GREAT MOMENTS IN DISPASSIONATE OBJECTIVITY: Journalists: Don’t Blame Us, We Were Just Following Orders.
Read between the lines, and you get: if we cover this story, we help Republicans and piss off the Democrats, and we really really hate the idea of helping Republicans and can’t afford to piss off our buddies in the Democrat Party, especially those in the White House.
It’s the same argument made for why schools needed to be closed during the pandemic–Trump wanted them reopened, and we couldn’t have that.
I don't think you can put it any better than this. But remember that every time this stuff happens you have reporters on here going about their business with a straight face. https://t.co/cLEFAvCKjo
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) July 3, 2024
How far we have fallen from the argument that the press is the vital “fourth estate” that needs to “hold politicians accountable.” Now we are told that journalists have a duty to harm Republicans and to help Democrats, and more importantly that even those imperatives is not to piss off the Democrats.
A motto followed by the ultimate Democratic Party operative with a byline:
It’s a shame that this knowledge fell to Carl Bernstein last year, rather than to, say, a journalist who had a reputation for following a small lead and uncovering the terrible truth it yielded irrespective of what it did to the president. https://t.co/jpWP8ijyUF
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) July 3, 2024