When now President-Elect Donald Trump was convicted, the thrill-kill atmosphere around the courthouse and the country was explosive, but no one was more ecstatic than liberal columnist and former prosecutor Harry Litman. The then L.A. Times columnist told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that it was a “majestic day” and “a day to celebrate.” A lawfare advocate, Litman excitedly laid out how Trump could be barred from office, declaring that the raid in Mar-a-Lago was the “whole enchilada” in ending Trump’s political career. Now, Litman has resigned from the L.A. Times because the owner wants more diversity of opinion in the newspaper. Litman went on MSNBC to declare that “this is not a time for balance.”
Those seven words sum up much of what has destroyed American media with millions turning away from the echo chamber created by the Washington Post, L.A. Times, and other publications.
Litman is not alone. Many liberals are dispensing with the pretense of declaring opposing views “disinformation” and are now openly fighting to preserve ideological echo chambers and media silos.
In my new book, The Indispensable Right, I write about the decline of newspapers as part of the “advocacy journalism” movement. Opinion pages became little more than screeds for the left, including legal commentators who have been consistently wrong and misleading on merits of challenges or cases.
Last year, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Litman has been one of the most unabashed lawfare warriors. Even when the Justice Department was seeking to dismiss the Flynn case, Lipman wrote an L.A. Times column advising Judge Emmet Sullivan how to “make trouble” for the administration. Litman admitted there is “very little leeway to reject the government’s decisions to dismiss charges” but encouraged Sullivan to “accomplish what Congress, multiple inspectors general, and a majority of the electorate have not been able to do — hold the president and his allies accountable for their contemptuous disregard for the rule of law.”
On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Litman declared to Nicolle Wallace that Trump’s victory is “an absolute five-alarm fire.” He called the effort to restore a diversity of viewpoints as little more than an attempt “to curry favor with Trump.” He then added:
“And I just think this is not a time for balance when you have someone who’s not telling the truth on the other side. And it’s a deep responsibility. And instead, I think they cowered and are worried about their personal holdings and just being threatened by Trump. And that’s a really shameful capitulation, I think. So, I just felt I couldn’t be a part of it and had to resign.”
It was a telling moment. Litman appeared on a network that has lost half of its viewership and is fighting for its existence in an effort by NBCUniversal to unload it. Readers are fleeing to new media after papers like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post literally wrote off half of the country. Yet, these figures would rather lose their jobs and media platforms than their bias.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Litman fails the Spock Test. He is not logical. Balance is what makes him able to be heard. Balance sits at the heart of the rights that we all have that come from beyond the government. We know it as the First Amendment. Litman’s opinion is a lemming we can let go off the cliff by itself.
This is great! MSM, MSNBC, CNN, Rachel Maddow have all lost nearly half and in some cases, more than half of their audience! People are simply switching off all this liberal MSM garbage. They are tired of being lied to. Of being gaslight. Of being lectured and talked down to. They are not buying the MSM/DNC propaganda anymore. So, they are going to get their news from alternative media. The Free Press is now just shy of 1 million paid subscribers. That is double in less than a year. Their news room is growing!
Upstate, it tells you something about their commitment to their cause that all of these outlets, and you can add all the late night shows except for Gutfeld!, that they are willing to lose money rather than compromise or moderate their one sided screeds.
Michael Jordan once famously said “Republicans buy sneakers too” and he made millions of dollars. I guess there is so much money out there now that they can pass up doing business with 50% of the market and still make enough to be rich.
HullBobby,
I am in wait and see mode. Lets see for how long these MSM companies can take the losses before they simply run out of money and have to either lay off massive amounts of staff or go off the air. One Democrat strategist said the election was not only a mandate against Democrats but MSM as well. Looks to be true. The market will decide if they want to support MSM or not.
“Legitimation crisis” is what Planatir CEO Alex Karp calls the pitiful state of today’s media. Virtually no one is putting faith in public and private institutions these days yet this prog/left indoctrinated clown wants to continue bullsh*tting us in the same crazed manner of a fanatic cultist. When is he going to dye his hair blue and scream at the sky?
Middle of the road Democrats who drifted too far to the Left will reflect on their mistakes, then get back to sensible policies.
The pure Socialists won’t . . . they’ll become indignant and defend their positions as any Marxist would. Which would be like the Captain of the Titanic defending his decision to intentionally plow into that iceberg.
