The late Andrew Breitbart in his book Righteous Indignation perfectly captured the essence of the press in America when he labeled the press as being a Democrat-Media-Complex. Writing in Righteous Indignation, Breitbart noted that, “the left doesn’t win its battles in debate. It doesn’t have to. In the 21st century, media is everything. The left wins because it controls the narrative. The narrative is controlled by the media. The left is the media and narrative is everything.”
The people who are allegedly neutral reporters and journalists that are on the frontline of the political battle use their objectivity as their greatest weapon against impressionable minds to reinforce a herd mentality that toes the Democrat party line within the culture. As Breitbart continued, “the mainstream media portrays themselves as objective observers of reality when they’re no such thing —they’re partisan critical theory hacks who think they can destroy everything America stands for by standing on the sidelines and sniping at patriotic Americans with all their favorite slurs. They have nothing but contempt for the American people.” What Breitbart was alluding to was the reality of the press in America as the press acts as a piano on which the government plays the public in whichever direction it desires. The objective of the press today is not merely to inform, but to instruct the millions of impressionable American minds on what to believe, who to believe, and how to believe.
The content is so rigidly controlled today that in a way the fourth estate has now become nothing more than an institution of the government restricted to publishing and advancing White House directives and Democrat policy agendas. The role that the press plays is to make clear to the American people what the Obama administration is doing, why the administration is doing it, and why it is forced to act in a certain way. Of course, as we have become accustom to hearing, the Obama administration is always forced to “act in a certain way” because of the “obstructionist” Republicans. The effect of this is to demonize the Republican party to the point of capitulation. This formula for “reporting” by the press encompasses every single issue advocated by the Obama administration and the Democrat party.
The press toes the party line and advances the Democrat agenda to the point in which there is no objectivity and no resistance from any opposition. There simply is no neutrality. For example, in the wake of the horrific terrorist attack on an Orlando night club by a jihadist who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist organization known as ISIS, the big three networks comprised of ABC, NBC, and CBS, immediately took to the airwaves before the bodies were even cold to push the political line of the Democrats for more gun control. In a study conducted by the Media Research Center (MRC) for the week immediately following the terrorist attack, it was shown that the network news programs flooded their shows with statements favoring gun control over gun rights by a ration of 8 to 1.
MRC analysts reviewed all 47 gun policy stories (41 full segments, 6 anchor read briefs), plus 10 other stories that mentioned gun policy on the Big Three networks’ evening (ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News) and morning show programs (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, NBC’s Today), beginning with the evening (June 12) after the shooting through Friday evening, June 17. The study found that the time spent arguing in favor of more gun control overwhelmed time devoted to opposing gun rights by 65 minutes and 12 seconds, to just eight minutes and 12 seconds. Here are just a few of the examples listed by MRC:
CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose was enamored by the Boston Globe’s front page assault on the Second Amendment: “Pressure’s growing on Congress to act against gun violence after America’s deadliest mass shooting. Page one of this morning’s Boston Globe demands ‘Make it Stop.’”
NBC began their push for more gun control when correspondent Harry Smith closed the June 12 NBC Nightly News by yearning for action: “We have been here too many times before and with no sign that anything will change, we fear this will not be the last.”
When anti-gun rights guests like Senator Murphy, Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson were interviewed they were celebrated. On the June 14 CBS This Morning show, co-host Gayle King advocated to Jeh Johnson: “What will it take to move the needle when it comes to gun control? People thought it would be Sandy Hook.”
When Hillary Clinton showed up on the June 13 Today show, co-host Savannah Guthrie pushed: “Continually you hear policymakers and the President say, ‘The American people are with us, they don’t think that common sense gun reforms are a problem.’ And yet, even after you have 20 first graders killed, you can’t even get the bare minimum of gun legislation passed. Why is that? What needs to change?”
While this was just a handful of the examples given, one can begin to see how feverish the media has become in pushing for gun control in wake of the largest terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. It didn’t even take the New York Daily News twenty four hours before blaming the National Rifle Association (NRA) for the terrorist attack. On their front cover for the June 13th edition, the headline blared “Thanks NRA” while the piece went on to state that the jihadists “killing machine of choice was a mass murderer’s best friend — and his enabler a gun lobby that has long opposed efforts to keep assault weapons out of the hands of bloodthirsty maniacs.” Not to be outdone though, the Boston Globe published a full front page editorial three days later on June 16th with the headline “Make it Stop” featuring an image of an AR-15. The editorial of course goes on to attack the Second Amendment while calling for an “assault weapon and high-capacity magazine ban.”
