The Supreme Court’s decision to reject racial gerrymandering brought out the worst excesses on the broadcast networks. An ABC reporter stood in front of the White House on April 29 and claimed the decision was in line with President Donald Trump’s “eager” efforts to “put additional restrictions on voting writ large” and “taking steps to really undermine confidence in the voting system ahead of the midterms.”
These networks have a disturbing tendency to equate “democracy” and “civil rights” with whatever helps Democrats. Both parties this year have been aggressively pushing redistricting, but the media hasn’t displayed a nonpartisan reformist approach, urging a less political redistricting approach. Instead, they clothe all the Democrat arguments in favorable terms.
Red states in the South moving to change district lines before the midterms is certainly disadvantageous to Democrats, which is countered by their media advantage in how it’s presented. “PBS News Hour” anchor Amna Nawaz summarized on Tuesday: “The Supreme Court ruling against drawing congressional maps to protect black or other minority voters has sparked a new wave in the ongoing redistricting war.”
Over the years, both parties have supported majority-minority districts to put Democrats together and ensure Black Democrats can win perennially without any serious competition. PBS and others call that “protecting black voters.” They suggest Blacks don’t have voting rights unless they can elect Black representatives.
MEDIA OUTRAGE OVER SUPREME COURT’S VOTING RIGHTS ACT DECISION COLLIDES WITH REALITY
So, what happens when a majority-Black district elects a White guy (Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen in Memphis) or an Indian-American guy (Michigan Democrat Rep. Shri Thanedar in Detroit)? Every American citizen over 18 years of age who isn’t a felon has voting rights. That was true yesterday and today. But our media always slants every issue into the distorted Democrat version of reality.
Consider the typical labeling bias. “Conservative” judges and politicians are opposed by “civil rights” activists (not leftists).
On “CBS Mornings” on Thursday, May 7, reporter Ed O’Keefe suggested it was a “Republican power grab” to redistrict “Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement.” Co-host Gayle King set the breakfast table this way: “Last week’s decision makes it much harder for states to create districts favoring minority candidates.” What CBS should say is “districts favoring minority Democrats.”
BROADCAST BIAS: NPR, PBS BOSSES DEFEND OUTLANDISH SPIN, ABC, NBC, CBS HAVE A CRAZY REACTION
Another TV trick is what we call the “covert liberal activist,” presented as an average Joe or Jane. According to CBS’s chyron in the O’Keefe story, Rachel Turner was simply an “Alabama Voter,” and she was shown lamenting the Supreme Court: “I just felt like I have been hit by a ton of bricks. So, many people gave their actual lives in order to exercise their fundamental right to vote.”
In real life, Turner is actually a member of the Alabama Resistors’ chapter of Indivisible, a progressive activist group that organizes the “No Kings” protests against Trump. She was featured under that title on a local CBS News report in January protesting ICE enforcement activities: “We have to be persistent if we respond to violence with peace, then eventually we will overcome the troubles that are holding us down today.”
On Thursday night, O’Keefe was back on CBS to lament the Republican state legislature in Tennessee “broke up a majority Black district,” but didn’t note that the district’s Democrat congressman is white, or that a black Republican woman has run against him. O’Keefe relayed: “Tennessee Democrats could do little more than protest the move, and they did that standing in a line, shouting at Republicans as they voted overwhelmingly to drop the state’s one Democratic congressional seat.”
VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS RIPPED BY WASHINGTON POST FOR ‘POWER GRAB’ GERRYMANDERING EFFORT
On NBC, anchor Tom Llamas briefly noted: “We’re back now with the intense fight over the redistricting in Tennessee. Democratic lawmakers protesting after Republicans in the state legislature passed a new congressional map in the wake of that landmark Supreme Court decision.”
Neither CBS nor NBC bothered to include the sordid note that state Rep. Justin Pearson – a hero on the broadcast networks in a previous legislative fight over gun rights – screamed at state troopers trying to clear out protesters from the chamber: “Move the f— back! Boy!” and “What the f— is wrong with you? You stupid motherf—-r!” Pearson put out a statement claiming the Republicans committed “a political lynching.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a Democrat gerrymandering ballot initiative that passed with only 51.7% of the vote, despite a massive spending advantage. On their streaming channels, the networks hyped the “voter-approved” part. NBC’s Zinhle Essamuah said, “they struck down something that was voter-approved, a Democratic congressional redistricting plan. The Trump administration counting this as a win.”
CBS anchor Reed Cowan echoed: “the Virginia Supreme Court just struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan in that state.” Reporter Katrina Kaufman claimed, “this is a significant decision because the Democrats will lose four seats in districts in Virginia.” That’s terrible math. It means the Republicans won’t lose four seats they currently have.
On that ridiculous hub of everyday misinformation they call “The View,” host Whoopi Goldberg claimed absolutely nothing has changed in the South over the last 60 years: “We put the Voting Rights Act together because there was an issue, because they were keeping people from voting! They were literally shooting people! They were running them down with dogs to keep them from voting! OK? Let’s start with that. So, when they say that problem is gone, it’s not gone, because you’re still doing it! You’re still doing it!”
It’s this stubborn resistance to facts – that we are no longer in an era of rigid segregation and systemic racism, that there can never be a turning point on race – that underlines what’s wrong with the “news” we get from the broadcast networks.
