News from an echo chamber

A few days after the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, a man drove his car into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., killing six and injuring dozens. The two seemed related. Then the story disappeared. One Sunday after the deaths, most of the Sunday news shows were discussing Donald Trump and the new Omicron variant of COVID.

Major news outlets in the United States have gotten a lot wrong in the past few years. Rittenhouse had actually acted in self-defense and had no ties to white supremacists, contrary to many media reports. Nor did Rittenhouse go across state lines with a gun, as many on the left believed, because media reports said as much.

Nicholas Sandman was not a racist aggressor at a March for Life rally a few years ago. The Steele Dossier does appear to be a Clinton campaign operation. Jussie Smollett was not the victim of Trump supporters. Even now, the media is openly suggesting the Supreme Court ending Roe v. Wade would end all abortion in America. What would happen is that each state would decide its abortion policies.

Time and time again, the media get the major narratives wrong. After the not guilty verdict for Kyle Rittenhouse, a CNN reporter addressed the facts that came out at trial. “We learned a lot of things in this trial,” said Sara Sidner. That was quite an admission. Just about everything the reporter claimed was “learned” during the trial was known before the trial ever started, but the national media did not let the facts get in the way of the storyline.

The major media’s herd mentality has caused more and more Americans to distrust them. True, “the media” are multifaceted. Fox News inarguably has the largest cable ratings, but more Americans still get their news from the nightly broadcasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC than from cable. In the main, those big three networks are still guided by the big stories at The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The newspapers, particularly The New York Times, are increasingly focused on their left-of-center subscribers. This trickles into other outlets. While Fox may be the largest single outlet, the combined media of ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post, not to mention places like Politico and Axios, lean left of center.

When Barack Obama was president, Jay Carney went from TIME magazine to White House press secretary. Shailagh Murray of The Washington Post went to Vice President Biden’s office. At the time, Murray’s husband, Neil King, messaged me on Twitter to suggest it was possible to be impartial while married into politics. King, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, left to work for Fusion GPS, the Democratic dirty tricks farm.

The entire operation is a giant revolving door. Linda Douglass of ABC News went to work for Obama then left for The Atlantic. Jill Zuckman left the Chicago Tribune to work for the Department of Transportation. Douglas Frantz of The Washington Post went to the State Department. Stephen Barr of the Post went to the Labor Department. Jonathan Allen of Politico went to work for Debbie Wasserman Schultz before returning to Politico, then went to work for more Democrats, then NBC, and now works at Vox. Those were all just the Obama Administration. Neither the Bush nor Trump Administrations compare, even including transfers in and out of Fox News.

Jim Scuitto worked for the Obama Administration and now is an anchor at CNN. So, too, is Valerie Jarrett’s daughter. Major press outlets are far more likely to hire progressives tied to progressive politicians and outlets. It produces bias in what is covered, how it is covered, and what is not covered.

The media need some self-reflection. The press is increasingly myopic, process-oriented, and focused on what people who live in the New York-Washington cultural corridor want to hear. Those people tend to lean left socially and are increasingly intolerant of other views. The media itself are becoming less tolerant of other views at the very time we need broader views and coverage.

In November, Darrell Brooks allegedly drove his car into the attendees of a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis. The story quickly disappeared without much media curiosity about Brooks’ motives even as police detectives said they thought it was intentional. These things matter because a free nation depends on a free press, but the American press is not free. It is willingly chained to the progressive echo chamber.