In my view, media criticism shouldn’t solely be about politics. Yet, oftentimes it’s the only aspect in which we see the media being critiqued.
Republican voters criticize what they see as the liberal mainstream media, particularly cable outlets like CNN or MSNBC, while Democratic voters usually criticize more conservative outlets like Fox News.
These partisan critiques usually miss the actual point. I think many of the real problems within journalism today have almost nothing to do with political biases.
But every so often, things happen within the media that are so tied to politics that not addressing it would be neglecting a major piece of the story.
I intended to write about the ‘Justice for J6’ rally that took place on Sept. 18 in Washington D.C — but it turned out to be a pretty unremarkable event that was overhyped by the media to such an extent that a certain subset of conservative media overhyped the media’s overhyping of the unremarkable event.
The ‘Justice for J6’ was a rally to support those who had been charged following the Capitol riots that occurred earlier this year on Jan. 6. The rally was organized by a former 2016 Trump minor campaign official, Matt Braynard.
According to Media Matters — a media watchdog that monitors misinformation in U.S. media — CNN and MSNBC aired a combined 104 segments mentioning the rally. It was one of the major stories of the week on both networks. Much of the coverage centered around how the Capitol Police were preparing for the rally after the major embarrassment that was their response to the Jan. 6 events.
When the day of the actual rally came, the turnout was far less than expected. Photos on social media showed a crowd that looked to be more press and security than protestors.
The explanation for the less-than-expected attendance is likely a rational one. You could easily argue that would-be attendees were scared away by the reporting on increased security measures.
Yet, many right-wing media personalities openly theorized that the whole event was created by the ‘liberal media’ to make the former President and his supporters look bad.
One Twitter user, Drew Holden — who is, according to his Twitter bio, a “freelance commentary writer” — went so far as to accuse the event of being a false flag perpetrated by the FBI, tweeting “I hope the dozens of attendees from today’s Justice for J6 rally make it safely back to their desks at the FBI.”
Even former President Trump weighed in, calling the rally a “setup” in an interview with The Federalist.
“If people don’t show up they’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s a lack of spirit.’ And if people do show up they’ll be harassed,” he continued.
These comments turned this media story into something that it clearly wasn’t: a setup by the media or federal officials to create an event to make Trump and his supporters look bad.
This conspiratorial faux media criticism conceals legitimate criticism of media malpractice, where so-called “liberal” cable networks and cable news hosts, knowingly or unknowingly, created an incorrect sense of fear among their audience that something bad was going to happen in Washington.
Under other circumstances, this would be a pretty cut and dry story.
Imagine if the media had reported there was going to be a major environmental demonstration in New York City. But the attendance of the event was more limited than audiences had been led to expect. We could look at that and say, ‘That was inaccurate reporting,’ and the story would be over. But because of the political associations this story has, the resolution can’t be simple.
The politicization of media reporting has created an environment in which the truth of the event no longer matters. It has to be another ‘You’re either with us, or you’re against us’ situation. If you say the media got it wrong, you’re on the side of the right-wingers calling it a conspiracy. But if you don’t want to be associated with that side of the aisle, you can’t call it out.
Is it possible that MSNBC, a network with more of a liberal audience, believed that reporting on this story more would stoke fears or right-wing violence with their demographic? Yes.
But the same idea could be used to explain why Fox News spent far less time on the story than the other cable networks, according to Media Matters.
It’s possible and even likely that the extent to which certain networks covered the event depended upon how they believed their audience would react. This is the real issue — a bias towards sensationalism and conflict instead of a bias towards left-wing ideas.
I think it’s possible to make that logical conclusion without having to concede to the media having a liberal bias or being a piece within a major governmental conspiracy.
In a world where so many issues are hyper-politicized, divorcing politics from situations that allow you to make some grand political statement is difficult. But it’s the necessary thing to do.