Ken I hope you are right but I fear that the left will not allow any movement to the center. The left may be a minor part of the party but they are loud, they have the far left media (check out far left and nasty Norah O’Donnell’s newscasts on CBS), the universities, most tech and Hollywood. The left NEVER compromises and they will tear the party apart before they do so.
The economic rules for running a media agency are the same as for running a grocery market. The grocery manager doesn’t set prices; the customers do. If another market charges less for its bread, customers will avoid the higher-priced market and buy the cheaper bread. Eventually, the higher-priced grocery will have to lower its prices for bread or go out of business.
It’s the same with the LA Times, the Washington Post, or the New York Times. They may think – and others may also think – that they are setting the agenda and presenting the news in ways that their customers will like and pay for, but ultimately, it’s not the editors and owners of these news agencies who decide what is sold, and for how much, but the customers who buy their stuff. As The editor of the Washington Post told his staff, people aren’t buying your stuff.
So, the choice is simple: give the customers what they want, and what they are willing to pay for or go out of business. Bezos and his Washington Post already have come to this conclusion and apparently so has the LA Times. The NY Times is still holding out in hopes that enough liberals exist to sustain its high cost of production in a dwindling readership. We shall see. Reason eventually surfaces. It always does. Now is no exception.
Congratulations to Soon-Shiong, the owner of the LA Times. Your strategy is working.
People like Litman cannot shed their bias; it will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, this fool is gone from the “news”paper that published his drivel. The old Lithuanian saying I heard so often in my childhood applies: good riddance to bad rubbish.
We are sure he will either alight on a more liberal tabloid or be offered a tenured position of professor of journalism at Columbia or some other such marxist institution but he will never shed his indoctrinated ideology. I’m Sure there are enough prog/left monied types to sustain one of their better soldiers.
One suspects Mr. Litman may have expanded upon his thought: “This is not a time for balance; it is a time for imbalance, and I’m your huckleberry.”
This is exactly why the People have now fully rejected the MSM as a source of truthful reporting. It has nothing to do with “disinformation” because their disinformation has turned out to be the absolute truth. From Spygate, to COVID to the “attack on Democracy” the people involved in the Media Industrial complex have been function as a Propaganda machine for the Communist/Marxist movement of the DNC……
It was never about disinformation or misinformation as these people are the same people that were calling video of Biden “looking” old deep fakes one month before he imploded on the debate stage.
The dis and mis information scam is just a censoring device!!!
Buh-bye you dunning-kruger afflicted narcissist. One fewer column to either ignore or laugh at.
In addition, Litman is a dependable pharma propagandist. He has regularly misinformed, disinformed, malinformed, and outright lied in his diligent water carrying for the corporations that buy advertising in his media. Good riddance. He has not an ounce of intellectual curiosity. Gaslighting suffering families, with a dollop of sneering condescension and cruelty, seems to get him hot.
“Scratch One Flat Top’ was radioed over the airways at Coral Sea as the IJN Shoho slipped beneath the waves. I thought this similar to the cascade that started as the Harris campaign slipped beneath waves. Now we only need another Midway and maybe we will see Obama, Schumer, Pelosi, and Biden slip beneath the waves (figuratively of course). The Biden is listing heavily and may take others down with it and the Jury is still out as to whether the others will survive very long (figuratively) But one can hope.
Litman is like the Yamato on it’s suicide run to Okinawa
“maybe we will see Obama, Schumer, Pelosi, and Biden slip beneath the waves (figuratively of course).” Nope, not “figuratively” but from the end of a rope.
GEB, I absolutely loved your metaphor. Maybe what we really need is the Enola Gay being gassed up! Metaphorically speaking of course.
Another example of the pervasive infection of the little liberal mind with Narcissm. The prevalence of Narcissistic trait has increased 300-400% over the last 30 years which parallels the increase of woke liberal tendencies during that time. Maybe mommy and daddy shouldn’t have given us medals for failing.
Ivan, I am drooling over your comment.
I was born in the 50’s and received 1 trophy, which was when we won a 5th grade football league. Is it OK for me to throw myself on the ground screaming, then hold my breath until I turn blue. Never mind, that is a demeaning way to win a trophy that I didn’t win or earn. Forward meritocracy!
Great editorial!
