Worst in Media 2022: Your picks from AIM
December 29, 2022
As 2022 comes to a close, Accuracy in Media is wrapping up the very worst media blunders from the year. See yesterday’s piece here, and come back tomorrow to see the next on our list.
Accuracy in Media asked our followers on social media and email subscribers to tell us their picks for worst in media this year. Of course, 2022’s media blunders were neverending. Here are a few of the worst that AIM covered this year, from news media to Hollywood.
- Hollywood demonizes decades-old TV shows to virtue signal -Hollywood has been on a constant lookout for ways to virtue signal, even if it means criticizing itself. We’ve seen many examples of this in the last few years, like when the #OscarsSoWhite controversy prompted the Academy to implement new diversity requirements that films must meet in order to be nominated. Now, Hollywood has taken to demonizing decades-old TV shows to demonstrate its moral superiority.
- YouTube tries to delete early Covid history… because it can –
YouTube removed a video from China Uncensored dating to February 2020, before Covid invaded the U.S., citing “medical misinformation” for the censorship of an interview from an award-winning journalist who had covered previous viral outbreaks such as Ebola. China Uncensored wasn’t told by YouTube which part of the interview was deemed problematic but said that the video had been so thoroughly deleted that even their own archival copies of the video had disappeared from the platform.
- M&Ms get woke -The most popular Halloween candy in America got a “progressive redesign”. Classic M&M characters portrayed on TV are softening traditional gender norms in favor of chocolates with better personalities, according to Mars-Wrigley.
- Neil Young’s $150 million payday means Young risked nothing in Spotify duel, while asking others to risk all -One of the defining characteristics of the liberal media in America was on full display when the pseudo-drama between Neil Young and Spotify played out, as Young left the streaming platform over “misinformation” spread by Joe Rogan, whose podcast is hosted on the platform. But in doing so, he encouraged Spotify employees to ditch their jobs — employees who do not have the cushion Young has from his extensive music career and from selling a $150M share of his catalog.
- Media polls are wrong — and it’s not just a math problem -The polls circulated by media outlets and newspapers are as much about clickbait as they are selling ideology that subscribers and viewers want to believe. AIM’s John Ransom spoke to several polling experts on what has led to them getting it so wrong so many times.