Naming the thing
On The Bob Zadek Show the phrase “mainstream media” is used as a term of art for the large newspapers, television networks and syndicated columnists that the host and his guests treat as a single, like-minded bloc. Bob Zadek opens a 2023 episode by asking his guest to define the terms, noting that “press” seems to capture everything from The New York Times and CNN down to a blogger, and asking whether it would help to narrow the focus to what is commonly called mainstream media Taking the Lapdog Press to Task on Foreign Policy Reporting (2023). Ted Galen Carpenter answers that the meaning has changed over time: in the early decades of the republic the press meant pamphlets and newspapers, magazines were added, then radio and television, and most recently blogs, the internet and social media platforms. He adds that reach is still dominated by the large-scale entities in newspapers and television, where influence on policy is greatest, while a blogger’s dedicated audience may number in the thousands or tens of thousands at most. What he found, he says, is that the entities with the greatest influence all tend to have groupthink — they think alike, see the world the same way, and see it the same way government officials do, with meaningful dissent rare Taking the Lapdog Press to Task on Foreign Policy Reporting (2023).
The debt ceiling and the “gullible” press
The earliest treatment in these excerpts comes from a 2011 episode on the debt ceiling. Don Boudreaux argues that the political class and the mainstream media that goes along with it have transformed the idea of allowing Uncle Sam to borrow more, in violation of a past commitment to stay under the ceiling, into an indication of responsibility, which he calls ridiculous The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011). He asks why the mainstream media goes along with the notion that violating the commitment is the prudent fiscal thing to do, when sticking to it is what would signal seriousness to the credit markets, and he calls the basic participants in the discussion morons, saying it is infuriating how backwards and irresponsible the entire discussion of the debt issue has become. Bob Zadek closes the segment by distinguishing a strategic, politically motivated non-payment from a default, and by asserting that politics cannot overrule sound fiscal policy The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011).
Veneration of the presidency
A 2014 episode returns to the theme from a different angle. Bob Zadek tells Frank H. Buckley that American voters react to mainstream media rather than wallowing through political blogs, and that mainstream media venerates the office of the presidency, a habit voters pick up over time Has America Become an “Elective Monarchy”? (2014). As an illustration he recalls Obama’s State of the Union message, when Justice Alito, seated in the audience, muttered something vaguely disrespectful after Obama criticized Citizens United; the mutter was on the front page of every paper in America, as if to ask how dare he suggest something negative about the president. Zadek compares that veneration to what the Brits and Canadians leave to the Queen or the King, and says it bestows enormous power on the president because he speaks for all of the people. Buckley’s own preceding remarks had argued that the electorate seemed happy with an imperious, king-like presidency, and that Republicans who stood firm on the debt ceiling in 2011 later caved, giving a clean increase in January of that year Has America Become an “Elective Monarchy”? (2014).
The Covington Catholic case
In a 2019 episode on crowds and tribalism, Bob Zadek describes a viral video involving three very different elements of society in a confused, perhaps obnoxious, but certainly non-violent event, and says mainstream media was instantly and unquestioningly on top of the story On Crowds and Tribalism (2019). He names David Brooks, a columnist he describes as as close as the New York Times comes to a Republican columnist, doing his usual self-righteous scolding, and says CNN was all over the story as if it were a major event, with none of the media questioning it, feeding the polarization in which everybody in America instantly picked sides. Robbie Soave, whose Reason piece came out on the Sunday afternoon, says that for almost a full 24 hours nobody could get enough of the story, and that in the Trump years the media increasingly viewed everything through a lens of Trump, with only two positions and two tribes, pro-Trump and anti-Trump, so that people in red hats had to be entirely for and the media entirely against On Crowds and Tribalism (2019). Soave says his piece argued the media had wildly mischaracterized the event, that watching the fuller video showed Nick Sandmann doing nothing wrong, that Nathan Phillips misrepresented what happened, and that Phillips had a few Native American men with him who appeared to be starting arguments, while Sandmann made a gesture to a friend telling him to cut it out. Soave reports the piece was the most-read article he had written at Reason, that many in the media reversed course — Jake Tapper of CNN tweeted it and Meghan McCain discussed it on The View — but that others doubled down, including Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post and Adam Serwer in the Atlantic, and a widely read piece in Deadspin that called him a professional contrarian On Crowds and Tribalism (2019).
Trade, censorship and COVID
Three later episodes touch the topic more briefly. In a 2019 episode on trade, Bob Zadek notes that articles and broadcasts in the mainstream media or not mainstream media about the trade war are unavoidable, and that the vocabulary of trade — trade deficit, exporting jobs, currency manipulation — is confusing and misleading, which is why he has invited Don Boudreau to explain it Trump’s War on Trade (2019). In a 2023 episode guest-hosted by Robert Mahoney, Zadek argues that social media, a private business, is allowed to censor, and that media has censored for as long as there has been media — a newspaper decides which letters to the editor to publish, and nobody minds — but that the difference with social media is one of degree, given the magnitude of its users and the profundity of the effect [[episodes/life_line___guest_hosting__robert_mahoney_on__the|Life!Line - Guest hosting: Robert Mahoney on The Infodemic (2023)]]. He says the Twitter Files showed the FBI in close contact with Twitter, suggesting with a wink and a nod that the Hunter Biden laptop story, first released by the New York Post, may have been hacked material, and he describes that as a choice which is not a choice, like a gun at your head in a dark alley. In a 2023 introduction to an interview with Senator Rand Paul about his book Deception: The Great COVID Coverup, Zadek says the mainstream media continues to be useless and that it is time to rein in the overreach of federal, state and local governments Senator Rand Paul Exposes the Great COVID Coverup (2023).
Across episodes
The excerpts show the same charge argued across more than a decade, with the emphasis shifting rather than the conclusion. In 2011 Don Boudreaux attacks the mainstream media as gullible and backwards on the debt ceiling; in 2014 Bob Zadek and Frank H. Buckley describe its veneration of the presidency; in 2019 Robbie Soave documents its rush to judgment in the Covington Catholic case and the partial reversal that followed; and in 2023 Ted Galen Carpenter supplies the general account — groupthink among the outlets with the greatest reach, whose worldview matches that of government officials. Bob Zadek’s own framing recurs throughout, from the 2011 debt-ceiling segment to the 2023 introduction calling the mainstream media useless.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the ownership, funding or internal structure of any mainstream outlet, nor do they give circulation or audience figures beyond Carpenter’s general contrast between millions and thousands. They do not state when the phrase entered the show’s vocabulary, whether any guest defended the mainstream media, or how the show’s usage compares with usage elsewhere. The 2018 episode on California federalism is summarized only in an introduction and does not develop the media theme.