OPINION

Journalism Abandoned Yet Again in the Wake of Trump Tweet Furor

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The mainstream media claim to be paragons of objectivity, but their disgraceful “reporting” on President Trump’s so-called “racist” tweets proves that their sole purpose is to serve the interests of the Democratic Party and a radical left agenda. 

Reputable journalists used to abide by a simple rule — never let opinions masquerade as facts. Sadly, this basic principle of journalistic integrity has long since been abandoned by reporters and media personalities who are desperate to please their liberal idols in Washington. 

Predictably, the biased press wasted no time taking sides in the latest political tussle between President Trump and progressive radicals in Congress. Instead of objectively relaying the facts to the American people, even some of the most respected news outlets in the nation seamlessly weaved Democrat talking points into their own reporting. 

“Defiant in the face of widespread criticism, President Donald Trump renewed his belligerent call on Monday for four Democratic congresswomen of color to get out of the U.S.,” the Associated Press (AP) reported this week in an article titled, “Trump digs in on racist tweets...” 

Despite the fact that the President’s message to his political opponents did not contain a single reference to their race, and even though journalists aren’t imbued with supernatural abilities to read minds, the AP continued to describe Trump’s tweets as unequivocally “racist,” reusing the label in subsequent news stories about the controversy. 

"Even before President Donald Trump’s racist tweets toward four Democratic congresswomen of color, Americans considered race relations in the United States to be generally bad," the wire service wrote in one article. 

You heard that right, a legendary newswire with a storied past is peddling clear subjective descriptions as abject journalism.

The Washington Post, for its part, made a similar editorial decision, though it felt compelled to issue a full statement justifying the use of the term “racist” in reference to the president’s tweets.

The latest wave of anti-Trump bias wasn’t just limited to the print media, though — cable TV news anchors and paid commentators also blithely parroted the Democrats on television, flooding the airwaves with assertions that Donald Trump is a racist. 

CBS Evening News host Norah O’Donnell, for instance, insisted on calling the president's tweets “racist” even when she was “reporting” on his statements defending himself against that very accusation. Similarly categorical references appeared on ABC’s World News Tonight. 

MSNBC and CNN, two of the most liberal networks on cable, one-upped everybody. The two networks used the word "racist" more than 1,100 times in less than three days from the time President Trump posted his tweets Sunday morning.

Donald Trump often gets criticized for calling out "fake news" in the media — but when journalists abandon the most elementary rules of objective reporting in order to advance their own partisan and ideological priorities, the president is just stepping into the void they created by telling the truth.

For delivering the abject truth in this latest round of “reporting,” the score is Trump 1, Media 0.

Charlie Kirk is the founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, an advocacy group for young conservatives.