Marking the first anniversary of the inauguration of Joe Biden this January 20, 2022, the numbers in things that matter to the health of the nation and its people are way, way better than a year ago. Just on the economy, initial unemployment claims are down from 812,750 to 210,750, the unemployment rate is down from 6.4 percent to 3.9 percent, and compared to the loss of 9.4 million jobs a year ago, the number is now up by 6.4 million.
Frankly, that’s an amazing achievement for just one year, and it has been done in the midst of the greatest pandemic in 100 years that has taken over 800,000 lives in the U.S. and is still raging.
So, it is completely vexing to us that the major media is uniformly trashing Biden as weak and ineffective. Of course, they cite the failure of Democrats to pass comprehensive voting rights and domestic reforms, and Biden is being blamed for this not only by Republican obstructionists that now constitute the entire party representation in Congress, but also by leftists in his own party who’ve decided it’s now time for him to get thrashed and rendered even more a “loser.”
This massive distortion of the truth wouldn’t be possible but for the horrible role the major media is playing to shape this perception, and we’re not talking about the rightwing Fox News, OAN, Sinclair and other egregious propaganda machines. When pressed, otherwise reasonable Democratic leaders admit on CNN and MSNBC talk shows that Biden has done good things, but then revert to the media driven “perception” of ineffectiveness. Quickly, conversations shift to this perception versus reality issue. How is that different from the Trump obsession with “fake news,” where it is not reality but perception that reigns?
It is seldom on-air announcers who determine such things. It comes from those little earplugs that talk into their brains while they’re on the air, producers and others who keep up with the on-air dialogue constantly pitching remarks for the announcers to use. A lot of media types have been upset with the negative image portrayed in the season’s most relevant social commentary film, “Don’t Look Up.” It’s because the movie calls them out in a number of ways for being the airheads and malleable stooges so many of them are.
Heaven knows the nation needs real truth tellers and the “bully pulpits” the major media provide. But journalists allow their heads to be turned by the assertion that they’re not doing their jobs unless they’re being contrarian and assuming that selfish self-serving motives drive everyone in politics.
Not everyone is alike in this regard. Journalists are too lazy in many cases to discern truth from falsehood on their own, and simply resort to others to comment and then feel obliged to present “both sides.” Truth is not about both sides. Hitler and FDR were not moral equivalents.
