This column usually focuses on local, Minnesota media bias, of which there is plenty. One main take away from observing media closely so you don’t have to is that often what is not reported is evidence of the most extreme bias, rather than the frequent misreporting or slanted coverage on issues of concern to these democrats with a by line. The best examples of this are the terrorist links to CAIR and the media blackout on the vile Linda Sarsour, good friend of Keith Ellison and Ilhan Omar. A common refrain of mine has been that in order to be kept aware of what is happening in Minnesota, you have to go to news outlets that are not Minnesotan.
Yet there is a larger view to local media bias that flows from the hive mind of corporate reporting. That is to say, our local peddlers of leftist narratives both take their cue from, as well as amplify on the metro and state level, the reckless if not deliberate lies promulgated by the national media. Yes CNN is bad, and is genuinely fake news, but so are many other outlets. These stories are then picked up and repeated in NPC tones by Minnesota media. The echo chamber of falsehoods is real.
Sharyl Attkisson recently released “60 Media Mistakes in the Trump Era: The Definitive List.” I invite readers to click on that link and simply scroll through the contents. You don’t have to closely read each entry. After all, there are 60! But each is well documented and set in its own context. Attkisson is nothing if not thorough. She’s also one of the very few reporters in America who consistently plays it straight, the way reporting used to be (more) like.
She indicts her profession succinctly: “Our repeat mistakes involve declaring that Trump’s claims are “lies” when they are matters of opinion, or when the truth between conflicting sources is unknowable; taking Trump’s statements and events out of context; reporting secondhand accounts against Trump without attribution as if they’re established fact; relying on untruthful, conflicted sources; and presenting reporter opinions in news stories—without labeling them as opinions.”
Local media rarely hold themselves to account and no outside group exists for this purpose. Not yet anyway. Now that the midterms are over, it’s time for me to give birth to the idea I’ve had gestating for some time: Minnesota Media Monitor.™ I’ll be keeping Alpha News readers informed of this development as well as openly soliciting their views as to what this non-profit should and shouldn’t be.
One thing I know it will be is fair: it cannot find bias everywhere because it doesn’t exist everywhere. The Monitor should not be self-discrediting in that way. Simply striking a balance in the interests of fairness will, it seems to me, be a huge improvement over the bias that Minnesotans are subjected to by those in an industry who routinely engage in the opposite of their stated mission: truth telling. Now go back and browse that list of biased stories.
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter
