It amazes me that there are some who still pretend there is no real left-wing bias in the establishment media. It is difficult to tell whether they are authentically clueless, or if they just believe their audiences are too ignorant to see that these individuals are full of bovine excrement.
Los Angeles Times columnist Jackie Calmes wrote a piece in which she criticized the media for focusing on “both sides” rather than only lobbing their attacks at the right. She wrote:
For years it was easy to cover “both sides” — Republicans and Democrats — as equally worthy, and blameworthy, partners in democracy. While we reporters had come of age as witnesses to the unprecedented resignation of a Republican president who’d tried to corrupt the institutions of government to affect an election — imagine! — what remained was a Republican Party still capable of a creditable role in a healthy two-party system. After all, Richard M. Nixon was forced to resign when congressional leaders of his party began abandoning him. Again, imagine that, Kevin McCarthy.
Yes, I know it’s hilarious, but it gets even better. Calmes then informs her audience that “now, when reporters or pundits use the words ‘both sides’ in regard to some political problem, I stop reading or listening.”
The author then brought up the political environment that was prevalent during the “Republican revolution” in the 1990s. She wrote:
I started to chafe at false equivalence a quarter-century ago, as a congressional reporter amid Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolution. One party — his — was demonstrably more responsible for the nasty divisiveness, government gridlock and norm-busting, yet journalistic pressure to produce seemingly “balanced” stories — pressure both ingrained and imposed by editors — prevented reporters from sufficiently reflecting the new truth.
In her piece, Calmes then talked about how horribly the evil racist Republicans were to former President Barack Obama, who couldn’t get anything done because these bigots were so mean to him, and wouldn’t let him push through his far-left agenda. She claims that as the former president “dealt with the willful obstructionists, conspiracists and racists of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party,” two political scientists blamed the “dysfunction” in the government “squarely on the GOP” in a book. They also castigated the press, arguing that “a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon is a distortion of reality and a disservice” to consumers of the media.
The author goes on to claim that the media being critical of the Biden administration and the left, while supposedly ignoring the Republicans’ issues, “distorts reality and disserves readers, listeners and viewers.”
She then resorts to hysterical fearmongering:
Democracy is literally at stake: As Republicans block federal voting rights legislation, those in red states continue to challenge the 2020 votes for Biden (but not their own), pass laws to suppress future votes in ways disadvantageous to Democrats, gerrymander legislative districts and replace nonpartisan election overseers with partisan ones.
Calmes points out that while the Democrats are failing to pass meaningful legislation due to dysfunction in the party, she again pretends this is the fault of the GOP. “But it must be said that it owes much to the fact that Democrats, with their minimal House and Senate majorities, can’t count on a single Republican vote for most legislation, while one Republican senator can routinely block action with a filibuster.”
What is interesting about this particular diatribe is that she fails to give examples that prove the claims she is making about Republicans in the 1990s or under Obama. She doesn’t explain why Newt Gingrich’s GOP was to blame for “nasty divisiveness, government gridlock and norm-busting.” She does not provide an example proving that Congressional Republicans’ opposition to Obama’s agenda was motivated by racism.
It’s because she can’t.
Moreover, even Mr. Magoo can see that the establishment media is in the tank for Biden. The only issue on which they mobilized to criticize the president was when he botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan. If anything, they spend more time defending him than attacking him.
In fact, the Democrats know the media is on their side. This is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi felt comfortable scolding reporters for not doing enough to sell the president’s Build Back Better Act. It is why Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried posted a tweet in which she said: “Ron DeSantis has Fox News, but we have everyone else.”
Ron DeSantis has Fox News, but we have everyone else.
Florida will be blue in 2022.
— Nikki Fried (@NikkiFried) July 22, 2021
The activist media has also helped the Democrats sell their onerous vaccine and mask mandates to the public by deceiving people into believing the COVID-19 pandemic is more deadly than it actually is. CNN’s Brian Stelter and other media activists didn’t even bother to correct the false narrative about Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian migrants. One reporter even tried to cover up the fact that fans at a NASCAR event were shouting “f*ck Joe Biden.”
Let’s be clear: Jackie Calmes doesn’t give a rip about “both sidesing.” She does not care about media reporting on the issues accurately.
How do we know?
Because the only examples in which she believes one side is more to blame for divisiveness or other types of ill behavior is when it is the Republicans who are supposedly the villains. She never mentions a single situation in which she felt Democrats deserved more of the blame for a particular problem than Republicans.
The way to tell if someone believes in a particular principle is to see how they apply it when it does not benefit themselves or the political team to which they belong. For her to actually be consistent, one of two things must be true. She would also acknowledge that Democrats are not always innocent and point out where they have fallen short.
Or, she would have to sincerely believe there was never an issue on which Democrats were worse than Republicans. Even if she wanted to believe this, she knows it isn’t true. There is absolutely no way that either party is pure as the driven snow and the very embodiment of perfection.
The fact of the matter is that Calmes, like most of her colleagues, are nothing more than partisan ideologues who want the activist media to do more to help them push their agenda. She knows the press hasn’t attempted to be fair and balanced at any time in recent memory. Her problem is that they aren’t quite biased enough for her tastes.
Should we be surprised?
