‘Dizzyingly Different Versions of Reality’
“Dueling Versions of Reality Define First Week of Fall Campaign” was the Associated Press’s headline over a piece by its chief political reporter Steve Peoples (9/4/20). “Embracing Both Sides journalism and injecting it with steroids,” as critic Eric Boehlert (PressRun, 9/8/20) put it, the story reported that Donald Trump says “the pandemic is largely over, the economy is roaring back and murderous mobs are infiltrating America’s suburbs,” whereas according to Joe Biden, “the pandemic is raging, the economy isn’t lifting the working class, and systemic racism threatens Black lives across America.” Rather than straightforwardly telling readers that Trump was lying about the state of the nation, AP marveled at the “dizzyingly different versions of reality,” and claimed that the candidates’ “all the conflicting messages carry at least a sliver of truth, some much more than others.”
Joni Ernst: Trumpism Before Trump
In a declaration of divorce from the Republican Party, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin (9/3/20) wrote:
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) used to be considered a middle-of-the-road Republican—before she exonerated Trump for plainly impeachable conduct. Now, she sounds just like him.
The truth is that corporate media worked hard to conceal how far-right Ernst was when she first debuted in national politics (FAIR.org, 1/20/15).
For instance, in a report called “Meet Joni Ernst,” ABC News (1/20/15) described her as “the first woman to ever represent the state in Congress,” who “catapulted to political stardom with an ad about castrating hogs,” and who “touted herself as a Harley-riding Sunday school teacher.”
It didn’t mention that she called President Barack Obama a “dictator” (Yahoo! News, 7/8/14), supported legislation that would allow “local law enforcement to arrest federal officials attempting to implement” Obamacare (Talking Points Memo, 10/3/14), promoted a conspiracy theory that the UN was “planning on moving people off of their agricultural land …and then telling them that you don’t have property rights anymore” (Mother Jones, 9/25/14), or that she carried a gun to “defend myself …from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important” (Think Progress, 10/23/14). In short, Ernst sounded a lot like Trump before most people had heard what Trump really sounded like.
‘An Abdication of Their Core Responsibility’
Noting that “mainstream news outlets still aren’t integrating basic climate science facts in their stories about record-breaking extreme weather,” climate writer Emily Atkin (Heated, 9/8/20) noted that “most of the major newspaper stories” about wildfires devastating the Western US over Labor Day weekend “don’t contain any climate-related information.” For example, the New York Times’ “Extreme Heat Turns State Into a Furnace” (9/7/20) had 1,700 words about how heat, fire and smoke were devastating Californians—but none of those words were “climate change.” AP’s “Scorched Earth: Record 2
Million Acres Burned in California” (9/7/20) noted numerous ways the fires were breaking records—but failed to explain why those records were being broken. News outlets leaving out how humans are disrupting the climate from extreme weather stories, Atkin writes, “is an abdication of their core responsibility: to give citizens the information they need to make informed decisions about how to solve society’s biggest problems.”
No, Urbanites Are Not Fleeing to the Suburbs
“Urban Exiles Are Fuelling a Suburban Housing Boom Across the US,” reported the Financial Review (8/26/20). “Pandemic Leads to Urban Exodus,” said Forbes (6/10/20). “The Flight to the Suburbs Is Real and Growing,” declared CNBC (6/18/20). Only it isn’t, according to the website Curbed (8/31/20), reporting on a comprehensive study comparing real estate statistics from urban and suburban markets: Suburban homes are not selling more quickly, rising more in value or being searched for online more than those in the city. But the tenacious myth, Curbed’s Jeff Andrews pointed out, does prop up the narrative that “cities—all cities, but especially the diverse, Democratic–led ones—are headed for inevitable collapse.”
Opposing Fascism Doesn’t Meet NYT’s ‘Acceptability Standards’
When Cornell philosophy professor Nicholas Sturgeon died, his obituary called on friends to honor his memory by “soundly defeating the incumbent of the White House and rescuing our democracy from fascism.” But when the notice appeared in the New York Times (9/6/20), the part about “from fascism” was cut, with a Times representative explaining that it “doesn’t meet our acceptability standards.”
Krugman Recalls 9/11’s Silver Linings
“Overall, Americans took 9/11 pretty calmly,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tweeted on the 19th anniversary of September 11 attacks. “Notably, there wasn’t a mass outbreak of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence, which could all too easily have happened.” Anti-Muslim hate crimes increased 17-fold after 9/11, the FBI reported (Human Rights Watch, 11/02)—but apparently that doesn’t qualify as “mass.”
Krugman, after praising George W. Bush as someone who “tried to calm prejudice, not feed it,” did acknowledge that he used 9/11 to “take us into an unrelated and disastrous war”—the almost 19-year-long occupation of Afghanistan, apparently, not qualifying as a disaster. Before alluding to Iraq, Krugman mentioned that in the wake of the attacks, “my wife and I took a lovely trip to the US Virgin Islands…because air fares and hotel rooms were so cheap.”
Black Victims Are Suspects, White Suspects Are Role Models
Jacob Blake had a knife in his car when he was shot by police, DOJ says
—New York Post (Twitter, 8/26/20)
Suspected teen gunman Kyle Rittenhouse spotted cleaning Kenosha graffiti before shooting
—New York Post (Twitter, 8/26/20) (h/t @mrsmcglover)
