Mainstream Media — Intentionally or Not — Do Their Best to Help the GOP Win Elections
During the runup to the 2022 midterm elections, mainstream media’s subtle Right Wing propaganda was been going strong. It’s no wonder the GOP won the House and almost half the Senate, despite all the destruction they cause.
Some of the authors, TV hosts etc. realized they were pushing Right Wing views. Others didn’t realize their Right Wing bias. For example, they tried to be neutral and objective by “reporting both sides. However, treating the truth & lies as if they are equally credible is far from being objective.
I’ve written about this before. Here are 3 of my previous articles on the subject.
Mainstream Media’s Subtle Right Wing Propaganda Helped Elect Trump and Could Lose Congress for Democrats, if We Fail to Face It
Media Often Cause Events to Happen (like GOP Wins) Rather than Simply Reporting
The History of Mainstream Media’s Betrayal of the Public — by Their Treating Fact Checking by Dems as Equivalent to Lying by Fox
We are so immersed in Right Wing propaganda from mainstream media right now, that even Blue voting cities in Blue states are letting themselves get pushed Rightward by mainstream media. One way that this is happening is that many writers and TV hosts are predicting GOP wins so often, that this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, it could happen because so many people expect it to happen.
Another way Right Wing bias happens is that Republicans bash Democrats for not solving problems perfectly. Republicans offer no serious workable solutions themselves. Then Republicans in Congress vote against Democrats’ bills create to solve the problems. They’ve voted against Democrats’ bills to help the baby formula shortage, to lower the cost of insulin, to stop oil and gas price gouging and many other bills to solve problems.
If mainstream media would consistently report on this happening, it wouldn’t be a problem. However, although some mainstream media writers and TV hosts report on the pattern consistently, most do not. Many report Republican critiques of Dems as if they’re being done in good faith, when anyone looking at the recurring pattern can easily tell that the critiques are not being done in good faith.
Corporate mainstream media are Right Wing biased in more subtle ways than Fox “News” is. In some ways, mainstream media’s bias is more dangerous. It’s more subtle and harder to detect. Therefore it fools more sophisticated people. It fools most of the leaders on whom others depend to get news stories straight and to not get fooled — journalists, Democratic consultants, sometimes even Democratic officials.
Here is a Threadreader app unroll of a Twitter thread that shows several good examples of how Right Wing misinformation in mainstream media causes even voters in Blue cities in Blue states to vote as if they were Republicans.
This thread is from Alec Karakatsanis Founder and Executive Director of Civil Rights Corps. It’s about how San Francisco recalled their progressive District Attorney, based on lies and bad faith Right Wing arguments, with which mainstream media have been flooded.
It’s not just San Francisco’s media but also national media that have been flooded with this “copaganda” — propaganda defending Right Wing views on our policing system.
Alec critiques 3 articles —one each from The Atlantic, New York magazine and The New Yorker. As he points out, the articles are full of falsehoods, misleading statements and “comical one-sided sourcing.” He focuses primarily on the most important problem:
“Each article’s central theme is that removal of (a) “progressive DA” was (a) natural response to problems of inequality, homelessness, drug use, mental illness, etc. (i.e. not (a) product of (a) huge $ misinfo campaign.) What’s remarkable is that none of the articles explains why this would be.
“None of the articles explains which specific DA policies were responsible for the “disorder” of inequality in San Fransisco. (And, interestingly, when separated from Boudin himself, each of the DA’s progressive policies were very popular with SF voters):
“Moreover, property and violent crime actually went down under the “progressive” DA, whose policies seem like a huge success when using nearly every conventional crime and budget metric.”
“And so here is the most incredible thing: none of the articles contains a statement of what the authors are proposing instead.”
The highly respected authors of these articles in highly respected publications were either intentionally showing Right Wing bias — or else they were easy prey for one of the most common Right Wing propaganda ploys: bashing Democrats for not solving problems perfectly — problems for which the GOP itself offers no solutions — problems for which Republicans block solutions.
Of course the San Francisco DA’s recall is water under the bridge now — over and done. National midterm elections are the high priority now. This issue very much applies to the midterm elections though.
This issue of mainstream media pushing voters Rightward is highly relevant now. Mainstream media are unfairly bashing Biden for inflation, baby formula shortages and anything else the occurs to the Right Wingers that mainstream media writers and TV hosts interview about politics. Right Wingers often pretend to be liberals or Democrats, and mainstream media often don’t realize the deception.
Right Wingers bash Biden for one problem after another, offer no solutions and then vote against bills in Congress that Democrats have created to solve the problems. With few exceptions, mainstream media are allowing Republicans to get away with this.
So what can we do?
We can all call and write President Biden and VP Harris and tell them about this. They may have some idea but may be too busy to notice the extent of it. Let’s tell them mainstream media are not consistently reporting Republican deceptions. For example, they’re not often reporting the pattern where the GOP criticizes Biden/ Dems, fails to offer workable solutions and then votes against bills designed by Dems to solve the problems. We can tell them we want them to fight back — to demand media do their job and report the news objectively to the public. Here’s the contact info.
We may want to call Speaker of the House Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Schumer and our individual Senators/Representatives. Google their name and “offices” for phone numbers and street addresses.
A second thing we can all do is make public awareness of mainstream media’s Right Wing bias a high priority — second only to Get Out The Vote actions and donations. Whenever you discuss politics with friends or acquaintances, in person or on social media, make sure you inform people of this problem. Make sure non-MAGAs you know understand that most writers and TV hosts in mainstream media are unfairly bashing Biden and showing pro-GOP bias.
MAGAs generally won’t listen to liberals. They also tend not to consume mainstream media.
If you need examples, if you are on Twitter, @jayrosen_nyu , @froomkin , @will_bunch and @MarkJacob16 often provide ongoing examples of mainstream media’s Right Wing bias. @dougjballoon does excellent parodies of mainstream media bias.
One more thing we can all do is contact mainstream media outlets (Google contact and the name of the outlet) and demand that they correct their bias and report news objectively to the public. That’s their job. They should do it.
If we all pull together, we can be the village it takes to save democracy. We can come through the midterms with additional seats in both Houses of Congress.
Full speed ahead.
