A free and vigorous media is essential to a healthy democracy. Such an institution challenges those in power, investigates and reports on malfeasance and corruption in government, and keeps the citizenry alert and educated. Tragically, over the past few decades, the American media has failed on all counts. You may have noticed that when we have a competent, non-corrupt Democratic administration (Obama, Biden), the press thrives on fake Democratic scandals and both-siderism. But when there's an incompetent, corrupt Republican administration (W Bush, Trump), the press still thrives on fake Democratic scandals and both-siderism.
Like clockwork, the first Friday of the month brought another blockbuster jobs report. The U.S. economy under President Joe Biden added another 400,000-plus new jobs in March, it was announced last week.
Biden is currently on pace, during his first two full years in office, to oversee the creation of 10 million new jobs and an unemployment rate tumbling all the way down to 3 percent. That would be an unprecedented accomplishment in U.S. history. Context: In four years in office, Trump lost three million jobs, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.
Yet the press shrugs off the good news, determined to keep Biden pinned down. “The reality is that one strong jobs report does not snap the administration out of its current circumstances,” Politico stressed Friday afternoon. How about 11 straight strong job reports, would that do the trick? Because the U.S. economy under Biden has been adding more than 400,000 jobs per month for 11 straight months.
Trump destroyed the economy, Biden has resurrected it in record time with record job growth. But most people aren't being informed of this because the press is committed to not praising Democrats and enabling Republican lies.
The glaring disconnect between reality and how the press depicts White House accomplishments means a key question lingers: Why is the press rooting against Biden? Is the press either hoping for a Trump return to the White House, or at least committed to keeping Biden down so the 2024 rematch will be close and ‘entertaining’ for the press to cover? Is that why the Ginni Thomas insurrection story was politely marched off the stage after just a few days of coverage last week by the same news outlets that are now in year three of their dogged Hunter Biden reporting? (“ABC This Week” included 19 references to Hunter Biden yesterday.)
The wife of a Supreme Court Justice advised the President of the United States to execute a coup to take control of the government from the duly elected leader (and the majority of Americans who voted for him), and instill himself as President, and then participated in planning the Jan. 6 insurrection. And Hunter Biden, the victim of a fake scandal, got more mentions in the news.
WTF? Seriously, WTF?
The Trump Administration was so corrupt that the media couldn't even keep up. Scandals and corruption that would have ended previous Presidencies just washed over Trump for four years with no accountability. Thanks media! And of course Hillary Clinton was hounded by fake scandals for years, even up to the eve of the 2016 election, giving the Presidency to Trump by the slimmest of margins. The press was extremely complicit in that disaster, which has left our democracy hanging by a thread and still in danger.
Biden is facing not just one organized opposition in the form of the GOP, but another in the form of the Beltway press corps.
Damn straight. Of course, there are principled, excellent journalists still fulfilling the duties of a free press. We need them now more than ever. But the companies that employ them are controlled by rich, privileged, white people, and that's a recipe for a conservative, not liberal, agenda.
Here's a link to the post. Please go read the whole thing. The author, a fierce, accomplished journalist and media critic, Eric Boehlert, died in a bicycle accident last week. It's a huge loss.
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