How reliable are "anti-fitness" reporters generally? The results may literally not shock you
The overall message from these sources is "Trust exactly the wrong people, every time"
Over the past five or so years, the running media have not only failed to deliver meaningful training advice, but have pushed the “value” of numerous unhealthy habits. These have ranged from suggesting skipping exercise altogether for spurious or gelatinous reasons (e.g., stay inside when the air is too cold or too virus-saturated; when a wildfire is reported within three time zones of where you live; or—women only—when you’re simply exhausted from all of your harried social-media labors) to making sure to scramble any possible connection readers might discern between sitting around, being severely overweight, and feeling like an anxiety-riddled slug who uses medical and mental-health services more than their more active friends do.
This is part of an overall corporate strategy to ensure that media consumers eat enough fattening foods, drink enough liquor, and exercise sufficiently little so that both food manufacturers and the biomedical complex—the major sources of ad revenue for most mainstream publications—remain maximally profitable. As a result, media outlets that, unlike Runner’s World and Trail Runner, don’t have even to feign an interest in inspiring their readers to become more physically active have been busy portraying exercise itself as sketchy—a right-wing habit, or worse, something that might turn an unsuspecting science-savvy, concerned-for-others “liberal” into a maskless, jabs-avoidant, six-pack-sporting lunatic who insists on heading outdoors even when it’s sprinkling or someone in a nearby residence is listening to Kid Rock with the windows open.
As I hope my coverage here has established, the individuals now serving as editors and prolific freelancers for the running media are incurious and agenda-driven goof-offs who at their current level of motivation, intelligence, and sincerity could not reliably report on anything at all. I decided to assess the journalism skills some of the folks in the general corporate media who in recent years have joined the chorus of “excess physical preparedness is strictly for Trumpists.”
Patrick Bet-David just may be on to something:
Then again, so may the softies:
This last image captures the casual inversion of rationality and fear. It helps that most of today’s “liberal” reporters don’t have to consciously lie or lapse into doublethink to do their jobs the way their bosses want them to, because this batch of loons is wacky enough to believe that the galactic messes they create on their own screens represent meaningful, unbiased reporting.
