No wonder the American public is confused. The mainstream media, in its opinions,news reporting and features, seems determine to either make Americans dumber or to drive them insane.
This struck me this morning when looking at the first set of headlines—“Top Items”— on Memeorandum, the useful and only slightly biased news aggregation site. I’ll discuss each of them briefly; remember: when I recorded them, the site regarded these as the top stories of the moment, what the public needed to know. Note that none of the “top headlines” included this one, from the Federalist: Exclusive: Liz Cheney, January 6 Committee Suppressed Exonerating Evidence Of Trump’s Push For National Guard…
1. Ross Douthat (New York Times): Why It’s Hard to Explain Joe Biden’s Unpopularity This one is what initially drew my attention to the seemingly deliberate avoidance of reality in the headlines. It’s not hard at all, and i have to wonder about the acumen or honesty of anyone who would think it is hard. Douthat comes close to explaining how bias has made him stupid when he writes, “Some of this mystification reflects liberal media bias accentuated by contemporary conditions — an unwillingness to look closely at issues like immigration and the border, a hesitation to speak ill of a president who’s the only bulwark against Trumpism.” Some? Douthat works in the New York Times bubble: that must explain his weird puzzlement. Biden was never especially popular as a Senator or Vice-President. He has always had the reputation of being a gaffe-prone boob. His policies have triggered a national debt crisis and massive inflation, especially in consumer items like food. He’s a serial sexual harasser; he has enabled influence peddling by his black sheep son, and lied about it. He chose an incompetent for Vice President, Secretary of Transportation, Press Secretary and more; he is obviously in mental decline. His snap withdrawal from Afghanistan was a debacle; Russia attacked Ukraine on his watch; he’s trying to play both sides against the middle in Gaza. He promised to be a unifying President and gave a speech accusing at least a third of all Americans of being fascists. His Attorney General has used the power of his office to intimidate parents; he has allowed his party to pursue a strategy of using criminal law to eliminate political enemies. His administration’s DEI obsession is deservedly mocked; major cities are experiencing crime waves enhanced by the rhetoric of Biden’s allies. He is not eloquent, comforting or especially leader-like; he is not an orator or particularly likable. The only reason he is President is because he was the least offensive of a terrible group of alternatives to Donald Trump, and his election was still tainted by dubious voting procedures.
The headline is as insulting as one asking, “It’s hard to explain why people don’t like Donald Trump.”
2. Dan Rather / Steady: President Biden Upends the GOP Narrative Oh, please. I assumed that Biden could struggle through an 80 minute speech using a teleprompter. That he did proved nothing and “upended” no narrative at all. And Biden slurred plenty of words, embarrassed himself when he went off script, lied as usual and seemed hopped up on something. Only a pathetic, partisan has-been like Rather would make such a statement.
3. Amanda Marcotte / Salon: Biden said Republicans oppose women’s rights — Katie Britt’s “tradwife” response proved him right Marcotte is an extreme leftist joke at an extreme leftist propaganda organ. Britt’s speech was awful, but she was a Senator few have heard of giving a badly-conceived speech—badly. Conservatives oppose the imaginary right of mothers to kill nascent human beings at will. That’s what the issue is, and Salon’s headline continues the practice of avoiding it.
4. Dan Pfeiffer / The Message Box: How Trump Fumbled his Attack on Biden’s Age This is a partisan hit-piece by an Obama aide, and follows the same illogic as Rather: since Biden didn’t dissolve before our eyes during the SOTU, concerns about Biden’s age were “proven” imaginary. How stupid do these people think Americans are? “Biden delivered a boffo performance,” Pfeiffer writes, “and the media coverage and online conversation have all been about the strength and vigor he demonstrated.” Well. First, Biden delivered a warmed-over campaign speech rather than a State of the Union message, and it was hardly “boffo.” Biden has never delivered a “boffo” speech in his life. Second, that the media coverage was about ” the strength and vigor he demonstrated” is the predictable response of the captive partisan state media. If Pfeiffer thinks the online responses have been universally positive, then he needs to get out more.
5. New York Times: New Biden Ad Pokes Fun at His Age: ‘I’m Not a Young Guy. That’s No Secret.’ Laugh it up, boys. “If you can’t hide it, feature it” is a strategy as old as the hills—you know, like whistling past the graveyard.
6. The Hill: Gingrich: Biden’s most inspirational State of the Union moment was ‘when he left’ The best criticism of the SOTU the Hill can offer is the snarky, non-substantive reaction of 80-year-old has been Newt Gingrich? That’s like having Statler and Waldorf review “The Muppet Show”.”” for the NewYork Times.
