The media’s shameful dereliction in Portland.
AP Photo/Noah Berger
Victor Joecks, an opinion writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, floated a penetrating proposition in the Tuesday edition of that paper. He said,
If the media covered pandemics like they do the Portland riots, the coronavirus wouldn’t be dominating the headlines.”
He couldn’t be more correct. The media is doing all it can to play down destructive rioting in deep-blue Portland, Oregon that has been going on every single night for the past two months. The same is true as it pertains to the reporting on the chaos plaguing other big, Democrat-dominated cities – cities that include New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Baltimore.
But by far the worst of the chaos, and the worst of the reporting thereon, lies in Portland.
For two months rioters, hooligans, anarchists and common thugs have been turning the once beautiful city of Portland into a dystopic hellscape. Businesses are being destroyed. Police officers are being injured – some severely. Three officers may have been permanently blinded.
At the center of it all lies the Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse. Rioters are using hurled explosives and Molotov cocktails in an attempt to enter and sack the building. Because the Portland police are prohibited by city leadership from protecting the courthouse, the president has dispatched Federal Protective Service officers.
Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, is doing nothing to quell the mayhem. Quite the opposite, actually. He stood at the temporary fence that surrounds the federal courthouse and announced through a bullhorn that he stands in solidarity with the rabble in protest of President Trump’s “occupation” of the city. (The rabble for their part didn’t seem impressed. They taunted and booed the mayor until he was forced to slink away.)
The Watts Riots in Los Angeles in August 1965 lasted six days. Riots across the country following the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968 lasted 10 days. The Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in April 1992 also lasted six days.
In all three cases – Watts, Martin Luther King and Rodney King – news coverage was wall-to-wall.
Here we have 60-plus nights of rioting. That is a huge story. And yet the media is doing all it can to play it down. Nearly every report is at pains to say that the riots are in connection with “mostly peaceful protests.” There was a day when any self-respecting news editor would have said that when Molotov cocktails are being thrown and police officers are being blinded, whatever “peaceful protest” might be underway constitutes a sidebar.
Mr. Joecks points out in his Tuesday column that if the coronavirus were being covered in the same way as the Portland mayhem, the story would read, “COVID-19 is asymptomatic for most people though occasionally it becomes a life-threatening disease.”
This is all very easy to understand. Democrat-run cities are burning. That makes Democrats look bad. The media doesn’t want Democrats to look bad. They tailor their reporting to fit that objective.
As we said last week, we should tailor our consumption of that media accordingly.
Below last week’s “Muzzled” post, I was criticized for being a Rhode Islander concerned about Texas.
Not entirely warranted, because I was chided in-the-matter of Rep. Gohmert’s mask-denial biting-him-in-the-Coronavirus-butt…NOT a parochial issue. But, fine.
Undaunted, I DO appreciate you, a Texan, concerned over what’s happening in Oregon. We’re all Americans.
No, we are not “all Americans.” That is the point. I don’t call the lawless rioters (with the support of local government officials) bent on destruction of the American civil society and who want to establish a Communist dictatorship that would distribute RIGHTS according to the Demagogues in a Communist Central Committee, “Americans”. These anarchists are saboteurs and should be treated as such. They and their Leadership, in and out of government, are traitors to the fundamental American culture and set of Laws that descend from the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land. ANYONE that fails to CONDEMN these destructive forces is guilty of acquiescing with the Lawless mobs and its Leadership and should be considered an anti-American Fifth Column, that is, a group of people who act traitorously and subversively out of a secret sympathy with the Enemy of our country. We are not dealing with a simple, Political, difference of opinion, here.
Given where we stand today whether it is Oregon or Texas, I consider the Democrat Party, the Democrat Media, the Leftist controlled Corporations and Academia, and spineless Government officials, as active participants in this assault on me and my fellow American citizens that love our Nation and are willing to defend its founding principles. Subversive forces that are organized (deliberately or ideologically) to overthrow our Constitutional Republic are Enemies of the State and should be identified and charged with Sedition.
It is time to call a HALT to this form of ideological terrorism and those that tolerate this Centralized Rebellion and Anarchist Propaganda, or simply, CRAP. The Constitution was never written to give free Speech and Assembly rights for saboteurs to organize a violent overthrow of our country by force and intimidation in order to establish a Communist society. I don’t care if a depraved Court were to tolerate this behavior. The Court system can be contaminated with sympathizers, also.