If you were wondering why the Democrat Media Complex is pushing this agenda, in unison, it’s because they received their marching orders by the President himself the day of the attack on June 12th. Speaking during an appearance at the White House not even five hours following the attack, President Obama stated that “this massacre is a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.”
The steady drumbeat by the President and the media continued as last week White House press secretary Josh Earnest revealed that Obama had become “profoundly frustrated” after Senate Republicans blocked anti-gun legislation from being rammed through Congress. Earnest continued by mocking Republicans as “cowards” who talked tough on terrorism, but were “AWOL” when it came to standing up to gun rights organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA). Obama, like Hillary Clinton, believe that the “gun lobby” which is the NRA, is at the root of impairing progress to solving America’s “gun problems.” Moreover, the real impediment to their anti-Second Amendment agenda always traces back to Republicans, which Democrats and the media at large have asserted were the ones responsible for the Orlando terrorist attack.
To reinforce the Obama administrations stance, the New York Times last Wednesday ran a piece by their editorial board in which they argued that Republicans were to blame for the Orlando terrorist attack committed by the jihadist Omar Mateen. In an excerpt from the piece the Times states that, “while the precise motivation for the rampage remains unclear, it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians. Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish.” Completely ignoring the fact that jihadist openly declared allegiance to ISIS multiple times to 911 operators, Alex Griswold of Mediate explains that the New York Times piece doesn’t even bother to mention ISIS or Islam (radical or otherwise), or even hint at Mateen’s faith or ideology at all. Griswold writes, “Were it not for his traditionally Arabic name, it’s not an exaggeration to say that one gets the impression from the Times piece that the shooter must have been an ultraconservative Christian nut,” which was precisely the effect of the piece. It could be argued that this was also the intended effect of Obama’s own statements following the attack.
Yet, this wasn’t enough for the Democrat-Media-Complex as this week the American people were treated to a full-court press by the media in their over the top coverage of the Democrats taking to the House floor to demand gun control with an all-night sit-in. On Thursday morning the media went into propaganda overdrive by promoting the Democrats childish sit-in as “unprecedented” and “historic.” Here are just a few of the examples:
On NBC’s Today, correspondent Peter Alexander declared the partisan political stunt to be “truly one of the most dramatic demonstrations on the House floor in modern American history.” Alexander continued by announcing that the “Democrats with signs bearing the names and faces of gun violence victims….Their voices echoed on the Capitol steps, hundreds gathering in support, rallied by Congressman John Lewis, the civil rights icon who spearheaded Wednesday’s sit-in.”
On ABC’s Good Morning America, co-host Robin Roberts stated, “breaking overnight, the historic sit-in showdown stopping Congress in its tracks as the battle over gun control boils over.”
On CBS This Morning correspondent Nancy Cordes asserted that “the rules appear to have gone out the window” and promoted the propaganda effort stating, “It started as a sit-in, but by nightfall, Democrats were on their feet, holding up the names and pictures of Orlando victims as a crowd of supporters swelled in the gallery and outside.”
From here, the media then perpetuated the myth that according to polls the majority of Americans want “common sense gun control” measures. As NBC’s Matt Lauer on Thursday’s Today show pleaded with Congress to take action. Lauer stated, “If you look at the polls…people across this country say they want more than a moment of silence after a mass shooting, they want some real change.”
In closing, with the media pushing the Democrats agenda and carrying weight for the Obama administration on not only gun control but issues ranging from Illegal immigration to Islamic terrorism, it is worth recalling the following statement delivered by Joseph Goebbels during his first official press conference as the head of the Third Reich’s Propaganda Ministry on March 15, 1933. Goebbels, whom turned press conferences into secret meetings where the Propaganda Ministry would pass on detailed instructions to selected journalists, supplying articles to be printed verbatim or used as the basis for reports stated the following to the journalists, “You are to know not only what is happening, but also the government’s view of it and how you can convey that to the people most effectively.” That they were not to convey or print any view in opposition to the regime did not need to be said. This applies to our own press today.