Over the last week, the media’s response, or lack thereof, to the Biden emails has exposed a powerful editorial bias. At tonight’s presidential debate, more may be learned from what is skillfully avoided, or brushed over, than from what is questioned outright.
Welcome to Day 12 before the historic 2020 election. Much of politics has descended into a finger-pointing blame game. Expect nothing less from tonight’s presidential debate in Nashville, TN. Listen for much more.
Today, every journalist and political junkie is getting ready to watch the final presidential debate set to take place in the home of country music, Nashville, TN. The plexiglass is prepared on stage, mostly for the optics and public messaging which serves to highlight the importance of social distancing and other precautionary measures, an emphasis implicated by the fact that Trump has had and recovered from COVID19.
Tonight’s debate moderator will be Kristin Welker, White House Correspondent of NBC. Trump is already complaining about the “unfair treatment” he expects to receive from Welker, but what I know of Kristin, from my past four years in the WH Press Corps, is that she’s tough and a very good journalist. I have not noticed particular bias on her part, so I expect critical, but lively, debate.
The knives were out in the first debate; they were waving from twin town halls in place of the second, and the third one will surely be a fistfight. One should expect the candidates will give no free passes to his opponent. Trump knows that tonight is his only chance to force into Mainstream Media Hunter Biden’s email scandal, the story that Washington journalists are refusing to cover, even as it persists and substantiating evidence comes to light.
At some point, as in the case of Tara Read, another negative story about Joe Biden will be impossible to ignore. Their hope is that, by then, enough people will be convinced that the story is “baseless” and part of the “Russian disinformation campaign,” which Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe refuted firmly. The FBI has come forward and corroborated Ratcliffe’s statement, as well. Joe Biden said that he has been cleared by most of the intelligence community, but what Biden forgot to mention is that all individuals who are contradicting Ratcliffe are former intelligence officers, speaking from retirement, not active duty.
NPR Public editor took the statement to Twitter as to why haven’t we seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story:
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel told me. “And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
People need to know all the relevant information about both candidates before they cast their vote, which many Americans have already done. The fact that negative stories relating to Joe Biden are being suppressed indicates clear editorial bias. What will the public think of the level of honesty and impartiality when the story inevitably breaks?
As we watch the debate tonight, this is the ultimate question we should all ask ourselves. Journalists, in particular.