The lack of bias in news media has been the standard of good reporting for a long time. “We report, you decide, they say”. But Tucker Carlson’s ‘Just asking questions’ approach is valid, too…. as long as the questions create the kind of discussion that is, in itself, newsworthy.
So shouldn’t reporters be ‘asking questions’ every time they find themselves saying some action is ‘unprecedented’ or some digression of American norms is ‘unprecedented in American politics’? Shouldn’t the next logical step be to ask that big, ‘elephant in the room’ question: Should we call this unprecedented or unpresidential? Because, isn’t unprecedented the same as unpresidential?
I know that takes some guts.
But if we have someone who is running for the most respected and most powerful position in the world, someone we all know is unpresidential, and who will clearly take our country down an unAmerican path, don’t we need to have the courage to talk about what that means for us… and for our future as a country?
I believe we do. And that’s the discussion you owe to your readers. Because that discussion is, in itself, newsworthy. That’s the heart of the matter.
Don’t just continually reporting on the surface of events, the news of the day is what the shattering of norms means to our lives and where that’s taking us.
The Alt-right says ‘Reclaim America’. Yeah, Reclaim America from the Alt-right by talking about how they’re flipping everything upside down: Calling unAmerican (and clearly fascist) movements American so that by saying they want to “Reclaim America” they’re able to pull in supporters who confuse the America we all know and love with the UnAmerica distopia that they’re selling.
Well, I won’t buy it. And that’s why words matter so much. We can’t let them get away with calling things that are clearly unprecedented, precedented; things that are clearly unAmerican, American. If we do, we let them flip everything upside down.
That’s why someone needs to have the guts to flat out ask them, on air, “Isn’t something like this, which is unprecedented in American history completely gaslighting us with a slogan like Reclaim America? This is unprecedented in American politics, so really, how can you reclaim anything? It’s like saying, “Let’s Reclaim Mars”. And more importantly, isn’t unprecedented the same as unpresidential, even unAmerican? Maybe that’s what we should really be talking about..? What an unAmerican movement like this means in the body politic, and where that’s taking the country.
Remember how long it took reporters to say that Mr. Tyrant was actually lying? Imagine if no one had ever come out and said the thing that everyone could see with their own two eyes. Would Joe Biden currently be president?