The mainstream media bias hits just keep on coming.
As we conclude this series on mainstream media mayhem, I believe it has documented the incredible political correctness/left wing bias that exists in the big networks and newspapers. And it seems those indicted are all publicly demonstrating how guilty they are.
Recently, a New York Times editor, Bari Weiss, publicly resigned because she was tired of the “bullying,” the “Nazi” tactics and the constant compliant that she was she “writing about the Jews.”
Apparently, Weiss, a moderate Democrat, wasn’t sufficiently politically correct/left wing (socialist?) enough for her colleagues at the Times.
However, to understand the level of bias at this once great New York Times, it is important to remember this: This woman driven out of the Times was and is left of center—apparently not left enough for her colleagues—and was “sobbing” on election night 2016 when her candidate, Hillary Clinton, was upset by Donald Trump.
Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the Times PC gang from making her life miserable.
Destroying Dissent
Weiss, in her resignation letter, said she’s been “openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in.” Some staffers, she said, argued she needed to be “rooted out while others post ax emojis next to my name.”
Why do people with different points of view need to be rooted out? Ask the Times. (By the way, it is a newspaper of tremendous importance even though a lot fewer people read it than a generation ago. It remains important because mainstream network news divisions virtually take their marching orders from it. Assignments are often are made based on what the Times or the Washington Post published that day).
Other Times employees, Weiss complained, “publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.” Indeed, that seems the norm for an age in which certain kinds of bigotry are fine in many places.
Weiss also gave a description of how political correctness, especially in the mainstream media, has come to prey and transform what was once a free society into one in which people are afraid to speak their minds.
She also said she was “confident that most people at “The Times” do not hold these views” but “are cowed by those who do.”
Indeed, editorial leaders at the Times were recently cowed.
No More Cotton
A few months ago, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), wrote a reasonable piece for the Times arguing that federal troops had been used before to quill U.S. riots. This was really nothing outrageous or new here. Still, I thought maybe the Times was trying to become what it was once: A somewhat left of center paper that was fair.
I was wrong.
Cotton’s piece was a historically sound. One could agree or disagree with the use of federal troops to stop riots but what was wrong with running it?
Well, apparently a lot.
Much of the Times’ news room staff was outraged that a Trump ally was being allowed to write a piece for the paper. The column was immediately yanked. But more bad times were coming. In the true spirit of political correctness—we don’t let people have different points of view and if anyone disagrees with us, we shout them down and ruin their lives—the op-ed page editor was fired and his deputy was demoted.
Why?
They had committed the sin of sins and given a voice to a right-wing view. And sometimes the Times doesn’t even go through the motions of pretending to be fair. For example, they just had a lawsuit filed against them for a story that charged there was a coronavirus outbreak at Liberty University.
The university’s complaint? There was no coronavirus outbreak at the university and the Times made “no meaningful attempt” to get their side of the story. If Liberty University proves that, one would have to say that the Times as engaging in sloppy journalism. In any controversial new story, the rules of fairness require check and double check as well as make sure that everyone skewed by the report has the chance to comment.
Some Aren’t Afraid of Alternate Views
By the way, that same week of Cotton op-ed, the lead op-ed piece of the weekend Wall Street Journal was a piece by an extreme left-wing sociologist who argued that America is a thoroughly racist society. He had his say and nothing bad happened to him. A very different view was aired in the Journal and whether one agrees or disagrees with it, that was a very good thing.
The Times’ approach is the spirit of tyranny. The Journal’s approach is the spirit of liberty; of an open market place of ideas and opinion. The latter is something foreign to the mainstream media; the television networks and the most important papers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, which set the agenda for the networks.
We need to eliminate the mental despotism of the Times and the rest of the mainstream media. We need to remember the thought of J.S. Mill. He argued that mavericks should always be heard; that they should not be silenced. Why? Lots of reasons. But let us remember this one: The maverick may be right and the rest of society may be wrong. Truth is not based on a majority vote.
What Is to Be Done?
We end this series with a question: How do we call the mainstream media to account.
We begin by withholding our patronage. Until, mainstream media starts reforming itself, stop watching and reading it. Despite all the high-sounding rhetoric from people like NBC News’ Chuck Todd, who insist their networks have no bias, the only way to get through to them is to turn them off and stop reading their papers.
Their deliberate distortions are many and they are unlikely to reform themselves until their customers switch the channel, stop buying the paper and collectively say, ‘basta ya!”