So, what are you saying?
KIDDING.
KIDDING.
Have a nice weekend, if you’ll permit yourself to.
“Undaunted, I DO appreciate you, a Texan, concerned over what’s happening in Oregon. We’re all Americans.” There is one huge difference in Oregon and Texas; open carry and concealed carry. I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Solomon; the so called Americans conducting these riots and destruction of private and public property are nothing more than puppets of Marxist and American haters. Calling these animals “Americans” is an abomination to all us who pay taxes and live our lives the right way.
This a well written and concise statement of facts. Our nation is going to look like those cities if we elect officials that believe in all that garbage, instead of rule of law.
Mr. Gleiser, excellent piece!
I say vote accordingly as the democrat party [Biden] couldn’t care less about us or our country that we love — The United States of America. The dems are the enemy of LAW and ORDER, which without our great nation of citizens of goodwill cannot pursue the American Dream. That’s wrong!
Vote on November 3rd for President Trump as Republicans nationally and here in Texas and across every state and precinct are the only men and women who will push back against the lawlessness of democrat leftism for the sake of our Constitutional Republic as Founded [1776.]
God bless America. Let Freedom Ring.
In March 2007, I was part of a Veteran’s grassroots group called A Gathering Of Eagles, that came to DC, on our own dime, from all over the USA to protect the Vietnam Memorial from being desecrated by Marxist/progressive groups who’d been running rampant all over the Capitol.
As they were encamped on the Mall, it was an opportunity to meet and talk with them and it was a trip down Alice’s rabbit hole .
It would take a lengthier reply to share all the lessons I learned but here are a few.
They are INCREDIBLY well organized and financed. I saw tour buses, SCHOOL buses bringing demonstrators in from all over. While we were close to maybe 4,000 participants, they had at least 10,000 to 15,000 people, easy. They had professionally made signs and banners , while most of ours resembled something you’d see at a high school pep rally. .
They represented a variety of movements, CPUSA, socialists,anti war, pro abortion, anarchists Christian social justice, so called civil rights, Pro-illegal, LGBT, Anti Israel, extreme environmentalist groups such as Earth First. But whenever there’s a demonstration, regardless of cause, they all form up to increase the numbers.
They are extremely media savvy, fielding their own camera crews with agitators along to create “incidences” to film.
The MS media that was there were totally sympathetic to them, ignoring the obvious efforts to start controversy. They also intentionally overlooked dozens of extreme, hateful and offensive signs.
In the WAPO the next day, all the stories and photos of Vets were negative, not so our opposites.
we were shown angry, veins bulging screaming while they were always smiling and pleasant
But the one experience that really taught me about the other side was talking to people individually.
I spoke with all types, harmless peaceniks and the sincere protester to hard core Marxist and anarchist agitators promoting violence, old 60s demonstrators to college and high school students, some who came because they believed in whatever cause they favored, others because they were promised an A by their teacher or professor. there were numerous government bureaucrats.
Some I liked as a person, others, it was hard not to punch them out, they were so offensive, but the one thing they all had in common was the core belief that everything wrong in the world, EVERYTHING, from poverty, war, disease to belly button lint was due solely to the existence of the United States Of America.
In their view, our country has contributed nothing to the world but pain and suffering.
As I said, it’s a lesson I’ve carried and try to share though few cared at the time.
13 years later, What you see on TV now, of the rioting, looting, murder and mayhem are these same groups, only on steroids.
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Great comments that make me feel comfortable returning from a dangerous mission to help revive the transportation, hotel, and unfortunately, food industries. As Paul states, Victor Joecks couldn’t be more correct in his analysis of how our media are covering the Portland riots…..yes riots, not protests. I do not know how much more evidence one needs to realize that these Democrat stenographers are not legitimate news organizations. Watching that so-called reporter describing the chaos and burning buildings in the background as “peaceful protests”, reminds me of Baghdad Bob. As U.S. tanks were rolling down the main street of Baghdad, “Bob Wolf Blitzer” was on the air describing how the Iraqi troops had repelled and defeated the cowardly Americans. Whatever you do…… do not believe your lying eyes!!