George Rebane
The most recent SCOTUS rulings on abortion and gun rights got me thinking again how the Left and Right differ in the manner their outlets report the news, debate issues, and frame their commentaries. As shown here for years, the asymmetry is pronounced since the Left has never had supporting arguments for their positions and policies that survive in the light of the record and reason. It is easy to confirm this claim by just tuning in to, say, FN, and then to MSNBC, CNN, or any of the big three.
On FN the viewer is exposed to extensive coverage of the actual videos of leftwing reporters and commentators who have diametrically opposite views from those promoted by the conservative outlet. Such exposure of rightwing counter arguments is absent on leftwing outlets; there you just get the Democrat party line and established narrative, with opposing views not presented but simply characterized as wrong and/or evil. And here I’m talking about the ‘core arguments’ that sustain a position, not just reporting that so-and-so disagreed with what is asserted.
According to my lights, proper journalism, debate, and commentary that takes/reports on a given position should always include the core arguments for and against what is at issue. When only the pro-side core argument is delivered, then the result is simply propaganda and anticipates a good level of ignorance on the audience’s part in order to make the one-sided case stick. The leftwing outlets uniformly demonstrate this in their coverage. And I regret to say that, mainly through sloppy reporting, we see some of the same occasionally from the Right, mostly when it further supports the ideological leaning of the outlet.
A current example of this is citing polls to claim that ‘most Americans are pro-choice’ in order to represent the SCOTUS ruling as being anti-American, extreme, and beyond the bounds of jurisprudence. The citations refer to polls that contain certain summary compilations of respondents’ attitudes or just answers to a question that nowhere near captured and communicated the complexity of the issue to the respondent. ‘Do you believe that all abortion should be illegal in America?’ vs ‘Under what circumstances like term of pregnancy, rape, incest, if any, would you consider legalizing abortion?’ When the latter question is answered then a more complete spectrum of the country’s attitudes comes to light that is reported on FN, but blacked out on the lamestream outlets.
Similar examples can be given to the perennial reports by the Left of ‘gun violence’ in the country that include suicides, accidents, and other non-malevolent incidents involving firearms. In this case the audience is also expected to be ignorant of the superb record of gun safety and legal uses that the country’s CCW holders have demonstrated over the decades. (CCW holders are many times more reliable on gun usage than are the country’s law enforcement officers.) None of these core arguments for expanding the carry laws are presented by the lamestream, which only report how some light-readers (usually female) breathlessly fear for their own safety if more law-abiding citizens in public are now armed. The emphasis again is focused on expanding ‘gun-free zones’, with no reporting that these do nothing to promote gun safety because it focuses the criminal and rogue gun users to where they will be most secure as they commit real gun violence. (Shouldn’t Chicago be declared a gun-free zone to make its streets safe?)
Perhaps the most egregious violation of journalistic standards by the Left is in the reporting on matters of governance. The dumbing of America, through its huge public educational deficits over the last decades, almost guarantees that very few know the three branches of government and their roles in governance. Most people are not aware that Congress has the sole power and responsibility to make the country’s laws. What share of Americans know that the Judicial Branch has no constitutional imprimatur to legislate, and must restrict itself to adjudicating the constitutionality of laws at issue when such a complaint arises and a case is presented for resolution?
And finally, how many among us know that the Executive is not empowered to make the laws of the land, but only to enforce the laws and their subsequent regulatory haloes within the originating intent of Congress. Presidential executive orders are intended to manage the operations of the executive branch agencies, departments, and commissions. (more here) They are issued when the president decides that Congress may not or cannot fulfill a specific need in a timely manner, and may be withdrawn only by a sitting president. (Congress may pass legislation making the execution of an EO difficult, or even impossible when it requires special funding.) But recently presidents have overstepped the intended boundary of the EO, and issued some that are constructively new laws of the land. Again, the reporting on this by the Left is absent when a Democrat sits in the Oval Office.
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