Re: Harry Litman resigning from the LA TImes – Good riddance to bad rubbish. I’d bet the Times’ publisher feels the same way. Maybe Litman can emigrate to Cuba and start his own newspaper: “Pravda en el Exilio” (Pravda in Exile).
“Yet, these figures would rather lose their jobs and media platforms than their bias.”
Then that is what needs to happen. I doubt seriously whether Litman has any marketable skills, so maybe poverty will help him in his recovery. Like they say in the AA and drug addict meetings, to the folks who will not get off the stuff, “you haven’t been hurt enough yet.”
Hopefully, there will be no angel/enabler/wealthy family to bail him out, and L.A. is an expensive place to live. I hope, for his sake, that he has no savings, no paid for house, and that he has to move into his car to live. Let him compete with illegal immigrants for jobs. Perhaps that will wake him up. Perhaps not.
I looked him up. He is 66 years old, and married. So, he will have social security income, and whatever his wife makes. Probably a pension to boot. Still, I hope, for his sake, that he has to struggle to maintain his lifestyle. I would not be surprised to see him become the Dennis McIntyre of some blog somewhere, spewing DNC talking points to an audience that ignores him, or pokes fun at him.
He seems upset. How marvelous. Dealing with loss is never easy.
Your prophecy seems to be coming true. It looks like he’s trying to reestablish himself on Substack. You may find his screed about his resignation interesting:
https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/why-i-just-resigned-from-the-los.
I’m a little surprised that our gracious host didn’t reference this.
He may already be Dennis McIntyre.
“maybe poverty will help him in his recovery.”
Litman may arguably need to recover, but do I have any need for him to successfully accomplish that? Not beyond keeping one additional useless sponge off the public assistance rolls, and that is of marginal incremental utility.
Encourage him to move to another country where he can take advantage of their free mental health benefits.
Shadow-Truly the Shadow Knows that there are many unhinged minds running amok in the land these days with their hair on fire. They fail to see the groundswell of good feelings that have erupted , the markets continue to rise, the foreign dignitaries in Paris all but ignored Miss Jill and flocked around Trump, and Musk and getting selfies , giving presidential Honors to Trump, people are shopping while the progressives continue towards self recrimination, cry in their beer, scream at Lake Michigan, a few democrats are climbing on board the DOGE, the Mayor of NY is rumored to be contemplating a move back to Republicanism (gasp). Syria erupts and the President in Waiting says “not our fight” while the Iranians and Russian run for cover. All we need is Tiny Tim to appear at the door on Bob’s shoulder. The progressives are now intertwined in the chains they forged in their time in power. Better to have them wrapped in those chains so you can be assured they will sink to the bottom of any body of water they fall into.
There is singing and laughter abounding in the land.
A Merry Christmas to Us All. God Bless Us, Every one.
Litman is a typical, neurotic and dangerous liberal. He is yet another nugget of evidence for why Democrats have forever forfeited any claim of right, ability or competence to govern a free people in a constitutional republic such as remains of the United States.
I love when people double down on being an idiot. It’s amazing to see the self immolation!
If only we could see actual self immolations literally breaking out in LA, NYC, and DC.
Once the smoke clears, the sun will come out and “IT Will Be Another day”.
Litmans occur every two generations or so. The left leaning nature is attractive to the intelligent but religiously inclined because in the initial, naive stage it seems righteous. But like all crustaceans, the soft shell of naivety hardens, taking the Litmans from idealistic and good toward the hard left and uncompromising. So, while one Litman has faltered, more are gestating right now.
It’s crazy
The Littmans of the world—and we have too many such right now—are religious zealots who have been proselytizing…and want the army to “clean up” those who can’t be converted (think the Spanish in Mexico and South America). Some are in it for the ideology, some for the gold. In any case, they desperately want and need force to have their way. We cannot allow it. They do not offer a better future for all; if they were offering that we would have seen it in the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. (China may be seen as an exception…but it really is not).
Bottom line, we need to be stronger than they are in proselytizing for the rationale and benefits of the social and economic theories that underly our society and what has made it successful…overcoming challenges, e.g., slavery and then racial discrimination (still ongoing)…and creating better lives for more people than other ideas would be able to do. “Social Justice” — which current conceptualization is based on John Rawls’s work — is a flawed theory of humankind, as is Karl Marx’s. It’s just that it sounds attractive and there will always be people who want to make it the basis for society…by force, if necessary.