By Rick Manning
The establishment media’s bias is no longer news, it is an accepted fact as it has been obvious for decades. What is astonishing is how easily so-called journalists have given up any attempt to appear neutral.
In a world where Internet Famous is more important than being accurate, what passes for media today is really little more than a bunch of Instagram influencer wannabees more interested in making a point than following the news wherever it takes them.
For one thing it is generally harder to do real research than to serve as a scribe writing what you are fed without much question.
But even laziness cannot account for the past three years, and the White House “press” corps’ failure to report and press the White House press secretary about a story that was right before their eyes: Joe Biden’s obvious failing mental acuity. Stationed at the White House to provide day in and day out coverage of events that affect the world, the White House press corps largely allowed the illusion that the President has been operating at full capacity to continue.
With a few exceptions, those selected to cover the White House were either too afraid of being shunned by the spin presenter at the podium, too partisan to report the truth about the man who defeated Donald Trump or too dumb and naïve to believe what was right in front of them.
The lack of availability to President Biden stood in stark contrast to the almost daily capacity to ask questions and engage in banter with former President Donald Trump who relished the back and forth and provided openness and availability unmatched in modern politics.
Instead, the White House press corps feigned shock when Biden was removed from the 2024 presidential race by billionaires, actors (George Clooney) and Democrat elites in a swift coup prompted by his enfeeblement tanking his polling numbers.
They didn’t even dare comment about the coup and how it contradicted the entire underlying “protect democracy” theme of the messaging they had received from the White House over the Biden years.
What followed next though is perhaps the death knell for a future president to even bother talking to the media at all.
The anointed successor in the race to stop Trump at all costs, Vice President Kamala Harris, needed to be repackaged, as the Vice President had developed a public reputation of being inept and uninspiring.
With about 100 days to election day and a little more than a month before ballots would be sent to voters in some key states, the collective media demonstrated the curiosity of a mole in sunlight, as Harris’ political handlers rebranded her as “joy and hope.” Two terms that had never been associated with the Vice President in the past.
Rather than aggressively demand access and exposure for the American public to the newly minted candidate for president, who similarly did not have to undergo any vetting via a competitive primary in the Democratic Party, the media allowed a virtual black out of her availabilities to the average voter.
And after, the programmed and edited interview on CNN featuring Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, many pundits wondered out loud if Harris should risk doing any more interviews with the media, as it might harm her chances to win.
I never thought I’s say it, but I miss Sam Donaldson. While a liberal, Donaldson in many ways embodied the brash journalists speaking truth to power no matter who was being skewered. It always seemed the he gave Democrats the benefit of the doubt, but at least he demanded they answer questions.
Not today.
Contrast the treatment of Harris with that received by Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance since his nomination as President Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate. Vance has been virtually non-stop on the media taking on the most hostile questions, engaged in the debate over the future of the country. He has gotten bumped and bruised, but has proven himself to be smart, energetic and fearless. A man who could be trusted to face down hostile leaders on the world stage, as we have seen him do just that with those who seek to upend the Trump campaign.
But for Harris and her lapdog media, the strategy mirrors the successful basement campaigns run by Biden in 2020 and John Fetterman in the Pennsylvania Senate race, don’t engage and risk making a mistake.
The campaigns can be excuses for using a strategy predicated on the idea that the more the people meet the candidate, the less likely they are to vote for them, but it is the shame of the once free media that they get away with it.
If the Washington Post slogan that “democracy dies in darkness” is true, then the blackout on actual reporting on presidential candidate Kamala Harris signals the end of politics as we know it, and a new era of manipulated voters doing what they have been programmed to do under the guise of election choices.
Many idealistic students were inspired to become journalists due to the exploits of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and the book The Boys on the Bus, which chronicled journalists covering the 1972 election. Today, they might as well be AI bots who just take what the left feeds them and regurgitate it into dozens of “unique” stories without need for there to even be a candidate at all.
Labor Day is the traditional start of the general election season. Hopefully, over the past six weeks, Kamala Harris has gathered her energy to actually campaign. But the truth be told, if her handlers believe she does well enough in the Sept. 10 debate with Donald Trump, it is unlikely she will expose herself to any unscripted events. And the left-wing advocates pretending to be journalists won’t demand anything different.
After all, if the public actually gets to know Kamala Harris, they will remember why she had to drop out of the Democratic presidential primary in 2020. Unlikeable and angry just doesn’t work when the product branding is supposed to be joy and hope.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
