Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! And sure, journalism is a profession! You can always trust journalism icons!

No…no…and no.

Business Insider published an alleged news article headlined, “More people actually moved out of Florida than New York or California in 2021.” Part of the ongoing effort on both the political Rights and the Left to sink Florida Governor Ron DiSantis’s chances of keeping Donald Trump off the GOP 2024 Presidential ticket, the story claimed to debunk the conventional wisdom that the ultra Woke states are bleeding residents while DiSantis’s state’s population is growing. 674,740 residents left Florida, BI told us, exceeding the total of 433,402 residents who had fled California and the 287,249 residents moving out of New York.

It was pure confirmation bias. The stats were unbelievable on their face, but the Business Insider staff believed them anyway, because they wanted to. After being roundly smacked on social media, BI reversed itself with a replacement post headlined, “We got it wrong: More people moved out of New York and California than Florida in 2021,” that revealed,

• Out-of-staters flocked to Florida in 2021, with some 674,740 people moving there. 
• About 469,577 residents left the state, for a net population gain of 205,163.
• The state became a big draw for Americans who decided to move during the pandemic.

The correction and mea culpa was issued on July 11. Never mind! Yesterday, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, once one of the Post’s few conservatives and now a certifiable Democratic Party mouthpiece as a result of virulent Trump Derangement, issued a column for subscribers that cited the abandoned BI article and states as fact,

“DeSantis likes to brag that more people are moving to Florida than ever. Not so fast. “An estimated 674,740 people reported that their permanent address changed from Florida to another state in 2021. That’s more than any other state, including New York or California, the two states that have received the most attention for outbound migration during the pandemic,” according to the American Community Survey released in June tracking state-by-state migration.”

She also falsely attributed the bad stats to the ACS survey when she had to get them from Business Insider’s botch. Not only that, but the column is still on the Post’s website, uncorrected.

Why did this happen? Well, it’s a hit job, and clearly facts don’t matter to Rubin or the Post: the idea is to poison public opinion against DiSantis and Republicans. Look at how Rubin introduces her deception:

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their governance. Whether it is “don’t say gay” legislation (and retribution against Disney for supporting inclusion), denying medical care to transgender youths, muzzling teachers and professors who address systemic racism in the United States, firing a county prosecutor who dared object to DeSantis’s refusal to protect women’s bodily autonomy, or shipping unwary immigrants to other states, Florida has become not where “woke” died but rather where empathy, decency and kindness go to die.”

I count five factual mischaracterizations in that rant, not counting her “where empathy, decency and kindness go to die” nonsense. How can a supposedly professional, trustworthy, objective icon of journalism like the Washington Post permit Rubin’s hackery to be published under its banner (which proclaims “democracy dies in darkness”)? It can happen because ethical, objective, and competent journalism is deader than Kant. It can happen because partisan and ideological bias is not only not avoided, it is encouraged and rewarded. It can happen because this is no longer a profession—meaning that it can and must be trusted—but a a corrupt institution dedicated not to bolstering democracy, but crippling it.

Good to know, don’t you think?

Thanks, Business Insider, Rubin, Washington Post editors! You provided some light in the darkness anyway despite your best efforts.