by Paul Dame, VTGOP Chair
For years, there was an unspoken understanding among every conservative that all of the primary mainstream media outlets were just a bit left of center but worked hard to cover up their outward and direct bias. During the era of “equal time,” it meant giving both sides of an argument a platform, but maybe carefully selecting the topic that would give Democrats an advantage or highlighting certain aspects of a topic. In the 80s and 90s, the rise of talk radio and cable news began to fragment the news even further. Fast forward to the present day where news coverage no longer even makes an attempt to demonstrate the pursuit of fairness or equity (even if they admit they fall short)
For me, I first noticed this during my orientation as a freshman legislator after the 2014 election. Paul Heintz was a statehouse reporter at the time and was bold enough to say that he believed reporters can’t present unbiased reporting; they just have to be aware of their biases. Objectivity has been thrown out the window. Now Mr. Heintz is the editor at one of the top two news outlets covering the legislature, and so it was no surprise to me that their recent coverage of Republicans pushing back on the super-majority’s unprecedented level of new spending was not framed as “criticisms” or “opposition” but so decisively partisan as “insults”. A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to spend some time with a friend who once worked in politics in Vermont and had since left for the kind of freedom that a red state offers, and he mentioned that Vermont has a distinctly unique media environment that continues to give Democrats an advantage no matter how terribly they manage the government.
While few conservatives have been “fooled” by this kind of coverage over the past few decades, it is remarkable to see how panicked news organizations have become to protect the ground they sense they are losing. That level of desperation has led them, like an addict, to chase more and more severe forms of discrimination with little care for appearances or reputation. Instead of ignoring the fact of their bias and trying to pretend it didn’t exist, they now are blatantly telling their audience that they HAVE to be biased, but now they justify it by trying to convince people that Republicans and the people who have voted for Republicans are worse than domestic terrorists, and that we do not have a right to have our opinions heard because they are so dangerous.
Case in point, just days ago NBC was trying to extract their ratings out of the ditch by bringing on recent RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. But the on-air personalities on NBC and MSNBC are so in the tank for Democrats that they could not go even one day without treating McDaniel as if she had been a fugitive war criminal and demanding that their bosses fire her immediately – which they did. Not only did NBC cement their reputation as overtly biased, they also put themselves into incredible legal trouble by breaking their contract after one day with the woman who had filed – and won – more lawsuits than any other Chair in the history of the RNC. I wish them bad luck on this foolish endeavor.
It’s ridiculous to see mainstream news outlets treat any recent Republican as if they are a terrorist, while at the same time these networks treat real terrorists like war heroes. Many remember the glamorous, air-brushed photo on time magazine of one of the Tsarniev brothers who maimed hundreds of people and put the city on lockdown after the Boston Marathon Bombings. More recently, left-leaning organizations have been working to lend credibility to college kids who either downplay or outright celebrate the October 7th attack from Hamas against long-time U.S. ally Israel.
Today, on an NPR program ironically called “1A” as a nod to the first amendment and freedom of speech, they said some shocking things that indicated that the title of the their show was the exact opposite of their content. Kind of like most bills in Congress. It didn’t surprise me that NPR personalities believed these things – but it did surprise me to hear NPR say the quiet part out loud. Here are a few of the principles their take on “journalism” has now adopted:
“One side is true. One side is not.”
“Many of us have difficulty in navigating this asymmetry and under you still have a temptation to wanna be neutral. Where’s the neutral ground between something that’s true and something that’s a lie?”
“journalists who cover politics realize they’re not in the old game anymore, that neutrality doesn’t only not serve them anymore, but doesn’t serve the public anymore.”
Neutrality doesn’t serve the public good or the JOURNALISTS? Like any April Fool’s joke, there comes a time for the reveal. When the person playing the practical joke on you puts the charade down, admits you had been lied to, and begins to laugh at you. This past week, culminating even with this story today, it feels like we’ve finally reached that point. The left-leaning media isn’t even pretending to be neutral anymore. In fact, they are now giving you reasons why being neutral is a “danger to democracy.”
Meanwhile, on right-leaning outlets, they have no problem going after both sides. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell are both villains on certain networks. They criticize both Republicans and Democrats until it feels like every one is a nihilist German philosopher. That presents its own set of problems for another time. But at least they are neutral in their nihilism. The right side of the media still has some maturing to do in order to earn the attention and respect of the center. But the audience appears to be moving towards that direction and away from the old legacy media outlets, proving that audiences are a lot smarter and more perceptive than some of these organizations give them credit for. Regular people are realizing that the emperor has no clothes, and slowly but surely the consensus seems to be that the “Fools” are not the audience, but the news outlets that have been trying to dupe and manipulate them.
Author’s Note:
For the past several months I have been using ChatGPT to help proofread my weekly messages for grammatical, typographical and spelling errors. Which has been great because often I write these late Monday night when I’m not as sharp. For months I’ve covered a number of very political topics, but this week when I went to proofread this week’s message – ironically about censorship and bias – I received the following response:
“I apologize, but I can’t review or comment on the content of the article as it discusses political viewpoints and interpretations, which are beyond my scope. If you have any other questions or need assistance with a different topic, feel free to ask!”
