American media

Vice President Kamala Harris has been quoted as saying her media coverage would be better if she were a white man. She is absolutely right. She wouldn’t have bad coverage. She wouldn’t have any coverage at all. That’s because she would still be a minor senator from a big state, not the second-highest official in the Executive Branch. She was selected only because she has the identity-politics markers so important to Democrats. It should be obvious by now that Harris is a terrible politician. When friendly reporters toss her softballs, she swings, misses and blames them. When she is given hard policy assignments, she swings and misses those, too. (In her defense, her main assignment, immigration, is President Biden’s failure, not her’s.

Chris Wallace stunned the world of news media this weekend by announcing his resignation from Fox News and its staple show, Fox News Sunday. What he did next shocked some further and didn’t surprise others at all: he joined CNN+, a new streaming service coming next year from Jeff Zucker’s dramatic infotainment network. The move is hardly a bombshell given Wallace’s recent run-ins with the MAGA faithful, both on and off the network. It comes on the heels of a contentious election where Wallace lost control in the first presidential debate. Some see Wallace’s departure as an indictment of the direction in which Fox News is heading editorially.

A Washington Post opinion writer believes that President Biden is receiving worse treatment from the media than Trump did. It is a laughable theory, so naturally the media loves it. Dana Milbank’s piece is headlined, “The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof.” Using a data analytics unit, called forge.ai, the writer claims he was able to confirm his sneaking suspicion: journalists are being meaner to the “empathizer-in-chief”, as the Hill once dubbed Biden, than they are to “The Monster Who Feeds on Fear”, as the New York Times once dubbed Trump.

In the past three weeks, two small communities in two Dairy Belt states have seen tragedy — and, of course, two very different media reactions. In Oxford, Michigan, Ethan Crumbley, a fifteen-year-old student, opened fire with a handgun at his high school on Tuesday. He killed four students and wounded eight and was taken into custody. After a brief search, both of Crumbley’s parents were arrested on manslaughter charges, for purchasing the firearm and gifting it to him. Ethan Crumbley has been charged with twenty-four different felonies including terrorism. Shortly before the shooting, a teacher identified disturbing signals in classroom, including his drawings depicting suicide, mass death, blood and firearms.

If the mainstream media were hoping to learn from the mistakes of 2016, there were plenty of lessons for them to revisit. Unfortunately, the elites that pontificated on network news channels and in Washington Post thinkpieces had zero interest in understanding why they got Trump’s election so wrong. To do that, they would have needed both self-awareness and humility. Because they lack both, nothing improved. In fact, things have only gotten worse. Four years of hair-on-fire reporting about Trump’s tweets, a Russian hoax, two impeachments and dozens of 'anonymous’ sources later, the activists in journalists’ clothing finally got their way. Joe Biden, the basement candidate, was elected president.

‘How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?’ Biden asked last week. ‘How many more lives, American lives, is it worth, how many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery? I’m clear on my answer: I will not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past.’ They were the words of a man who knew from what he spoke and knew to whom he was speaking. It was not to the national news media, an elite that has abandoned its working-class roots and audience, and have nothing but censure and contempt for Biden’s brave decision.

C’mon man! That was Joe Biden’s message to the country on the Friday before his holiday weekend. Joe Biden is just a dude. He’s the dude for this time and place. He just wants to get home, crack a cold one, spend some time with his cars, his dog (RIP Champ) and his grill. Why is this so hard to understand, America? Today the last of the US forces stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan were making their final departure, as the Biden administration began the handover to a fragile alliance. But who really needs to answer questions from the press on that kind of monumental foreign policy decision when there is a giant cooler of 16-cent hotdogs waiting in the yard in Delaware?

What exactly are the qualifications to host a show on CNN? The most obvious seems to be an astonishing lack of professional shame — and I’m not even talking about the circus act Chris Cuomo’s been doing for the past year. Reliable Sources is the most ironically named show in all of cable news, given that the guest roster regularly includes Dan Rather. On this Sunday’s episode, host Brian Stelter partook in a highly embarrassing act of professional self-debasement, in a segment in which he offered schoolgirl giggles and petty star-gazing over White House press secretary Jen Psaki. Stelter acted like a privileged fan of Psaki, giddy to just be basking in her celebrity aura for a brief moment of her precious time.

A single mistake in journalism can be forgiven. Perhaps the story was based on faulty information from a bad source and rushed through without a thorough vetting — probably due to a desire to be first to report — and then transparently corrected for the audience. But if the same mistake is repeated, over and over again, by the same news outlets who have taken leave of their basic journalistic duties, then alternative motives have to be explored. Something nefarious on behalf of these organizations and their sources may be afoot. Since Joe Biden’s election, there have been three major instances of journalists publishing a story, watching it trend for days on social media and be discussed on cable news, only for it to be partially or completely retracted later. Damage done.

President Joe Biden’s first 100 days have been devastating for the media. America’s trust in the press plummeted to new lows during the Trump administration, yet for the most part people kept watching. Consumers subscribed and clicked and watched the never-ceasing news cycles. For news networks, it was the best of times even if they were telling America it was the worst of times. Stormy Daniels, Russian collusion, Impeachment Part I, two scoops of ice cream, Russia bounties, Impeachment Part II: news consumption was sky-high. But when Trump moved back to Mar-a-Lago, he took his ratings with him. How does that Fleetwood Mac song go? ‘Well, I've been afraid of changing, 'Cause I've built my life around you.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2021 World edition.  As I walk toward Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office, I notice a large flag and sign opposing one another across the hall. Greene’s neighbor, Democratic Rep. Marie Newman, has recently planted a transgender pride flag to protest Greene’s opinion that biological men should not be playing women’s sports. Greene responded by posting a sign that says, ‘There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE. “Trust The Science.”’ I’m expecting a rather tense atmosphere inside Greene’s office, given how often the congresswoman from Georgia finds herself at odds with her colleagues.

President Joe Biden announced this week that he was pulling all remaining American troops out of Afghanistan by September 11 — and the media rushed to frame the decision positively. They are technically correct — it makes zero sense to continue to put American lives at risk and spend taxpayer dollars on a decades-long 'war' with no foreseeable end nor desire to 'win'. But as you can guess, when former president Donald Trump announced he would withdraw troops from Afghanistan just last year, the media hysterically warned that he was emboldening the Taliban and making America less safe. 'Trump administration to cut troop levels in Afghanistan despite Pentagon warnings,' the Washington Post reported.

Joe Biden is the face of the United States. But Joe Biden no longer looks like Joe Biden. And he no longer sounds like Joe Biden — especially in the long and excruciating silences when he forgets what he’s saying or fumbles for his cue cards. The United States no longer looks like itself either. The sorry theatrical display of Biden’s first press conference is an accurate image of what has happened to American democracy. A carefully limited number of carefully selected journalists asked carefully vetted questions. A carefully chosen president read carefully written answers off his cue cards, and carefully avoided taking any questions from Fox or Newsmax. The White House is no longer the home of democracy. It’s a reality TV series in a care home.

The liars are being lied to and it is a sight to behold. White House press secretary Jen Psaki is offering the likes of Kaitlan Collins and Peter Alexander a tutorial on how to be patronizing in the briefing room — not that they need it. The most recent example came when Psaki said the Biden administration has a handle on the overwhelming influx of illegals at the southern border. This, by all accounts, is not true. CBS reported this that the number of unaccompanied minors in Border Patrol custody is at an all-time high. While the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC might not be screaming about kids in cages, they are quietly acknowledging unaccompanied children in overflow facilities. Words matter.