7. Charles P. Pierce / Esquire: Joe Biden Delivered a Knockout State of the Union Address Another shameless partisan propaganda agent heard from.
8. Bloomberg: Biden Shrugs Off ‘Illegal’ Remark That Drew Democrats’ Ire Classic misdirection. The news is that Biden not only used the politically incorrect (because it is so accurate) term “illegals,” but that he also acknowledged that the illegals have committed some terrible crimes.
9. Joy Vance/Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance: SOTU: Let Biden be Biden — Joe Biden defied all expectations Thursday night. We’ll get to that in a minute. An MSNBC “contributor” with a substack gushes that “Joe Biden defied all expectations Thursday night.” No he didn’t. My expectation was that we would get essentially what we got—an overheated, uncivil, unpresidential rant with the usual Biden stumbles and periodic gibberish.
10. Fox News: Biden says debating Trump ‘depends on his behavior’ Who believes this? For Biden, debating Trump depends on the polls, how far behind Biden is, and whether his handlers trust letting him do it, which they won’t. Trump’s “behavior” is always rotten. This is a ploy to try to shift the responsibility for the likely lack of debates onto Evil Trump.
11. Mike Lillis / The Hill: Jeffries to Republicans calling Biden speech too political: ‘Get lost; you’re a joke’ Of course the speech was too political, but who cares about this exchange with the House Minority Leader?
12. Fox News: Laken Riley’s mother slams Biden for fumbling murdered nursing student’s name at State of the Union: ‘Pathetic’ This is just blatant appeal to emotion. The woman’s daughter was murdered by one of Biden’s favored “illegals”; how do you expect her to feel? This isn’t even legitimate news.
13. The Daily Beast: Dem Rep Sorry for Posting ‘Inappropriate’ Meme of Biden Ogling Sydney Sweeney’s Cleavage A top story of the day?Sydney Sweeney is a B-list actress. She has breasts. Big deal.
And that Federalist headline above didn’t make the cut.
14.The Daily Beast: Billionaires Rage About Biden’s State of the Union Tax Proposals Classic. The progressive website now on the EA blacklist with Breitbart found three critical billionaires who didn’t like the proposal, which isn’t going to happen and was just standard issue Democrat class warfare. But three is a plural, so the “Billionaires rage” was technically accurate. News!
15. Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark: Biden. Can. Win. Cheerleading. Nobody’s sock drawer is so immaculate that they should have time to read junk like this. Sure he can win. He can also lose. So what? The election is almost 8 months away.
16. Jasmine Garsd / NPR: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans, studies find My favorite on the list. Good ol’ NPR! First of all, the issue is illegal immigrants. Second: so what? Every single crime committed by an illegal immigrant is one that would not have happened if the U.S. enforced its laws. The headline is an implied rationalization. It’s like saying that because rabid dogs bite fewer humans than non-rabid dogs (which is true), then allowing rabid dogs to roam the streets is good policy. We pay taxes to support this junk?
Well, that’s it: the entire list of “top news” from the best and brightest of the online news aggregators this morning. Is it any wonder that the voting public is incompetent?
Ethics Alarms 
I had never heard of “Memorandum” until you mentioned it in this post. I immediately thought that I should explore it as a reference for keeping up with news. It was inviting as you said it was “only slightly biased”.
And then I read the rest of the post.
Thank you for exposing the bias of the “Memorandum”. You did a service in showing what they/it considered the most important news items of the day…. I won’t be bothering with it. Thank you again, Jack.
To be fair, it’s not always that bad, and with each headline, it list links to lots of other sources, right and left, on the same topics. All those headlines had been superceded by mid-day.
A counterpoint to the #16 article:
https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality
Thanks. And of course.
My biggest issue on the crimes thing: Literally every single illegal immigrant commits a crime in being here, at least to a lay person. Lawyers may focus on the civil versus criminal violation, but it’s not actually a persuasive difference to focus on.
Every day they voluntarily stay after they lose the right to be here, if they ever had it, should be counted as a separate crime.
Really, if they want people to start calling them criminal immigrants, that would be better in some ways. Unfortunately, it’s misleading, because someone can be here legally and commit a crime. Illegally present alien would be most accurate phrase, but it’s far more verbose than is necessary. EVERYONE knows what “illegals” and “illegal alien” mean, but much like the abortion debate, certain people are trying to twist definitions instead of acknowledging what’s really going on.