America’s increasingly ugly political landscape
Much of the national mainstream American news media and the entertainment news media have gone off the deep end turning political criticism into political hate and becoming advocates for partisan politics rather than factual news or appropriate entertainment and humor
By Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania at Sun-Times desk in May 1989, following passing of Harry Golden Jr.
I don’t watch Saturday Night Live (SNL) any more because of the way they fuel Amerca’s ugly political landscape. I remember when it first premiered, weeks before I discharged from military service. Back then, SNL humor was about humor and I watched it every week. Today, it’s all about hate.
People blame rising hate on the Internet where anonymity makes it easy for people to libel each other. Others, especially in the news media, treat rising hate as a phenomena that began with President Trump’s election, a victory the entirety of the news media predicted could never happen.
I don’t watch The “Hate” Show with Stephen Colbert. What a fall from what late night television used to be, something to eagerly anticipate just before going to bed, laughing at the clever and sometimes simple humor from true performers like Johnny Carson.
Today, the shock of the Trump election has pushed the Left off the deep-end into a cesspool of dark and dingy hatred. No matter what Trump does, they hate him.
Fine. I don’t like everything Trump says or does. But that’s not much different from my attitude towards his predecessors, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. There never was 100 percent agreement.
I watched Trump’s interview Sunday on CBS 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl. I like Stahl. She’s not one of the fanatics that have hijacked American journalism. She asked her questions and was persistent, even though she did have her own biases.
The most obvious was her repeated question asking if Trump regretted ridiculing Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed that when she was a teenager, in 1982, Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. Kavanaugh was born in 1965 and Ford was born in 1966. That means the sexual assault took place when she was 16 and he was 17. That was more than 35 years ago.
Ford recalled some details of the assault but not others, raising legitimate concerns about whether or not she was making up the accusations purely to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I guess people, women included, have never lied about accusations?
Stahl said Trump ridiculed Ford, but Trump never responded that the media ridiculed Kavanaugh far worse.
If the mainstream news media was fair about issues, I might not be so strongly supportive of President Trump. I don’t support all of his policies. But what is really more important to me is the hypocrisy, bias and double standards of the news media and the entertainment media.
I understand opinion columnists who take sides. When you read their columns, like this one, you know you are reading opinions, not a fact-based reporting of events. Too much reporting in the mainstream news media today has shifted away from factual and balanced journalism to partisan political opinion.
In this column, I give you my opinion. I interpret the facts. It isn’t a news story which should not interpret the facts. News stories are supposed to record the facts. Once those facts are stated, then people like me and others can tell you what we think. Or, you can tell yourself what you think.
I think the public is smart enough to understand and parse the facts without being “lobbied” by media bias. The mainstream news media clearly doesn’t think the American public are smart, though. Like Hillary Clinton, they believe Americans who voted for Trump are “a basket of deplorables.”
That’s deplorable.
When I think of Clinton I think of hypocrisy. What Trump has to go through Hillary’s husband Bill Clinton never came close to going through. Sure he was impeached. There was politics. But the campaign against Trump is 100 times worse.
I read Juanita Broaddrick’s book (“You’d Better Put Some Ice on That”) which detailed how she was raped by Bill Clinton when she was younger. No one ever took that serious. Unlike Ford, Broaddrick had too many facts the media didn’t like.
The mainstream media ignores things they don’t like, such as the excessive bashing of Clinton. But when it comes to excessive bashing of Trump, there is no limit.
(Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and political columnist. His personal website is www.Hanania.com. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A critic of mainstream news media bias, Hanania advocates for peace & justice for Israel & Palestine, & the empowerment of Arabs in America.
Click here to listen to Ray's Political Podcast.
Hanania's columns are archived on his personal website at RayHanania.com. Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Hanania is President/CEO of Urban Strategies Group which provides communications services to governments and private businesses, and hosts writing training workshops, and publishes books.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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