Over there in the Wall Street Journal, the ever-astute Gerard Baker, that paper’s editor at large, began this week with this column headline:
Political Narratives Are the Media’s Default in Times of Tragedy
Every bad event can supposedly be fixed by a new government tax, program or regulation.
Baker says, among other things, this:
Instead each event—from lethal accidents to vicious murders to Category 5 hurricanes—is immediately sorted into its pre-labeled moral narrative file, each one full of similarly useful sententious parables.
They become props in the larger drama that is being constantly written for us by the preachy puritans who now control most news organizations, convenient plot devices to illustrate the virtue of their cause and the malevolence of that of their critics.
Bingo.
And I would add, if “the preachy puritans who now control most news organizations” don’t like the potential narrative, then that event goes into a Harry Potter–style black hole of things that must not be named.
Here are a few samples among many from over the holiday weekend:
Here is a HuffPost headline about CNN’s Jim Acosta tangling with an NRA board member:
CNN’s Jim Acosta Confronts NRA Board Member: ‘Isn’t This Blood On Your Hands?’
Here is MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on the NRA:
MSNBC’s Wallace: NRA Supporters ‘Swathed in Frothy Delusion’ Someone Is Coming for Their Guns
NBC’s Chuck Todd said this on his show Meet the Press:
This current version of the Republican Party is being held hostage by a vocal minority obsessed with an absolute right that does not exist.
The New York Times weighed in with a totally predictable editorial that said this:
On Friday, the former president Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina all spoke at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association in Houston, a few hours’ drive from Uvalde. There is no better manifestation of the gun lobby’s total capture of so much of the G.O.P.
Then, from the world of sports, here is ESPN host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo saying this, as per the Daily Beast:
Something is wrong with the United States of America when an 18-year-old on his birthday was out there and buying two assault weapon rifles. In May, 18 years old, can’t have a drink in Texas.
Then there was the coach of basketball’s Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, ranting, per the Daily Beast, “before storming out of a pre-game press conference” as follows:
They [GOP leaders] won’t vote on it because they want to hold onto their own power. It’s pathetic! I’ve had enough.
And on and on — and on and on — went this kind of stuff from various media types over the holiday weekend, oblivious that they were the very exemplars of Baker’s point.
What all of these people were, and always are, about is pushing the liberal narrative of the moment. This time it was around on gun control.
But wait. What if …
What if all these very same people had read just this one listing out there — there is an endless list, but this one from the National Institute of Health will suffice — about “Children and the influence of the media”:
Violence, increased sexual activity, and antisocial behaviors involving children and adolescents are being blamed on the media. American children and adolescents spend 21 to 23 hours per week viewing television. Children will see 200,000 violent acts on television by age 18 and view over 14,000 sexual situations and innuendoes per year.
Follow but one of the links included on that page and one can read this:
The mass media are rife with violent images and messages and youth spend a great deal of time with media. A rich tradition of research shows that exposure to media violence leads to aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and also to fear and desensitization. Certain youth are more vulnerable to violent media messages and images; the impact of media violence is modified by its nature and context.
So, let’s bring this all together. Does anyone seriously believe that all the media and sports figures listed above would be raising the roof if the “narrative” were widened to ask whether the constant media drumbeat about the need to abort babies were having a seriously negative affect on kids?
Does anyone really think my old CNN colleague Jim Acosta would have a faceoff with the head of Planned Parenthood or some other pro-abortion activist and say this to them about the 63 million babies aborted in the 50 years since Roe v. Wade:
Isn’t this blood on your hands?
Does anyone really believe that MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace would say that Planned Parenthood was “swathed in frothy delusion” that someone is coming for their bodies?
Can anyone imagine NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd looking his audience in the eye and saying this of the Democrats and Roe v. Wade?
This current version of the Democratic Party is being held hostage by a vocal minority obsessed with an absolute right that does not exist.
Of course not.
Or imagine that the Golden State Warriors’ Steve Kerr would have the chops to say this about overturning Roe v. Wade:
They [Democratic Party leaders] won’t vote on it because they want to hold onto their own power. It’s pathetic! I’ve had enough.
Answer: Of course none of these people would say any of this, despite 63 million dead babies and counting.
And the reason comes back to Baker’s point. Again, Baker said this:
Instead each event—from lethal accidents to vicious murders to Category 5 hurricanes—is immediately sorted into its pre-labeled moral narrative file, each one full of similarly useful sententious parables.
They become props in the larger drama that is being constantly written for us by the preachy puritans who now control most news organizations, convenient plot devices to illustrate the virtue of their cause and the malevolence of that of their critics.
Guns and abortion are both “props in the larger drama that is being constantly written for us by the preachy puritans who now control most news organizations, convenient plot devices to illustrate the virtue of their cause and the malevolence of that of their critics.”
The difference between them? The liberal narrative about guns is that they produce mass death — which is bad and must be discussed. But abortion, which produces infinitely more mass death, is good. And therefore must never be discussed unless it is to promote Roe. To suggest otherwise is a serious violation of the liberal narrative dogma. It is, again, the Harry Potter–style doctrine that abortion and its evils must not be named. Ever. (READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Biden, the Abortion Lobby, and Mass Shootings)
Thus abortion won’t be mentioned in a negative light — not on CNN, MSNBC, in the New York Times or on ESPN or in the Golden Warriors’ locker room — or in oh so many more outposts of the liberal narrative gospel.
Which is, of course, shameful. With enough hypocrisy to choke the entire fleet of horses in the Triple Crown’s Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes combined.
Shameful — but totally expected.
