The mainstream media are nothing if not a predictable bunch, and that has certainly been the case amid the revelations from the forthcoming Tapper/Thompson book about former President Joe Biden’s decline and the extent of the White House/Democrat Party cover-up.
Instead of doing some soul-searching in regards to their prominent role in the scandal, those in the press who are weighing in on the issue are predictably feigning shock, as CNN‘s Abby Phillip did after the audio from Biden’s interviews during Special Counsel Robert Hur’s 2023 classified documents investigation was released.
There have also been others in the corporate press, like Phillip’s colleague Jake Tapper himself, who are pretending they couldn’t cover Biden’s decline extensively at the time because the White House and Democrats kept it from reporters:
The latest hot take from the MSM as the scandal over who knew what and when deepens comes from former New York Times public editor/former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, who says in so many words that the bigger media scandal was the failure of the press to stop Donald Trump’s reelection:
From the piece:
At what point will there be a general acknowledgment and some serious self-scrutiny about the way big media failed to adequately convey what would happen if Trump were elected again?
Sullivan then approvingly cited a tweet from political scientist Norm Ornstein, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, who says the media is culpable for Trump’s reelection:
After suggesting her former colleagues at the New York Times played a “destructive role” in helping pave the way for Trump’s 2016 win by supposedly being too tough on Hillary Clinton, Sullivan went on to allege that the media “sanewashed” Trump in his first term and ahead of the 2024 election instead of portraying him as dangerous “would-be autocrat”:
Then, during Trump’s first term – and especially during the 2024 campaign – the mainstream press constantly normalized the would-be autocrat.
The ever-so-apt term “sanewashing” was born to describe what was going on, and the media’s role. Talk about a cover-up. Trump’s rallies were exercises in lunacy, as he spun tales about sharks and Hannibal Lecter, rambling for hours.
Relatedly, former MSNBC anchor David Shuster complained that Biden’s age, cognitive decline, and the cover-up of it paled in comparison to what he says Orange Man Bad is doing to the country:
There’s so much to unpack here, but first, here are some reactions:
I mean, I don’t know how much more mud they could have thrown on the wall about Trump in hopes that it would have stuck. They were willing participants in and perpetuators of the Russia collusion hoax, were active cheerleaders of the various impeachment efforts, encouraged and applauded the years of lawfare, and portrayed him as a racist, a rapist, and even a Nazi to try and scare voters away from him.
Further, whether she realizes it or not, Sullivan is basically proving another point conservatives have for years tried to make in that she’s advocating that the media pick a political side and frame their coverage accordingly in hopes that they will influence public policy and elections.
Sadly for Sullivan, Shuster, and all the other media apologists, the media did influence last year’s election, but not in the way they’d hoped they would. It’s what happens when you get inundated week after week with “walls are closing in/it’s only a matter of time now” stories that, at the end of the day, end up being much ado about nothing.
-Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter/X.-
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