Opinion

The Media, Not Russia, Is Guilty Of Electoral Collusion

AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski

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Listening to the Senate subcommittee hearings on May 8th you could see there was a recurring consensus; an agreement that Russia had attempted to interfere with the presidential election in 2016.  Yet surprisingly there seems to be not one word spoken about a far more brazen interference, worth billions in free advertising, which was unquestionably done in collusion with persons working for both the Clinton Campaign and the DNC. I am referring of course to the legacy media’s unabashed cheerleading for Hillary Clinton and their endless trashing of Donald Trump both during and after the election campaign.  Legacy media was not a neutral or opinionated reporter of facts, it was in many cases working hand in glove with the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  Why does the legacy media get a pass when it comes to election intervention?

Was there a coordinated attempt among like-minded reporters and editors to slant their coverage in ways to promote Hillary and destroy Donald? Perhaps not coordinated, they just hated Donald Trump and did what comes naturally.  Is there any question about the benefits given to the Clinton Campaign by favorable coverage? By some reporters asking the Clinton campaign how they should best slant their stories to benefit Hillary? Did someone in the media leak questions to Hillary before a debate to help her? Yes. Why is the legacy media immune from questions about honesty, fairness and their obligation to provide a free and open press?

Trump managed to win anyway, and tweeted his way past the legacy media to victory.  His complaints over media bias were roundly trashed by the legacy media as a threat to democracy, to the freedom of the press and to our very existence.  Arguably his complaints, while perhaps not stated as well as they could have been were correct. Yet as the Senate holds hearings the very important questions we should be pondering over the issues of fairness, bias and accountability in our own media are never raised.

Did any of the reporting or editors warn the public that their product was biased or slanted and might have statements that could be argued were not necessarily accurate? No.  Because the legacy media’s narrative is precisely that of the DNC and leftist democrats.   Pretty much they swim in the waters of one viewpoint and do not see that they are “wet” just that anyone else raising an opposing view is making up “fake news” because it exists outside of their shared reality .

Could someone sue the legacy media for bias? For illegal donations to a political campaign by virtue of biased, unfair, slanted and inaccurate reporting? It might be worth considering but any attempts to do so through legislation would hand the left precisely what it wants to shut down the freedom of debate.  They would champion the concept and agree that slanted news is terrible and a threat to democracy then hijack the legislation to allow them to suppress any media that doesn’t share their left of center narrative.  “Hate crimes” are just one example of the left’s attempt to ban speech they don’t agree with. There is no question that this is a long desired goal of the left, to eliminate opposing points of view.

This is an unending assault on a foundation of our nation, on the freedom of the press, on fair and free elections and upon our freedom of speech.  We really don’t need to look as far away as Russia to see the threat to us: legacy media’s bias is on display 24 hours a day and seven days a week. We should be asking serious questions about that interference with our elections.