A federal grand jury indicted a 26-year-old California man on June 15 for the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The man, Nicholas John Roske, had in his possession at the time of his arrest a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, a screwdriver, a nail punch, a crowbar, a pistol light, duct tape, and hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, according to the FBI. Roske, arrested near Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, told police he was upset about the leaked draft Supreme Court majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, according to an FBI affidavit.
“Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice after finding the Justice’s Montgomery County address on the Internet,” the affidavit said. “Roske further indicated that he had purchased the Glock pistol and the other items for the purpose of breaking into the Justice’s residence and killing the Justice as well as himself.”
The indictment is pretty newsy, right? Right.
Someone should tell this to the New York Times. As of the morning of June 16, the New York Times had not published a single story covering Roske’s indictment.
This comes after the same newspaper relegated its initial coverage of the assassination attempt to the below-the-fold section of its print edition, with most of the story appearing on the paper’s 20th page. To date, the New York Times has published precisely one report dedicated entirely to covering the June 8 assassination attempt. A second report mentioned the incident only in passing.
For context, when a Kentucky high school student was wrongly accused in 2019 of harassing an elderly Native American protester in the nation’s capital, the New York Times published at least six news articles tracking the incident, according to journalist Jeryl Bier.
Also, as Bier notes, on the day that Roske was indicted, the New York Times published a news article titled, “Who Will Repair Their Birkins Now?” The story’s subhead read, “Artbag, the Madison Avenue shop that socialites and celebrities have trusted to restore their chic handbags for 90 years, is closing.” In other words, it’s not as if the New York Times was swamped with significant news stories on June 15 when Roske’s indictment was handed down. It’s not as if the indictment merely fell through the cracks because the paper chose to focus on bigger, more pressing events. The decision to ignore the indictment was a choice.
It’s cliche to play the “what if” game, but honestly, it’s difficult to imagine the New York Times would behave in a similar blase manner had law enforcement officials arrested a 20-something-year-old right-wing lunatic for the attempted murder of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The New York Times would be all over the story, pumping out an impressive number of news and commentary articles dissecting every little detail and drawing disturbing and foreboding conclusions.
Yet it is apparently uninterested in the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life. The big question is: Why?
Bias
Bias in media is not necessarily a bad thing.
Everyone has biases. It’s inescapable. The important thing is that journalists treat everyone fairly, regardless of party affiliation, political ideology, etc. Bias is not so much a problem so long as journalists are equally demanding. Bias is not so much a problem so long as each side is given the opportunity to present its positions and those positions are repeated or characterized fairly by the press.
Unfortunately, most journalists today believe “every side does not always deserve equal coverage,” according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
In other words, most journalists today believe it’s acceptable to report only one side of a story, ignoring completely dissenting opinions, positions, and counterpoints. This isn’t reporting. It’s called “gatekeeping.” Stop treating the audience like children.
“What historically may have been considered a standard norm of journalism (and even a requirement for broadcast stations in their election coverage) seems, in today’s political environment, to be facing a reevaluation as heated debate ensues around the issue of ‘bothsidesism’ — whether news outlets should be committed to always giving equal attention to all sides of an issue,” Pew reported.
The Pew survey, conducted between Feb. 16 and March 17, surveyed some 11,889 gainfully employed journalists in the United States.
The report added, “A little over half of journalists surveyed (55%) say that in reporting the news, every side does not always deserve equal coverage, greater than the share who say journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage (44%).”
Fifty-five percent? That percentage of journalists today doesn’t see a problem with ignoring or censoring divergent or contradictory positions? That isn’t news reporting. It’s more like public relations!
Meanwhile, the public disagrees very much with the idea that both sides don’t deserve equal coverage. Pew found an overwhelming 76% of adults believe “journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage.” Pew polled 19,829 adults between Feb. 7 and March 13.
Considering how distrusted the media are these days, it doesn’t seem ideal for the existence of such a gap between what the press and the public believe about the critical principle of basic journalism.
Humorless scolds
The only thing left-leaning media types hate more than Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is a joke. And, boy, do they hate jokes.
Tech tycoon Elon Musk, who was born and raised in South Africa, remarked recently that he’d likely vote for DeSantis should he run for president as the GOP nominee in 2024. In response, DeSantis made a little joke about receiving support from the African American community.
“I’m focused on 2022, but with [Musk] what I would say is, you know, I welcome support from African Americans. What can I say?” the governor said.
It’s a joke. Musk, who is white, is quite literally an African American, having been born in South Africa.
Boy, did the lefty commentariat hate the governor’s joke.
“I’ve said before that [DeSantis] is a humorless, more openly fascist version of Trump,” MSNBC’s resident bigot and conspiracy theorist Joy Reid said. “Here he is displaying the former quality in that for him, ‘humor’ means mocking black Americans with his own idiotic and offensive version of replacement theory. Black Floridians take note.”
Speaking of “humorless.”
ABC News contributor Yvette Simpson said, “And we thought we couldn’t do worse than Donald Trump. They are saying the ‘racist part out loud’ and laughing about it. No more white sheets — it’s all out in the open now.”
“I understand the ugliness of what he‘s doing here because I am a member of a minority too,” CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen tweeted. “We are not a punch line & neither are Black Americans. Jokes about skin color & physical features have no place. This is sick.”
Yes, dear reader, I’m sure you’re shocked to learn that people who have been conditioned to hate DeSantis also hated his innocuous joke. It’s a shocker. Anyway, remember that these people are in the same class of professionals who say all sides don’t deserve “equal coverage.”
