White House issues marching orders to media outlets

there is still 40%+ of the country that flips the middle finger at both established elite parties

Largest Percentage of Americans Still Identify as Independents

The Whitehouse memo and CNN article betray a rather “cozy” relationship between government power and the “free and independent”institution charged with keeping that power in check, which undermines the public trust in its institutions.

8 years of TDS still hasn't done anything to reverse this, so it really doesn't matter if you are in a far left or far right tribe. The independents are the majority tribe still.

One good thing to note is that no matter how hard both parties work to continue to polarize the country in the media, there is still 40%+ of the country that flips the middle finger at both established elite parties.

Whatever they think is working actually is not.

 TDS is not a matter of partisanship

that's what MAGA wants us to believe,

every administration which does NOT issue an exhortation to the press DOES have a compliant media?

I wonder why so many people are ashamed to wear a Biden hat?

If the press is doing their job of reporting the facts, then there is no need to send them a letter asking them to do their job.

You don’t think the press has been doing its job properly?

You don’t think the press has been doing its job properly?

The Whitehouse memo and CNN article betray a rather “cozy” relationship between government power and the “free and independent”institution charged with keeping that power in check, which undermines the public trust in its institutions.

Fox comprises one out of 3 cable networks and one out of… I don’t know… 10 major news outlets?

As I said, you don’t see Fox News as comparable to CNN at all. Doesn’t CNN et al hold themselves to a higher standard? Yet you wish to directly compare them when it suits you.

Does it actually portray a cozy relationship, or just an alignment between them regarding the facts at hand? I would argue the only thing your example demonstrates is the latter which I personally don't find worthy of attention or concern. 

The facts aren't really debatable either, republicans have said themselves the whole point of the impeachment inquiry is to give them the power to find the evidence (which itself is not even true). So what are news networks supposed to do with that? There is a difference between objective journalism and neutral journalism. Their job is to be the former, not the latter.

The rest of your post on this part is an extension of this same issue. You are portraying MSM through CNN of not being what it's supposed to be with regards to its role in our political eco system, but the only reason you believe this clip supports that notion is because you already accept that conclusion. So essentially its begging the question. You can easily say the same is true of me, that I reject your notion because of my preconceptions, which I don't disagree with, but that's why we need to begin with the facts at hand. Do the republicans have any evidence to warrant their actions? The answer to that question leads to the rest.

And yet Fox news is by far the largest out of all of them, so painting it as merely 1 out of 10 Isa fallacious attempt to minimize its impact.

If you believe our country is fairly evenly split between right wing consumers vs left wing consumers, and you believe the vast majority of right wing viewers are not getting their information from CNN or MSNBC, then you cannot argue the other "10 major outlets" comprise of the majority of news consummation.

I don't take issue with blasting CNN for being "unjournalistic" provided we all accept that Fox and nearly all of its right wing co-networks are not up to that standard.

If you believe our country is fairly evenly split between right wing consumers vs left wing consumers, 

Here’s an honest question for you: why do you think the Whitehouse included Fox News, the pro GOP outlier, in the memo? I don’t actually have a good working theory on that decision…

Also, why wouldn’t you issue such a memo?

the Whitehouse went out of its lane in the memo, and CNN reporter Oliver Darcy not only failed to point this out, he basically spent his entire article validating the memo. Whether media is “in alignment” or not with the Whitehouse should be purely incidental to its central job of reporting “without passion or prejudice.” If the Whitehouse doesn’t stay within its role, the media response should be pushback, not compliance!

I’m finding myself just repeating or rewording what I have already said at length. If you truly don’t get… or align with what I’m saying, then we will have to agree to disagree.

if you can, cite the stats that show Fox has greater influence than CNN, MSNBC, NYT, ABC, CBS, NBC, and AP combined.

Point out one of many reasons for the public’s growing mistrust in our institutions, and you get “But Trump tho!” It never seems to occur to them that part (or much) of Trump’s popularity is precisely because of that mistrust.

I'd guess it was a PR move to avoid people like yourself using it to claim this memo proves the MSM and the democrats are working together. 

Because the White House shouldn't be dictating to media outlets what they cover,

If I tell you to tie your shoes before you leave the house tomorrow and you do, is that compliance?

But that mistrust is not based on facts, that's the point.

In itself, this is not a HUGE deal. What IS a big deal is the growing mistrust much of the citizenry has for many of our institutions. This particular misstep (as I see it) between the Whitehouse and a major media outlet is yet another in a long list of reasons for this growing mistrust.

I’m fully aware this is what you believe, therefor you will have set a very high bar for that belief to be challenged.