OPINION:
Sports fans and even some coaches often complain that referees help one team over another or that they let superstars get away with penalties they call on journeymen. Whether it’s the Dallas Cowboys playoff, allegations of NCAA tournament cheating, or how World Cup cities are chosen many fans think refs aren’t neutral.
They should try dealing with journalists.
There is no industry more dishonest when it comes to doing its job. Reporters and news organizations that long professed neutrality have all but abandoned it. The rapid opinions of the Internet have conquered journalism and conservatives are the ones who suffer.
The more “mainstream” a news outlet pretends to be, the less it really is. American journalists represent a tiny sliver of the body politic that is nearly 100 percent devoted to the most far left causes. That list includes, but is certainly not limited to: pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-tax, anti-gun, anti-Christian and, oddly, anti-free speech.
The media elite are devoted to a statist view that despises any celebration of our nation or our culture. Traditional news outlets now compete with young start-ups over which can be more ridiculously pro-liberal.
Political coverage is especially bad. Former Democratic operative turned network anchor George Stephanopoulos remained part of a regular Democrat strategy call even after joining ABC. He gave $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation and still covers the same liberal family he used to cover for when he worked in the White House as a Clinton senior adviser. Yet conservatives are to expect fair treatment? Ask Indiana Gov. Mike Pence how that worked out.
Stephanopoulos’s former boss’s wife Hillary Clinton coasted through a recent softball interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, who had just attended the wedding of one of Hillary’s staffers. Keilar will probably do what many journalists do when Democrats win elections, go to work in their administration.
The Hispanic network Univision declared war on GOP candidate Donald Trump over comments he made about illegal immigrants. The network’s president of programming and content Alberto Ciurana compared Mr. Trump to Charleston racist and mass murderer Dylann Roof. The influential Univision hasn’t disciplined him one iota. Of course, his own boss compares his enemies to Nazis. So much for neutrality.
The Washington Post just announced it will rehire Dave Weigel, a former staffer who left under one of the biggest scandals to mar the paper in years. Weigel was originally recruited to the Post by his buddy Ezra Klein, who now heads the lefty propaganda site Vox. Mr. Weigel joined Klein’s earlier propaganda operation: Journolist, an email parade of liberal pundits and journalists who plotted strategy and bashed conservatives.
On Journolist, Mr. Weigel was perfectly at home, once joking that “I hear there’s video out there of Matt Drudge diddling an 8-year-old boy. Shocking.” When radio host Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized, Mr. Weigel mocked, “I hope he fails.” He also complained that conservatives “violently, angrily divide America.” Now he’s covering Rand Paul for the Post, after once calling Paul’s supporters “Paultards.”
Mr. Weigel’s comments are almost tame when compared to Business Insider Senior Political Correspondent Hunter Walker. He posted a 14 Tweet rant declaring himself “1000000% unabashedly pro gay marriage.” Mr. Walker, who says he is “a child of two gay moms,” criticized a conservative article on gay marriage as “hateful.” He ended his diatribe by saying “anyone else who suggests gay marriage should be anything but cheered can go f**k themselves.” No, he didn’t edit it either.
Those comments made barely a ripple in the media world. He wasn’t fired. He didn’t delete what he said. That isn’t surprising. Support for gay marriage is one of the most-defining issues for liberal journalists. Even lefty Politico remarked how unabashedly pro-gay marriage outlets like Huffington Post, Mashable and Buzzfeed were. All three “changed their Twitter avatars to feature the rainbow flag, a symbol of pride in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.”
Buzzfeed was especially blunt. Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith admitted its blatant bias saying, “We firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides.”
That’s the reality for nearly all news outlets. Journalists are rarely neutral, nor have they ever been. Even the most-well-known journalist of his day, Walter Cronkite, was laughably left-wing — bugging a GOP convention and urging liberal Sen. Bobby Kennedy to run for president. Were he an anchor now, it is likely he would be thought of as more liberal than Keith Olbermann.
Conservatives need to understand this is the way the game is played. To the media, everything liberals do is good. Everything conservatives do is bad. The only way to beat them is to stop playing their game.
Dan Gainor is the vice president for Business and Culture at the Media Research Center.
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