Happy new year, everyone! The Czar had such a miserable 2014 that he actually looks forward to being a year older, just to get further away from the mess that was last year. 2015 will be, by comparison, a much better year. It has to be. It had better be.

Oh, and Operative BJ writes in:

Your Fearsomeness, This groveling one begs to approach and ask, “What is it with Americans? Are they the only ones on Planet Earth that don’t understand the usefulness of disinformation? Do they not understand the propaganda being hurled against America, who’s hurling it, and why?” Khameini, head Iranian honcho fella, recently accused American police officers of being horribly racist and intentionally attacking blacks. His accusation was meant as political commentary on the terrible nature of American justice. This is tantamount to the pot calling the kettle, er, cast iron: Iran – Khameini to be specific – imprisons, tortures, and executes those who dare to question Iranian justice. Maduro, president of Venezuela, accuses America of attempting to overthrow the Venezuelan government one day and then accuses America of conducting an “economic war” the next, all because the price of oil has collapsed and it – Venezuela – cannot continue its spendthrift ways. Meanwhile, Maduro continues to practice pro-morale encouragement, e.g. “the beatings will continue until morale improves” for fear that someone will notice that he’s been raiding the pantry while his people are starving. Castro – Fidel, not the other one – accuses the US and NATO of being Nazis while torturing and imprisoning thousands who are not allowed to leave the “Cuban worker’s paradise”. And the media falls for it. Hook. Line. And Sinker. Taking with it the fishing pole, the pier, and most of the rest of the marina: they not only believe that the US is evil, but they repeat the accusations of the most despotic-run countries on earth as if those accusations were proven fact merely because they were made. They are perfectly happy to do the work of the tyrants: pointing out the few outlier cases of bad behavior and using them to tell the US how horrible we are, rather than being amazed that the number of outlier cases is so vanishingly small. This lowly one spent 10 years in the US Navy, and has traveled to some of the more remote places on earth. Bahrain. Oman. Qatar. Ethiopia. Kenya. Countries where despots are likely to be found in positions of power. On port visits, I have seen the results of despotic rule up close and very personal. I have spoken to the street vendor, the taxi driver, the food stall operator. And, since I was not “the press” (they’re understandably afraid of being quoted), I heard the truth. I saw the “thousand mile stare” in their eyes. The terrible poverty. And I felt their hopelessness. In a country of over 300 million people, it’s amazing, encouraging, and awe-inspiring that the number of abuses by law enforcement is so small – and it’s amazing how politicians try to use those literally one-in-a-million situations as a reason to increase government control and accuse the majority of being guilty of the abuses of a very, very, very few individuals. Your Majesty, how do we get the word out? How do we force the media to look around and realize that the very few cases of LEO abuse being reported is actually proof of how very few cases of LEO abuse actually exist? How do we get Americans to recognize that they live in a country where they don’t have to fear for the safety of their family by a home invasion by the secret police in the middle of the night? How?

Thanks for your rant.

The answer to your question is very simple: don’t bother.

The media is subject to the very worst forms of confirmation bias. They have rarely, if ever, been interested in telling the whole story—they merely want a pat on the back that they were right, all along, about how bad America is.

It isn’t “Americans,” as you fear—well, numerically, about 70% of us don’t believe it either. Confidence in the media is at historic lows and continues to drop. But enough about us; let’s dump on the media, which surely is one of our favorite past times.

Which would you rather read: a story about the United Nations giving a speech on the importance of tax increases for the wealthy, or a story about economists realizing that tax-and-spend government is hurting the middle class? Probably, the Czar suspects the latter.

Another choice: a story that birth control is now being provided in grade schools or a story that Senator Warren was corrected on a gun rights question by a sixth-grader? Probably the latter.

This is because this is what interest you. The media, by contrast, is much more interested in the former. They want to read stories that reflect their interests, and so they write and televise stories that reinforce their liberal ideas. Back when you had your own blog, BJ, odds are good you wrote about stuff that interested you or annoyed you, like the hypocrisy of the Left. You probably rarely, if ever, wrote about things that made you look wrong or foolish.

Story about institutionalized rape parties at a major American university? Page one. Corrections that the story was a fraud perpetrated on a stupid media? Tiny corner of page 176. Shocking report issued showing that the US used illegal torture even though no useful information came of it? First ten minutes of the newscast. Followup story proving the report was flawed, that torture wasn’t specifically used, but the results saved thousands of lives? Nada.

Because none of this interests the media.

And here follows one of the Czar’s oldest maxims: not only is the media shamelessly biased in its reporting, but there never was a time that it wasn’t. The idea of a dispassionate, equally balanced, thoughtful media is one of media’s biggest shams. The idea that back decades ago there was such a time? The second biggest media sham.

The Czar has lived a very long time, but even ordinary mortals like yourself can skim through old copies of newspapers and read how bad the reporting was when Harding was in charge, or read the unquestioning hagiographies of Roosevelt during 1936, when Democrats were fearful the public backlash against the New Deal would crush their hopes for an FDR re-election. You can see video recordings of Walter weeping at anything related to JFK while smirking when reporting on Watergate.

Of course, it is so true on the Right: the Czar admits his bias is there, and happily reads sites that reinforce his expectations. Of course, most right-wing news sources are quite open and honest about their bias, which is a big difference.

And the Left hates Fox News, and fails to understand (a) its killer ratings and (b) why analysis continually shows that Fox News scores close to the center on Right/Left editorial slant. The answer is the same for both: Fox News actually is fairly unbiased, skewing slightly to the Right. Because readers on the Left rarely, if ever, read anything outside of HuffPo, they have no idea how much further right Fox could go if they wanted to.

But the big promise here isn’t that there’s something we need to do. The big news is that we’re doing it: there are literally thousands of counter-news sources to the MSM’s southpaw pitching. So much so that lefty newspapers, television news programs, and periodicals are seeing their ratings and subscriptions drop to barely-profitable status. While the Right lacks a major network to which everyone agrees is deep-red, it probably doesn’t need one. Alternative (that is, conservative/libertarian) news sources added together seem to meet the market needs.

So, BJ: when you’re sitting at the car dealership getting your Escalade’s oil changed to something more expensive, and your insides cringe at the CNN talking head asking Sen. John McCain why the US wants Cubans to starve to death under failed GOP ideas, you have to remember this key point: you’re probably one of four thousand people even watching it. And maybe only a hundred of you believe it. The rest of you see it as the stupid bullpoop it is.

Is it really necessary to ask whether any of those members of the drive-by media (driven by social media, not driven by a need for truth), the Hollywood hypocrites (gun-hating shoot-em-up anti-violence rioters), those in Congress who espouse support for dictators, or the child-king Obama (another embassy in Iran? Seriously?), have ever spent any time in any of these countries without bodyguards, without their retinue, or without so much as a return ticket home? Or is it too much to ask those who enthusiastically support and promote such regimes whether they would prefer to live in those regimes than in America – and when they threaten “if so and so is elected, I’m leaving”, hold them to it? Nope. They’re too comfortable being pampered and cooed at by their staffers, sycophants, and starry-eyed supporters. Or those who are “power groupies”, hoping to use their proximity to power as a way to gain power for themselves. Or those who are simply in it for the money and who gave up their scruples long ago.

They don’t believe it. But they want to, so badly. And maybe, like Christmas, if just a few of us believe, maybe enough of us can believe that the US is a terrible country to make something great happen. Like free Xbox Ones or something.

Fortunately, the people you list about? Not as many as there used to be. And fewer every day.

What a shame this answer isn’t nearly as biased as the Czar thinks it is.