That line, “just the facts, ma’am," was popularized by the tv series, Dragnet.
You had Sgt. Friday wanting nothing more.
Used to be that way in the American media, back in your day and back in my day.
Something changed and I am not sure if it was gradual or sudden.
Don’t know about you, but I’d rather form my own opinion, just give me both sides of the story.
I do not want some pinhead telling me what to think.
Who, What, Where, When, Why…the basic rules of journalism.
I bring this topic up because of the recent gala held for White House Correspondents, featuring the president.
He was both the appetizer and the main course.
By tradition, the president, whoever he is at the time, sits there to enjoy good-natured ribbing.
Everybody laughs and has a good time.
For Trump, it is not quite that way. Every barb is meant to cut and injure.
Trump sat there like the gentleman he is, and temporarily forgave all their sins.
Did he remember what it was like during his first term? They wouldn’t let up, but gave Joe Biden all the breaks.
Just the facts? That changed officially when the top brass at The New York Times gathered all the reporters with this new policy.
Special…Special…read all about it.
The new policy was this…do not follow the facts necessarily…but write how you FEEL.
This was huge…yes, every man for himself. This new policy was adopted throughout the media landscape.
So how do these correspondents feel about Trump, this Republican in their midst?
They hate him?
How do they feel about Joe Biden, their Democrat?
They love him.
At this gala, just the other day, Trump sat there and listened to them offer congratulations to one reporter after another.
It was a love-fest.
Remember, they all wrote how they feel.
Trump must have remembered what it was like when the New York Post exposed Biden, father and son, for years of corruption. Facts. Not feelings. Both Twitter and Facebook refused to carry the story. No harm must come to the Bidens, the facts be damned.
So it was throughout the media…total blackout. They all conspired. (Not Arutz Sheva, which publicized it)
This was American media at its worst, and in the end, by writing how they feel.
By blacking out the facts…and keeping the American voter in the dark…they got the worst president to win the White House.
Joe Biden.
Lesson? Careful what you read because even today you are not getting the facts, ma’am.
We are still being victimized by how they feel.
If you challenge this, depend on your uncle Harry to dampen you with this.
It says so in the paper…and that is that.
Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal," today a classic for literature and film. His “Days of the Bitter End" is cited as the greatest work about the 1960s, comparable to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. His latest book, “Writings," offers a collection of his varied and widely popular columns. From John W. Cassel: “Jack Engelhard is a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all."
