025, obsessing over a policy document that effectively amounts to a future Trump Administration running the executive branch of the federal government in the same way the Biden Administration currently does: Ensuring every agency's actions reflect the animating ideas of the chief executive. This led to some comical instances in which characters like Ali Velshi tried to create a panic at the prospect of a future Trump Administration taking away free health care for illegal immigrants. Ultimately by trying to position policies embraced by the vast majority of Americans as "extreme," these supposed experts of accuracy only isolated themselves further from mainstream society.

6. As actual journalists like Glenn Greenwald have been pointing out for years now, it's the so-called journalists themselves who have been leading the charge for greater censorship and against free speech in general. Why would anyone ostensibly tasked with holding powerful entities accountable want to risk losing that ability by giving up their fight for free speech? Well as explained at the outset, the corporate media is no longer focused on holding powerful entities accountable, and in running cover for some of their most heinous behaviors, they often resort to outright dishonesty. And if people have the ability to discuss among themselves how these apparent arbiters of truth are actually some of the leading purveyors of disinformation, well that threatens the whole enterprise, doesn't' it?
   
   This year Elon Musk proclaimed X as America's "town square," a forum that actually permitted people to freely exchange ideas amongst themselves. Such uncontrolled conversations is precisely what the corporate media has come to fear most, and it's thus no surprise so much of the year was spent attacking Elon Musk and X for so unabashedly protecting Americans' rights to free speech.

5. For reasons that remain unclear, the Democratic National Committee's anointed presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running-mate, evidently hoping the pick could help her shore up her far-left flank. Despite bringing with him a record of habitual dishonesty and an affinity for China's Communist Party, the most bejeweled journalists among us automatically embraced the talking point that Walz was America's ubermench, a man's man whose dexterous wrists could change the oil on your Ford F-150 faster than you can say "free tampons for teen boys." Trump's pick, JD Vance, meanwhile, actually did have something like a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches American Dream story to bring to the table, but as we know, rather than reporting honestly on his impressive achievements — which even Hollywood had immortalized — our postmodern intelligentsia robotically repeated the talking point that Vance is "weird." The contrasting coverage between the two roll-outs once again nakedly exposed the desperation under-girding the entire corporate media enterprise.

4. After having failed to terrify Americans into believing the country would collapse into an authoritarian dystopia should Kamala be defeated, America's sculptors of popular opinion were assigned a new talking point: That Trump is basically Hitler 2.0 and if by some accidental fluke of democracy he prevails in November, every bad thing you can imagine will happen (women will be killed, books criminalized, and of course the world will ultimately melt in a fiery inferno amidst elevating Co2 levels). Scare tactics they admittedly employ every election season. But like the boy who cried wolf, the journalists who cry Hitler have only ensured their exhortations are automatically ignored and their reputations forever associated with duplicity and propaganda.

3. When Biden needed to weather a challenging news cycle that had momentarily forced even the likes of CNN to discuss evidence of the Bidens' pattern of using the levers of government to enrich themselves, President Biden tried deflecting blame away from himself and onto his wayward son, Hunter, announcing that despite his affinity for all styles of criminality, he would never extend him a pardon. Thus Biden won immediate plaudits from gullible "reporters" who were only too happy to use this gambit as a way to turn a Biden scandal into a Biden triumph. And we know how this turned out: In return for walking out on a limb on his behalf, Biden was only too happy to cut off that limb and use it to further fortify the fortress protecting his entire criminal enterprise.

2. When the chips were down and Kamala's campaign needed a veneer of normalcy, her handlers arranged two carefully constructed appearances in which viewers were meant to believe she was spontaneously interacting with her interlocutor. On "60 Minutes," Kamala was asked about Israel and the Netanyahu government's actions in Gaza; in response, Kamala gave one of her infamous "word salads" in which she seemed to think merely speaking equated to answering. The exchange was posted on CBS News' website, but when the actual episode aired across the country, the network's producers committed the cardinal sin of journalism and edited her answer so that it actually resembled something coherent. Shortly thereafter she appeared on an ABC affiliate in Philadelphia and was asked about inflation, the central issue of the election. Despite this being the most obvious possible question to be be asked, Kamala characteristically hemmed and hawed, unable to articulate anything like a cogent policy that would give Americans reassurance she understood the issue. And despite the scandal that had engulfed 60 Minutes — with the network ultimately apologizing for their deception — ABC was only too happy to commit the same cardinal sin and edit her reply so that it sounded like something a thinking person might say. In the end, both incidents did as much damage to the corporate media as to the candidate they were so invested in assisting.

1. One of the problems of being a professional liar in the age of the internet is that it makes your job especially challenging. For four years Biden's White House caretakers were always careful to orchestrate his appearances so he had no opportunity for spontaneous, on-camera thinking. It was always bring him in, feed him lines, have Jill help guide him offstage, cameras off. Even during so-called press conferences Biden was sometimes careless enough to accidentally reveal a script showing not only the reporters he planned to call on, but also their questions and "his" responses. Despite so much careful handling, ultimately it's impossible to script a dementia patient, and Biden provided his critics with countless clips of humiliating senility. Against this overwhelming mass of embarrassing material, the corporate media nonetheless bravely soldiered on, patronizing to their viewers that actually behind the scenes Biden is "sharp as a tack" and he's running the federal government with the ruthless precision of Harry Ford. No lie could have been so self-defeating than this one, yet these exceptionally well -credentialed journalismers unashamedly advanced it anyway.
   
   And could anything be more mortifying than that?

Until next year, everyone here at Grabien wishes you all a festive holiday season with your loved ones and an unusually prosperous new year.
 

Earlier editions: 

— The 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2023 

— The 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2022

— The 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2021

— The 20 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2020

— The 12 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2019

— The 18 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2018

— The 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2017

— The 10 Most Mortifying Media Moments of 2016