EDITORIAL DEFENDS FIRST AMENDMENT, BUT ATTACKS PRESIDENT FOR HIS OPINION
The Anchorage Daily News is one of 350 newspapers across the country that published editorials today defending the news media and shaming the president for his constant criticism of the same.
It was oxymoronic in that the press was defending its free speech rights, while trying to explain why the president should not have a platform for his opinion.
The editorial started this way: “‘Fake news.’ It’s been repeated so frequently that it’s become a tired joke.”
Yet it was only last month that a member of the ADN editorial board blasted Must Read Alaska for publishing “fake news,” when MRAK had the temerity to report that the newspaper was giving free ads to Gov. Bill Walker when it embedded a link inside one of his opinion pieces that sent readers directly to a blatantly campaign-style video ad. Several newspapers in the state allowed that free ad for the governor, and several corrected it after MRAK pointed out the bias.
MRAK’s critical coverage was “fake news.”
In the mainstream media’s world, fake news is only fake when the mainstream media says it is.
Alaska’s news media has never owned up to its organized pack-attack on former Gov. Sarah Palin. It’s never owned up to the media gang takedown of Gov. Sean Parnell over the ginned-up National Guard scandal.
The ADN itself has never come clean about its role in installing Gov. Bill Walker by not standing up editorially to what should have been determined an illegally jiggered post-primary ticket of Walker-Mallott.
But now? The #metoo movement has hit the editorial page of the ADN, which takes the president’s criticism of news reporting personally.
At no point in the ADN editorial does the editorial board hold its own industry responsible for the lies and distortions peddled daily to discredit the Trump Administration and all who serve in it.
“Informed criticism of the media is normal, even healthy for our democracy. But branding the press as the enemy and threatening actions that would curtail First Amendment protections for free speech and the free press isn’t just wrongheaded, it’s dangerous,” the editorial continues.
And then, for the kill: The ADN blames, not the media, but the rest of the writers and commentators who take on the media daily:
“To be clear, some of the fault for perceptions of bias in the media lies with outlets that have blurred the lines between which content is news and which is opinion. In particular, cable news networks such as FOX News and MSNBC, which have aligned their commentary with ideological factions, have lent credence to the notion that the media is pushing an agenda rather than focusing on balanced reporting.”
In their world, the blur between news and opinion is only occurring in the “bad media,” as defined by this editorial. They leave the reader no doubt that the mainstream media wants conservative voices to be disregarded. The newspaper never attacks the far left-wing alternative media, only those coming from the right side of the political spectrum.
Fortunately for conservatives, the playing field is a bit more level than in the old days, when newspapers controlled the narrative. Outlets such as Must Read Alaska and the Anchorage Daily Planet exist in large part to keep the mainstream “good old boys” honest.
“But the vast majority of U.S. journalists don’t deserve to be tarred by accusations of bias. They go out every day and tell their communities’ stories, making every effort to be fair and accurate in their coverage. When they make errors, it is the result of honest misunderstanding, not an insidious agenda.”
That, dear reader, is clearly a matter of the newspaper’s opinion, not fact.
