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media and media people partisanship

Telling Us Clearly

“While everyone in America gets to cast a ballot on Election Day,” Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon, Jr., explains, “in reality rich people, corporations, foundations, politicians and other elite individuals and organizations have outsize power.” 

Ah, the Washington perspective … but don’t worry, Bacon adds, “The media that those people consume is telling them clearly that the current Republican Party is a threat to the nation’s future.”

Notice he does not use the term “informing” or “educating.”  

America’s major media is a pit of partisan vipers more interested in how they can spin the news to turn votes their way, than on what you, as a citizen of a democratic constitutional republic, need to know to make informed decisions your way. 

Mr. Bacon remains convinced, however, that the press “still doesn’t go far enough.”

He decries that “GOP radicalization and democracy erosion isn’t being covered extensively or aggressively by a big, important chunk of the media — the morning and nightly news shows of the big broadcast channels (NBC, CBS, ABC) …” 

Can’t be serious, can he?

The columnist, like so much of the national press corps, believes in “an emboldened media.”

In fact, he is mightily disappointed that more news coverage “doesn’t implicate the GOP.” Bacon justifies the thumb on the scale because “in most cases,” he asserts, “the GOP’s behavior is far worse than the Democrats’.”

I think we’re supposed to take his word for that … or maybe already suspect as much — if well-​lectured in the right universities.

Bacon’s column is headlined, “The rise of pro-​democracy media.” 

Close in letters, but what he and other “journalists” are calling for is Pro-​Democrat Media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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media and media people

Lynch Mob at Eleven

The facts in the Kyle Rittenhouse case were never the focus of the bulk of news reporting. What was? Constructing a rationale for progressive Democrats to ceaselessly wax eloquent on the strawman of their choice. Or worse.

Trapped in legend, the conclusion of the trial could only appear to them as something utterly alien and malign.

“The Rittenhouse Verdict is Only Shocking,” Matt Taibbi headlined his Substack media takedown, “if You Followed the Last Year of Terrible Reporting.”

The jury’s decision “was hardly a surprise to many of us who watched the trial rather than the media coverage,” wrote Jonathan Turley at USA Today.

“Two Americas are hearing two entirely different stories about this case,” GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson noted on Meet the Press, “and neither of them is the full view that that jury got over the days and weeks of that trial.”

We were repeatedly told that young Rittenhouse “crossed state lines” (still perfectly legal*) looking for trouble (any evidence of that?) and had “no business being there.”

The truth? Kyle Rittenhouse had a constitutional right to be in Kenosha. 

Notice I did not say “showed good judgement,” however, neither did Rittenhouse fit the legacy-left-media’s or Joe Biden’s “white supremacist” vigilante stereotype.

Thank goodness, the Kenosha jury got it right. The media nearly universally got it wrong — largely on purpose — as well as missing the biggest issue of all, identified concisely by former Democratic Party presidential candidate and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard: “This tragedy never would have happened if the government had simply carried out its responsibilities to protect the safety, lives and property of innocent people.”

Government failed to do its job, and a lynch mob press corps failed to report it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* Sadly, even the ACLU joined the chorus harping on Rittenhouse having “traveled across state lines.” The group also rightfully ripped the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office for “an outrageous failure to protect protesters.”

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ideological culture media and media people

Objectivity’s So Passé

“Will More Media Bias Save Democracy?” James Bovard headlined his latest column

At issue? Yet another call for journalists to abandon objectivity, and, as Bovard puts it, “take sides on the barricades.” This time it comes from Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, who suggests reporters use a “‘pro-​democracy’ frame.” 

But as Mr. Bovard explains: “Most Washington journalists reflexively presume that being pro-​government is the same as being pro-democracy.” 

And even worse, when differentiated, “most Washington press poohbahs show more affection for Leviathan than democracy.”

For instance, “The Washington Post devotes far more newshole to publishing leaks from FBI officials,” he points out, “than to exposing FBI abuses.”

Of course, activist journalists might frame “democracy” in their own way or choose to advance another cause.

“Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice,” argued Stanford Communications Professor Ted Glasser during last year’s presidential contest, “and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

Howard University Communications Professor Nikole Hannah-​Jones of New York Times’ 1619 Project infamy advocates that “all journalism is activism,” and condemns “even-​handedness, both sideism.”

Five years ago this month, during the Trump vs. Clinton presidential campaign, The New York Times offered readers a front-​page commentary wherein former media columnist Jim Rutenberg argued that America’s news hounds must “throw out the textbook American journalism has been using” and become “oppositional” to candidate Trump.

Though Mr. Trump triggered massive media partisanship, which continues to worsen, it is not new. Indeed, at this point, with the public’s trust in media flushing into the toilet bowl of history, objectivity would seem almost transformational.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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partisanship social media

Consigned to Outer Darkness

Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are on a de-​platforming binge.

The official rationale? Anyone “associated” with rioting must be expelled from virtual society. 

Yet these social media outfits have hardly ousted endorsers of violence against innocents with anything like consistency. Iranian Boss-​man Ali Khamenei still hasTwitter account. Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Cortez, who has opined that some people “have no choice but to riot,” is still merrily blathering on Twitter.

The latest victim of Big Tech’s assault on speech is not an individual but a competing platform, Parler, whose support for free speech is its main selling point.

Apple has kicked Parler off its app store, and Parler got booted from the Google Play store, too.

Now Amazon, which provided storage for Parler, is kicking Parler off its servers with essentially zero notice because Amazon employees “were lobbying the company to disconnect Parler from AWS for hate speech,” which is like arguing that USPS or the Constitution must be shut down because it enables hate mail.

Apparently, once enemies of speech employed by a big-​tech service provider scream “Deplatform so-​and-​so,” any erstwhile reservations of top management — Jeff Bezos, in this case — pop like a soap bubble under a hot iron.

Parler was one possible landing place for the President of the United States, booted from Twitter for allegedly inciting the capitol riot.* It now seems that Trump may find refuge at Gab​.com, where his tweets expunged from Twitter have been republished

But note: Gab has long been out in the wilderness, denied service on Google’s and Apple’s systems.

Folks who demand inclusion sure do practice exclusion well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* Rush Limbaugh deactivated his Twitter account in protest of Twitter’s action. And I deactivated mine as well — something I meant to do when Twitter blocked the New York Post’s truthful reporting on Hunter Biden during the election.

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