Over the last two years, readers can pretty much tell how I feel about certain subjects. I don’t hide the fact that I dislike the job that President Biden is doing. I also have been pretty clear about what I feel for the far left of the Democratic Party. BTW, I pretty much feel the same way about the far right of the Republican party. However, the one thing that drives me crazy more than any other is the media’s coverage and at the end of the day, its power.
The power part of the media has been around for centuries. Editors and publishers more often than not have used their power to sway elections big and small with very tangible results. While newspapers are becoming secondary sources of information, they are still the go to source for informed opinions. The NYTimes has been losing paper circulation for a decade yet they are still making serious money with their presence online. Ditto The Wall Street Journal. Other papers have maintained both the physical paper and a growing online space. The reporting and the storytelling are still needed to help us understand the events of today.
Ok, now that you have read my Covid addled mind believing fair and impartial journalism is still available. Uh, it’s not. The media has that on their letterhead yet they still write articles with a bias. I don’t care what the bias is, it is there.
After Donald Trump lost the election, for over three months the first section of the Times mentioned Trump in 70% of the articles. Those elephants that went on that unexplained walk in China, Trumps fault. South African riots because of lowered funding for schools, Donald Trump instigated it. Any and every article for months tore into President Trump. Granted, his election fraud posturing was a big part of that as well but honestly, for a man that craves attention (good and bad) the Times just fed into him. They had nothing else to write about? Oh wait, Biden cancelled the Keystone pipeline and that surely was going to effect the energy industry and eventually the price of oil. Front page news and then never seen or heard from again.
It is apparent that the media in this country is doing everything it can to keep the discourse away from President Biden’s multiple failures and they find anything they can to push the conversation elsewhere.
Roe vs Wade is a huge deal and it surely should be covered. No matter what side you are on, this is a tinderbox of emotions and the press is right to cover it. I take issue not with the amount of coverage (although it is excessive even by the magnitude of the decision) but how it is covered. The Pro Life segment of the population barely gets any space while they cover women and men protesting the decision across the country. If you took a poll, I am sure there would a substantial minority of people who would be happy with the Supreme Court’s decision. Yet, those voices are barely heard but God forbid some other minority feels disenfranchised, they are front page material. That is not fair and balanced reporting.
I will give you another example of creating what they want to create and disregarding the rest. Last week a young unarmed black man was shot 60 times by police after a routine traffic stop. It was tragic no matter how you feel about anything. Originally, the Times buried the story on page 16, probably because of space issues and it was a late breaking story so I can see that. The follow up coverage was slanted, of course, but they did casually mention that the victim appeared to have shot a weapon from his seat, towards someone, or no one, dropped the gun and ran. Police chased him and hit him with a stun gun, did nothing and when he turned around and appeared to reach for something they shot him. Now I have followed this story from the beginning and there are couple of things that seem implausible. Eight cops running after a person and shooting at him as if were Starsky and Hutch? Hitting him 60 times? That doesn’t seem possible because shooting a handgun while in a shooters stance is notoriously difficult, shooting at a moving target while moving yourself is next to impossible, yet these cowboys plugged this person 60 times. I think the facts will come out that 60 shots were fired. He wasn’t hit 60 times. Another fact I find hard to believe is that they supposedly shot this person while he was on the ground bleeding. If that is true, then heads should role and I am on the side of justice. The other thing that has been mentioned but little issue has been made is the fact that this person was wearing a ski mask. If it was racially motivated, it may be hard to tell if your suspect is black or white. All of this will come out when the investigation concludes. Meanwhile, fires and looting started.
I compare this to the coverage of those three brave police officers who were gunned down in an ambush in Eastern Kentucky last week. Coverage in the Times, Zero. Three officers gave their lives and they don’t even deserve a footnote? To me, that is the last straw. Why wouldn’t the Times cover that? ABC News did, CBS as well. Yet the Times has made it their business to cast a dark shadow on police in this country and that is unforgivable. Every employee, every executive at the NYTimes should be ashamed of themselves and their push towards the far left will eventually come up to bite them in the ass. They have the narrative and anything outside of that narrative isn’t worth of coverage. If this pyscho hillbilly had an AK 47 or another assault weapon, then it might have been covered but he loaded himself up with multiple magazines and several hunting rifles, gave himself great position and fired on these officers just doing their job. This isn’t about gun control, why cover it? The shooter was white, why bother? It matters because three police officers lost their lives doing a job that they loved. A job they knew could be dangerous but they did it anyway. When was the last time anyone from the Times did something dangerous?
Very glad to see the virus hasn't effected your way of thinking or writing!