In his opening remarks and communications introducing himself to CNN staffers, newly appointed CEO Mark Thompson brought up a condition in the press that has risen to more prominence over the last decade. In his recorded message to his new minions, Thompson delivered this paradox: “Let's not second-guess ourselves or get distracted by complicated arguments about balance or whataboutism or false equivalency. Let's cover political news proportionally and fairly..." Don’t fret over balanced coverage, and be fair while…not doing so. Okay, then.
Thompson echoes a common refrain heard in the media in recent years, a refrain that rose in volume during the Donald Trump years and was amplified further after the January 6 mob scene at the Capitol. The press, which had always fostered disdain for Republicans, now had justification for not treating them fairly in their news coverage. Since Republicans denied the election, and as a result inspired the democracy-shredding J6 riot (so goes the blanket accusation) they have demonstrated they are not entitled to equal coverage.
The flaws in this stunted thinking are obvious, beginning with the prejudicial approach that all Republicans think and act in concert. Then you have the act of conflating those who merely questioned or looked into election results as “insurrectionists” and therefore deemed unqualified sources – past years of Democrats doing the very same notwithstanding, of course. Since Republicans do not adhere to the standards of facts (as established by the press) then outlets are not beholden to their previous standard of equal coverage in news reports.
The justification is Republicans acting in bad faith are not to be granted equal and balanced coverage; rampaging murderers massacring Israelis, however, are somehow entitled to having their side of the story told, we are learning. The press cannot trust what Republicans are saying, but a murderous terror organization is entitled to a fair shake.
Since the October 7 targeted attack by Hamas insurgents who committed barbaric acts, which we are still seeing coming to light, many of those in American press circles have gone out of their way to present both sides of the conflict. The unprovoked war-crime levels of atrocities are softened and there are efforts to understand what might have provoked this inhumane behavior. These are the pastures to where our media complex has wandered.
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Political ideology and party affiliation are grounds to dismiss the equal and fair treatment of those in Washington the press deemed as untrustworthy. Yet at CNN - where Jake Tapper famously declared election deniers would not be welcomed (Stacey Abrams being the exception) - we watched as Fareed Zakaria allowed a Hamas spokesman to declare they were not targeting civilians but instead only struck armament targets and military personnel. If you question voting methods you are persona-non-broadcasta, but you are free to come on the air unchallenged if you are a massacre-denier.
This push to dismiss what they call “bothsidesism” has been brewing for years and the way the press has latched onto any event to legitimize the move has become blatant. From impeachments to J6 to the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, and up to Donald Trump’s mounting indictments – these and many other examples have been brought forward as reasons why giving Republicans fair coverage is no longer required of journalists.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times two years ago, Jackie Calmes declared giving both sides of a political story is bad for the general public. The obviously slanted approach to the “problem” leads to the conclusion only one party is to blame.
"I started to chafe at false equivalence a quarter-century ago, as a congressional reporter amid Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolution. One party — his — was demonstrably more responsible for the nasty divisiveness, government gridlock, and norm-busting, yet journalistic pressure to produce seemingly 'balanced' stories — pressure both ingrained and imposed by editors — prevented reporters from sufficiently reflecting the new truth."
Uh-huh. The perpetual labeling of Republicans as “Nazis” for decades has not been divisive, if you follow the obliviousness. Norm-busting moves like Harry Reid introducing the nuclear option in the Senate was not a problem, but when Mitch McConnel employed the same tactic it then became demonized. This use of the term “new truth” underlines the effort being made. By redefining the accepted “truth,” others could then be described as violating it, and therefore discounted as deserving of equal treatment.
In the Columbia Journalism Review, this concept was approached and the dispatching of fair and equal coverage was promoted.
"In the Trump era, 'both sides' (or 'bothsidesism') has become shorthand for a journalistic philosophy that many media critics consider to be broken, especially in its Democrat v. Republican iteration; its rules, critics say, make things that aren’t the same seem the same, and allow bad actors to launder disinformation."
Then in the column, it referenced a New York Times article covering the Trump impeachment trial, and it went on to quote the notably biased NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen.
"Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, listed 12 more snippets from the article as evidence of the Times’s inability to handle what he calls 'asymmetrical polarization.' They included 'the different impeachment realities that the two parties are living in,' 'both sides engaged in a kind of mutually assured destruction,' and 'the two parties could not even agree on a basic set of facts in front of them.'
"Rosen is right that this sort of language is inadequate: Democrats, for the most part, are engaging with the factual record; Republicans, for the most part, are not."
Democrats always telling the truth makes for a nice punchline, yet these minds believe they are convincing people of their plotline. The use of the word “asymmetrical” by Rosen is a direct reference to a work many in the news industry cite as their reasoning behind walking away from the generational practice of delivering both sides of the story. In their book “Asymmetrical Politics,” political scientists Matt Grossmann and David Hopkins lay out the blueprint for journalists to use to justify why they do not need to cover the news “proportionally and fairly,” as Mark Thompson alluded.
That their approach is rooted in partisanship is not hard to discern through exhaustive reading; it is on display in the subtitle. “Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats.” Seriously, this is the position they choose to place the two parties, and they bolster this in their work. Readers are told this is the dichotomy seen in the two-party system:
"DEMOCRAT PARTY: Fosters a relatively pragmatic, results-oriented style of politics in which officeholders are rewarded for delivering concrete benefits to targeted groups in order to address specific social problems.
"REPUBLICAN PARTY: Forges partisan ties based on common ideological beliefs, encouraging party officials to pursue broad rightward shifts in public policy."
Grossman and Hopkins extend this bias to describe the voting base, declaring that more than Democrats, Republican voters want “demonstrations of ideological purity,” and basically pressure their politicians “to reject moderation and compromise.” With this foundation - that a Republican Party is driven by, and lorded over with, political zealotry while the Democrats simply want what is best for society - it becomes easy to look at one side as worthy of having its messaging and opinions dismissed.
That this approach to walking away from covering both sides in the news is a self-defeating enterprise is a hard truth the supposed adherents of truth-seeking want to deny. In one Pew Research poll, disturbingly over half of journalists - 55 percent - announced that both sides do not deserve equal coverage. Meanwhile, overwhelmingly their own customers say that it is an important practice, at 75 percent.
When one party is declared as perpetually trafficking in misinformation and making decisions based solely on party interests alone, then discounting their views as invalid and therefore not worthy of receiving equal coverage becomes not only easy to do but necessary in the eyes of some journalists. To say Democrats operate in the truth, only deliver pragmatic solutions, and always have the interests of others in mind is the laughable conclusion made to justify silencing conservatives.
It is for these reasons that our press industry finds itself in a disturbing position. Today, Republicans do not deserve to have their views treated in a fair fashion and both parties are not to be approached equally.
Yet murderous terrorists who kill elderly civilians in public, shoot children and babies in their homes, rape women, and drag bodies through streets for the cameras manage to garner a sympathetic ear and receive balanced coverage in the press. Somehow those actions are less nefarious than GOP members veering from a narrative and thus warrant having both sides of their story told.
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