Disconnected Media

Jonah Goldberg describes in a NY Post column how coverage of the Tucson shootings is just the latest example of how much of the conventional media are so totally out of touch with much of the American public and the rising grassroots movement.

And this is hardly an isolated incident. It’s understandable that journalists would want to set the national agenda by providing new information. That’s their job. But sometimes the press just won’t take no for an answer, when the public refuses to see events the same way. For instance, last summer the Times worked valiantly to cast the Ground Zero mosque controversy as a symptom of Islamophobia sweeping the nation, even though the data on anti-Muslim hate-crimes undercut the claim entirely. The press routinely floats the idea that the country needs a "frank" or "honest" "national conversation on race" but viciously punishes anybody who says something they don’t want to hear. It seems every week there’s another thumb-sucking seminar on public radio about how dismaying it is that the public doesn’t share the elite press’ global warming hysteria. Despite the fact that ObamaCare was persistently unpopular, it seemed news reports often focused on how the public didn’t understand what’s good for them. Last month, The Washington Post refused to print the results of its own poll, showing that ObamaCare was at an all-time low in popularity. And, right now newspapers are debating whether they should adopt "undocumented immigrant" instead of "illegal immigrant" not because the latter term is inaccurate but because they think their readers will fall for the subtle manipulation.