Recently, A. G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, visited the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. Naturally, Sulzberger categorized the meeting as having been requested by the White House and said he attended to “raise concerns about the president’s deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric.” Presidents of the United States have frequently been at odds with the media covering them; John F. Kennedy cancelled at least one newspaper subscription because he did not like its coverage. Franklin Roosevelt, angered by the attacks on his foreign policy by the Washington Herald, the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, grumbled about the “McCormick – Patterson Axis.” Barack Obama, who probably was the recipient of more fawning coverage by the media than any other president in the country’s history, still whined he thought the news media had cheated him of credit for accomplishments he thought he deserved. Obama was able to overlook the fact the media rarely ever faulted him when his policies failed.
Yet there has never been any president like Donald Trump. It is a fact more than 90% of the coverage of his administration by the news media has been negative; usually highly negative. Trump, unlike previous occupants of the White House, has hit back. Sulzberger chose to share with President Trump his concern for the safety of journalists. Sulzberger said he had been forced to hire security to protect journalists because of Trump’s rhetoric, which includes labeling journalists as an “enemy of the people.” The truth is most journalists have less reported the news than attempted to shape and mold it. The mainstream media in this country is used to shaping public opinion and they are having a difficult time influencing Americans, many of whom agree with the president about “fake news.” While clearly most of the mainstream media think Americans are stupid, millions of Americans are smart enough to realize for a very long time there has been a double standard, at best; all too frequently, there’s been no standard at all. Sulzberger apparently hasn’t stopped to consider the rhetoric contained in his own newspaper. For instance, columnist Frank Bruni, wrote that Vice President Mike Pence is “a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.” Elements of the mainstream media have regularly mocked and derided Pence’s Christian faith. Sulzberger and his newspaper are standing firmly behind Sarah Jeong, a new hire for the New York Times’ editorial page. Jeong has a long history of posting racist comments about white men and white people. Of course the American left doesn’t see Sarah Jeong, who is Asian, as a racist, but for anyone not on the left, it seems quite clear she is indeed a racist. Ms. Jeong didn’t post about any particular or specific white man, just white men in general. Ms. Jeong evidently spent a lot of her spare time pondering about white people. In one post, she wrote “basically I’m just imagining waking up white every morning with a terrible existential dread that I have no culture.” Of course it’s one of the new shibboleths of the left that there is no such thing as an American culture. Sarah Jeong at least hints at the notion the planet would be better off without any white people. “#cancelwhitepeople.” “White people have stopped breeding,” Jeong wrote, “you’ll all go extinct soon. That was my plan all along.” Another post by Sarah Jeong was “Dumbass f—— white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs p—– on fire hydrants.”
Sulzberger and his newspaper defend Jeong by insisting it was merely the harmless satirical musings of the newest member of their editorial board. Of course such whimsical musing on the part of Roseanne Barr and James Gunn and many others are not tolerated for a second and shouldn’t be, but Sulzberger and the New York Times, along with Sarah Jeong, think she is entitled. Once again, either a double standard or none at all. Replace the word “white” with any other ethnic group and ask yourself if it would be considered racist.
Publisher A. G. Sulzberger seems not to give much thought to rhetoric aside from that of Trump. Bret Stephens, a columnist for Sulzberger’s New York Times, cried, “We are approaching a day when blood on the newsroom floor will be blood on the president’s hands.” Even Jim Acosta has fretted, “I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt.” People have already gotten hurt.
Just last week a man was arrested for threatening Congressmen Steve Scalise and Cathy McMorris Rodgers. The man who was arrested had stockpiled ammunition and possessed helpful books on bomb designs and terrorism.
Scalise was the congressman from Louisiana who was shot and barely survived an assassin who fired some 70 rounds at Republican lawmakers who were practicing for the yearly Congressional softball game. The shooter was a volunteer in the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders who had joined scintillating Facebook groups like “The Road To Hell Is Paved With Republicans” and “Join the Resistance Worldwide.”
My point is let’s not pretend all the rhetoric is one-sided. Sulzberger and his friends in the mainstream media could solve much of the problem by simply reporting the news fairly and honestly. The media need not expect Donald Trump to simply lie down and take it; the President is going to hit back and hard.
If hatred in politics in our country is a cancer, it is beginning to metastasize and we all know what happens when a serious cancer has metastasized. It certainly won’t be a good thing for our country,
