Archive for December 2015
When Agenda Driven Journalism Blows Up in Your Face
On Christmas day a Houston mosque was set on fire. The predictable and immediate judgement reports by media on the Left came fast and furious.
But when 37 year-old Gary Moore was arrested on Wednesday and taken into custody the Leftist media narrative took a massive uppercut. Gary Moore was a regular attendee at the mosque and a Muslim.
Suddenly the narrative that had been building steam at left-wing media sites like Salon, where one can imagine cheering, hugs, and the verbal expression of hope that a crazed fundamentalist southern Christian would surely be the culprit, was dashed. Salon immediately deleted the entire article. Later, after other media noticed the missing article and began writing about it, Salon reposted the article with the new information.
Salon writer Ben Norton, author of the article, prematurely insinuated the fire was a result of Islamophobia. Even in his revised version Norton did his best to maintain the “America (especially Texas) hates Muslims” theme embedded throughout his story. Norton called the new information that a Muslim and member of the mosque in question actually started the fire a “twist” and then continued to insinuate that Texans and Americans in general hated Muslims and anti-Muslim rhetoric from “right-wing politicians” was gaining steam.
Poor Ben Norton. I hope someone was with him to provide first aid and comfort when his “twist” on a legitimate news story blew up in his face.
This is why journalism in this country is gasping for breath. It is all but dead.
The New York Times is the Paper of Advocacy
If anyone was still arguing whether the New York Times was fully vested in the Liberal mantra and political ideology, you need only look at the front page of Saturday’s edition, December 5, 2015.
An editorial on gun control.
Not since 1920 has the times run an editorial on page one.
In the past 95 years not a single page one editorial on Nazism, Communism, Pearl Harbor, Japanese internment camps, segregation, JFK’s assassination, or 9/11 to name a few noteworthy exceptions.
No, the Times feels gun control is the most important issue of the past century…
But this isn’t about the article. If you want to wade into the depthless and mundane here is a link to the editorial.
This is about blatant, open, in-your-face, advocacy by major news media. The paper of record is the paper of activism. Journalistic objectivity and integrity be damned. They’ve chosen sides.
“But it’s an editorial” you shout at your computer screen! “It’s opinion! It’s not the same as news!” Unfortunately in today’s “new media” the lines have been so blurred, that argument is becoming tougher to win.
The Times editorial, poorly written and shallow as it is, hit the Leftist talking points with shameless consistency, including a jab at Republican congressional leaders who “offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday.”
What happened on Thursday?
“Every Senate Republican except Mark Kirk of Illinois voted against legislation to prevent people on the F.B.I.’s consolidated terrorist watch list from purchasing guns or explosives” and this has the Times editorial board on fire with righteous indignation aplenty!
How dare those hateful Republicans vote to allow over 700,000 people (up from 47,000 at the end of the Bush presidency) any form of due process or right to be considered innocent until proven guilty? How dare they consider the fact that these lists are about as arbitrary as any “Top 10 Best” lists you’ve ever seen, in the wake of these shootings?!?
Now Rewind to 2014 and two “New York Times” editorials. This was the Times’ stand on the terrorist watch lists just ONE YEAR AGO.
No Fly List is Unconstitutional!
The intellectual gymnastics being preformed by the Times would make any side-show contortionist proud.
This is what happens when you practice agenda driven journalism. Consistency goes out the window. Journalistic standards must be ignored or abolished altogether and before long you find yourself struggling to remain off par with the publications on the grocery store tabloid rack at the checkout stand.
It’s embarrassing to watch journalists become overzealous converts to a political ideology they are meant to watch and cover with skepticism, ever questioning, never endorsing, always neutral.
With the exception of editorials of course. Sure, whatever.
The Long Version 