Republicans love to complain about bias in the media. The press have covered for powerful Democrats for generations. If President Richard Nixon had been a Democrat, he almost certainly would have avoided impeachment and resignation, and if a Democrat ended the Cold War without firing a single shot, well, he’d probably be on Mount Rushmore.
The constant talk of media hypocrisy now rings hollow, but not because the media have become more balanced in their coverage over the years. In fact, they have become even worse. Corporate journalists no longer simply run interference for Democratic politicians. They now essentially do the campaigning for them.
The Associated Press issued a rather hilarious headline on Tuesday. “She’s the sitting vice president. She’s the candidate of change. How [Kamala] Harris is having it both ways.” The article itself reads more like O.J. Simpson’s “If I Did It” than it does anything that could realistically be considered journalism. “She has this powerful and unique and interesting advantage that we have never seen before in our politics,” Patrick Gaspard, former Democratic National Committee chairman, told the Associated Press. “She is both an incumbent, and she’s been able to seize the ‘change’ banner away from Donald Trump.”
Harris holds few real positions. She is both for and against fracking, border security, single-payer healthcare, and all manner of other important issues, depending on who you ask. Many journalists appear content to allow Harris to go to Election Day without answering a single question of substance.
The few policy positions that Harris has articulated, through anonymous staffers and carefully worded press releases, have all essentially amounted to far-left politicking. To dispel any notion that daylight exists between the press and the Harris-Walz campaign, journalists immediately went to work excusing Harris’s ideas.
Politico is even reporting that the Harris campaign is asking friendly journalists who its candidate should grant an interview to, if and when she ever decides to answer questions. This underlines how many journalists are not biased toward Democratic candidates — they are agents of Democratic campaigns. It is not that members of the press are more interested in speaking truth to power when Republicans are in charge. The issue is that their singular focus is on making Democrats more powerful and stripping all power, including the most basic human rights, from their political opponents.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The current state of journalism is in far worse shape than most media-skeptical right-wingers would even like to admit, but it is important to view the media for what they are.
Enough imagining that many journalists care in the slightest about journalistic integrity. Today, the goal for many journalists is to help Democrats defeat or jail the candidates you support.
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.