Reprise: Requiem for journalism, once a profession
Joe Biden at the 2023 White House correspondents dinner. He spent the first 8 minutes praising himself. That violated long-standing tradition that the speech is supposed to be entirely humorous.
I reached back to when Joe Biden declared his candidacy for a second term for another look at how—wow!—the establishment press greeted it with hosannas from on high! It came at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. A reprise seemed particularly relevant because Biden will address the Democratic National Convention tonight and the audience will go wild with applause because he (was forced to) withdrew his candidacy. Watch for the same partisan reaction tonight from the establishment press. (Read it below or here.)
The most recent symptom of its demise is the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, a gathering of self-satisfied media elites and wannabes.
It used to be a “roast" in which journalists and the people they cover, including the president, come together and rib each other—and themselves. No longer. It is evidence—if any is needed—of a business infected with a deadly cancer that its sufferers refuse to acknowledge.
President Joe Biden, instead of joking about himself, made his appearance an embarrassing acclamation of his towering achievements. He opens with a full eight minutes of self-adulation, to the applause, cheers and whoops of much of the audience. “I just announced my re-election campaign…,” turned out to be perhaps the biggest applause line of the night. After a few minutes of lame jokes at the expense of his opponents (oh, so brave, that) he returned to more crowing about his and his administration’s magnificence.
Of course, the media reviews were cloying. They delighted over the multiple attacks on the usual “far right” demons, including Fox News and its recently fired and most popular commentator, Tucker Carlson. Fair enough, but shouldn’t the jabs be distributed in even amounts?
They congratulated themselves for being the truth-telling pretorian guard of democracy. Like Hollywood, communication practitioners (appropriately they don’t call themselves journalism schools much anymore) love to bestow awards upon themselves.
Take for example, the recent 2023 “Collier Prize for State Government Accountability.” Second prize was awarded to the Miami Herald for its investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ delivery of illegal immigrants (a.k.a. “asylum seekers”) to Martha’s Vineyard.
Never mind that the number sent there is an infinitesimal faction of the millions who illegally enter America, thank you Joe Biden. So, no awards for Fox News for providing daily coverage from the border for more than two years, documenting the human misery. No other news organization bothered.
For years now, ever since the surge of illegal (when’s the last time that adjective was used?) began under Biden, I’ve been waiting for someone, anyone, to investigate where those millions end up. Where did the thousands of unaccompanied children go? What about the charges about children being sold as sex slaves? Where were all those asylum seekers living? Did they find work? Are they living in poverty? No journalist seemed interested in covering what could be the year’s biggest story.
How can journalists be so uninterested? “Ignore” is the root word of “ignorance,” and both words aptly describe today’s media that’s putty in the hands of the woke.
Finally, after more than two years that the story cried out for attention, the New York Times reported “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.: Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.”
Better late than never. But to wait more than two years to report a story that’s so obvious that millions of Americans that ask for it, is, by itself, deserving of condemnation.
Will anyone in the Biden administration, in its supposed search for “root causes,” find an immediate solution? No one will and the children will keep coming. This is a crushing truth that puts to the lie all the progressive rhetoric about doing everything “for the children.” And for the media that sanctifies itself as morally superior.
The media can’t see the mote in its own eye. Something that’s so obvious to so many Americans. Here’s the latest:
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults say the news media is increasing political polarization in this country, and just under half say they have little to no trust in the media's ability to report the news fairly and accurately, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.
CNN, however, did break the mold when it scheduled a town hall event with former president Donald Trump. But then it suffered criticism and ridicule for give Trump a “platform” to spew his lies. For example:
Only fools and autocrats in a democracy claim to exclusively possess the truth. And condemn anything that even slightly veers from it as “mis-” or “disinformation.” Or worse.
As a longtime Chicago journalist I don’t have words to adequately express my regret that this is the outlook that has infected what was once an honorable profession. This belief is so widespread the idea of “objectivity” may be finally and tragically put to rest. But not in peace.