George Rebane
For years my conservative friends and I have shared a common experience when talking to a leftwinger about current events. They all have massive blind spots in what they know of what’s going on. The explanation is simple. They only get their news from leftwing lamestream media which simply omits, minimizes, or hides happenings that do not conform to the Left’s worldview.
I was reminded of this again when waking up to National Propaganda Radio this morning (yes, like most conservatives, I’m interested in what my liberal neighbors see and hear). In their weekend news coverage NPR extensively described, among other items, one 600-person anti-Trump demonstration in a remote little town in upper New York state. This was illustrated as an example of broad grass roots participation in hundreds of such well-organized demonstrations across the country.
However, another very significant and historical large-scale event was totally ignored, and that was the once-in-a-lifetime, massive military parade down Constitution Avenue in Washington DC celebrating our Army’s 250th birthday – not a word or even a whisper. To our leftwing friends and neighbors it never happened. This serves as an example of lamestream’s normal ‘unbiased coverage’ of the news and explains away the ignorance of RR’s leftwing readers as expressed in their contributed comments. They get a wholly different picture of the country and world from the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, … .
And as such, as I have often reminded readers, leftwingers not only have their own opinions, but also their own facts, history, science, logic, … which are markedly (sometimes totally) different from what those of us on the Right have learned and experience. The country’s schism is complete simply for the lack of a productive common ground, and to that is added their totally different method of reasoning, even if some vestiges of common beliefs were to be found.
Then we come to the overall intellectual deficit from which today’s journalism suffers; and here I include the right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Fox Business. While they do a very good job covering the waterfront of the world’s happenings, their correspondents (and/or news scribes) more often than not omit the critical follow-on questions (to interviewees) or inclusion of crucial points that are fundamental to their reports. And with these omissions they surrender the field to the country’s socialist cadres and their interpretations which these outlets air lavishly.
Here's a timely example from reporting on today’s grossly misnamed ‘immigration’ issue involving the ongoing deportation of illegal aliens. The Left points out how our agriculture industry would be massively crippled if its current workforce of 40% illegals were to be deported. In covering this no correspondent of the Right is smart enough to include in their report that, were it to be undertaken, it would take a considerable period of time to deport the thousands of illegals who make up the 40%. Over this period there would be a natural process (of replacement workers and technology) accompanied by policy changes (e.g. reinitiation of the bracero program) that would minimally affect the industry, if at all. But by not including this important reality leaves the Left’s misleading point of an instantaneous removal of thousands by ICE agents in the minds of our already lightly read audiences. Other similar examples abound daily.
And when it comes to the aired interviews which produce either outlandish assertions or questions totally unanswered, the journalist has two revealing remedies. First, ask the interviewee on what evidence they base their assertion which will quickly expose their (biased?) basis or shows that they don’t have any for their public stance. Second, never ignore a by-passed question; the reporter must always tell his audience that the question went unanswered and/or provide an opportunity to fill the exposed void.
Finally, we should all know that outlets like the NPR should not be provided public funding to support spewing their grossly politically-biased views. They should appeal to their like-minded audiences and sponsors for the means to exercise their First Amendment rights.
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