Whatever happened to courageous journalism!

Profiles in courage submission

We’ll have to wait another day before our favorite morning Madison newspaper ventures to put in a good word for the city’s police officers and policing in general. Even the mayor will not do so publicly. Relevant, one might think, given the local Black Lives Matter coalition’s demand that police be put to pasture with the old dray horse.  (As is being done nationwide.) Maybe tomorrow?

For another thing, The Wisconsin State Journal has yet to weigh in on the proposed police review board. As formulated (as we reported here), the thing would be populated by drug addicts, ex-felons, street people, and social justice warriors. (I.E., the average Madison alder, one is tempted to say.)

Then again, the daily newspaper has to do business in this town, just like the boarded-up State Street businesses. Better to take a symbolic knee as the teachers union has; profess your allegiance to “No justice, no peace.” Soak the lamp post in the blood of a lamb.

Blasphemy at the Times

In the wake of the forced resignation of its opinion editor, the New York Times assures that its opinion page “will continue to tirelessly share voices that offer our readers perspective and context. That includes [a writer who] urges us to do more than educate ourselves on the cycles of oppression and resistance.” Perspectives — and CONTEXT! — like:

• “Can Jamaal Bowman be the next A.O.C.?” [They hope!]
• “Save us from Trump 2.0”
• “Is this the Trump tipping point?” [They keep hoping!]
• “Many white people have been moved by the current movement, but how will they respond when true equality threatens their privilege?“
• “Will the jobs report destroy jobs? An uptick, but the economy is still on life support” [Paul Krugman, who else?]
• “Could Trump turn a vaccine into a campaign stunt?” [Must not give him credit!]

The editorial page editor was fired for the sin of publishing a U.S. Senator’s explication of federal law, the Insurrection Act, allowing the President to send federal troops to cities unable to quote with rioting. (President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to deal with violent defiance of Brown v Topeka.)

Where have you gone John Peter Zenger?

“It would be funny if it weren’t truly a tragedy” writes the American Conservative. “Gone is the old-school liberalism, replaced by a left-wing fundamentalism that cannot bear too much reality.” 

This is an opinion page that printed “Rudolph, the queerest holiday special.” Whose Book Review published a novelist’s fantasy about assassinating President Trump.

“It is where you go,” says  Kevin Williamson in National Review:

… to watch Charles Blow’s long, slow slide into a journalism of exclamation points (“Stop Airing Trump’s Briefings!” “No More Lynching!”) … [and] from Paul Krugman … the shallowest and lamest kind of barstool partisanship (“Republicans don’t want to save jobs,” “Good people can’t be good Republicans”).

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Democracy cannot breathe when journalists kneel on its throat.

What have YOU been permitted to read?