After the failed 2024 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, certain media became obsessed with Biden’s age and mental fitness. While concerns about the capabilities of an aging leader are valid, this focus often eclipsed more pressing issues – that billionaires like Elon Musk have been granted access to the deepest recesses of our institutions and the data of private citizens for his own, and that of the current president’s whims, and all without Congressional oversight.
You would think this would sound alarm bells within the media, raising concerns of collusion between billionaires and the executive branch. But, unfortunately, it’s does not. If the previous administration had openly colluded with George Soros, had granted him free access to the data of millions of Americans, allowing him to target government watchdog orgs that regulate people like him, it would be the scandal of the century. But Trump and Musk get a free pass. Their ( the media ) priorities are to scapegoat migrants as the cause of the working classes problems, while the billionaires get whopping tax cuts and subsidies at the expense of the American tax payer. Or to run ridiculous, distracting “news” about made up scandals of a previous president’s mental fitness.
During the 2024 campaign, Biden’s age became a central theme in political discourse. A Pew Research survey found that 70% of U.S. adults believed Biden shouldn’t run for re-election, with 69% citing age as a significant factor, according to the Washington Post. This sentiment was amplified by media coverage that frequently scrutinized Biden’s verbal missteps and physical demeanor, sometimes at the expense of substantive policy discussions.
Critics have argued that emphasis on Biden’s age distracted from more critical evaluations of policy and governance. As Andrew Prokop noted in Vox, the media’s fixation on Biden’s age often led to “theatre criticism,” focusing on performance over substance.
Trump’s Ethical Scandals
In contrast, Trump’s activities, particularly his deep involvement in the cryptocurrency sector, raised significant ethical concerns – but have raised barely a blip on the radar of most national cable news outlets, such as NewsNation ( to their credit, only MSNBC has has raised ethical concerns regarding Trump’s corruption ). Reports indicate that Trump and his family amassed nearly $3 billion from crypto ventures within a year, including the $2 billion deal involving Abu Dhabi financial fund and Binance, a crypto exchange previously convicted for money laundering, according to the Guardian. Critics warn of unprecedented conflicts of interest, and potential corruption as Trump deregulates the crypto industry while directly profiting from it.
And yet, none of this open corruption has received any scrutiny from NewsNation, a corporate media that claims to be fact-based and unbiased. If the previous administration had engaged in this type of open corruption, again, it would illicit wall-to-wall coverage. But the current administration gets a free get-out-of-jail card. This disparity raises questions about media priorities and the normalization of unethical behavior of the current administration.
Consequences Of Media Culpability
The culpability of certain media in laundering a corrupt president’s image to the public, has consequences. It raises the question that anyone who disagrees with or questions the current administration’s actions, as unpatriotic and Un-American. This is apparent in his unhinged attacks on media that criticize him or question his administration’s ethics.
The Media’s Role
The news Media’s role in today’s world is to hold government to account, not to be lapdogs and mouthpieces for government propaganda, or the propaganda of foreign governments aligned with the United States. To inform the public on issues that matter to all of us, or should matter: an on-going genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza; a majority of Americans living paycheck to paycheck; housing is unaffordable; nearly a million people living in poverty on the streets of America while billionaires get billion dollar tax cuts and subsidies with funding that is literally stolen from the most vulnerable – hungry children, the sick, and the elderly.
These are the issues that affect most of us, and yet the media ( Fox News, NewsNation and Newsmax ) is not discussing these issues. Instead, the focus is on anti-migrant, anti-trans, and antisemitic hysteria as if these are the greatest threats to American democracy and culture.
Media like Fox News and Newsmax can be forgiven: they don’t hide behind a both-sides veneer of neutrality like NewsNation does. It’s common knowledge that they are shamelessly pro-MAGA.
NewsNation is another matter. They claim to be fact-based, unbiased media that doesn’t take sides in the political arena. But it’s apparent to any honest observer that they are not unbiased and they do take sides. Their hosts are obviously comfortable doing propaganda for the state of Israel, platforming MAGA politicians, anti-migrant, and pro-Israel – anti-Palestinian voices, failing to correct or fact-check the lies and conspiracy theories.
When a NewsNation host brings on a MAGA media critic ( Steve Krakauer) to condemn the free speech of a CBS news correspondent ( Scott Pelley ) who is appropriately condemning Trump’s attack on free speech during a public appearance – that’s not journalism. That’s biased reporting. It’s playing defense for a corrupt administration. It’s become an all too familiar sight on a network that claims to be critical of both sides, but disproportionately defends everything Trump does. They are nothing more than talking heads who are more than willing to launder the image of a corrupt president, while hiding behind the veneer of neutrality.
They are the worst of the centrist news media. Worse than CNN, worse than MSNBC ( at least MSNBC has actual journalists who have on-air condemned and acknowledged that there is an on-going genocide in Gaza, and have actually brought on Palestinian voices – whereas NewsNation only highlights Zionist propaganda ), unwilling to criticize and hold the Trump administration accountable for its open corruption. They claim to be unbiased, but it’s a claim that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Sources: Vox, The Guardian, The Washington Post.
The Weekly News 