The sickening state of modern media

Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, American media was dominated by the Big Three television networks, and a few national magazines.

ABC, NBC, and CBS are still with us. Most of the old national magazines are gone or bizarrely changed into odd parodies of their original incarnation: Time, Life, Newsweek, US News and World Report, Saturday Evening Post, and a few others. Some would add Grit, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and even Playboy. One major one, though, was Reader’s Digest.

(We realize that younger readers may not recognize many of these.)

All these magazines had a very profound impact on American culture, society, and politics in the quarter-century after World War Two. It is claimed that they influenced public opinion and policy, and that they “reflected the cultural and social changes” of the era. The reality seems to be darker: yes, they influenced opinion and policy, but the publications actually created many (or most) of the changes in society and culture.

For most values of liberty and freedom, many changes were for the worse. And for bad, not good, a lot of what these hardcopy publications (with circulation numbers in the millions) was false. Lies and twisted truth that pushed those changes.

The reasons for this betrayal of the public trust are beyond this commentary. But the drastic warping of society, culture, politics, and economic matters which the mainstream media supported and facilitated is obvious. Like newspapers (a separate subject from ours today), some magazines were liberal, some were conservative, and some were neither neutral or middle of the road. At least that is how they were perceived by the public. The truth? Most all of them were firmly in what they love to call the progressive camp: they wanted change, and though disguised, it appears (looking back with better if not perfect hindsight) they all hewed to the party line.

The result was the very different society and polity we endure in 2025.

At one time, one publication, Reader’s Digest, seemed to be the exception to the rule: it seemed to be balanced, honest, accurate, and highly influential because of its characteristics. Founded in 1922, it was the best-selling magazine in the States for decades, until 2008, in fact. And published around the world. It still is the largest paid-circulation magazine in the world, if not in the States.

It was trusted and educational, with both the 30 short articles of the actual digest, from a wide variety of other periodicals, and its popular features. It was also fun to read, even for young people and to children.

But like the rest, it has declined significantly, especially since 1990. And at some point moved from its suburban headquarters into the belly of the beast: downtown Manhattan. Once a monthly, its hardcopy edition is now just six issues a year. Its offerings and policies changed, often without fanfare, and its circulation fell massively. It went into bankruptcy multiple times, and various establishment owners took it down the same path as other mainstream media.

It continued (and continues?) to proclaim it is conservative and “anti-communist” (though that might be more accurately described as “pro-DC”). As advertising and subscriptions (and supermarket sales) declined, it has “slimmed down” and based on its offerings, its editorial policies are not in favor of liberty or freedom.

A recent example of the Reader’s Digest’s current state of affairs can be seen at the end of a Reader’s Digest article republished by MSN. That article addressed the vastly important national issue of why there is a single McDonald’s outlet in the whole world that has turquoise instead of golden arches. (Yet another discussion for another commentary!) At the end we read:

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Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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Now, MSN and the Reader’s Digest online article certainly did not position this article on McDonald’s as a “humor” piece. Yet, we are told that humor is why we should trust “Reader’s Digest.” What are we missing? Or what, perhaps we should ask, is Reader’s Digest and its current owners and publishers and staff missing?

Professionalism? Education? Experience in writing or editing? Using something other than AI? Whatever many things it might be, this illustrates the pitiful, hideous, and sickening state of modern media.

(PS: We didn’t take the links out of the RD explanation of “why trust us” so you can see for yourself. And honestly, they do still have funny stories and jokes. If not as good as they once had when thousands and thousands of people submitted material.)

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Disclaimer: The author and TPOL’s staff were subscribers to RD for many, many years, as were their parents. And several of the staff have had short anecdotes published by Reader’s Digest – and gotten paid for it. But that was decades ago. We currently have no relationship with RD!

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Source: https://freedombunker.com/2025/08/06/the-sickening-state-of-modern-media/