Action Alert: With Sleazy Innuendo, NYT Lays Virginia Attack at Bernie Sanders Feet

Excerpt:

ACTION: Please contact the New York Times and ask for more responsible coverage of the Virginia shooting incident.

CONTACT:

Email: letters@nytimes.com

Twitter: @NYTimes


Since Hodgkinson’s political leanings are being probed as somehow responsible for the shootings, it’s curious why the New York Times decided to highlight his pro-Sanders stance and not his obsession with Trump as treasonous pro-Russian agent—an accusation that Sanders has not aggressively pressed and, indeed, has sometimes been on the receiving end of. Why “Attack Tests Movement Sanders Founded” and not “Attack Test Democrats’ Trump-as-Russian-Agent Inquiry”? Why note Hodgkinson’s support for Sanders but not his love for Rachel Maddow, more than half of whose show, one study found, is dedicated to the Russia/Trump story?

The answer is that the former is easy—and convenient—to smear, whereas the latter implicates a whole host of powerful institutions: the Democratic leadership, most major media and, above all, the New York Times itself, which has published, and thus legitimized, the most extreme and irresponsible fringe of the Russia/Trump dot-connectors in the form of Louise Mensch (FAIR.org, 3/31/17).

Of course, neither Sanders nor Trump-as-Russian-agent media personalities are responsible for what Hodgkinson did Monday, but it’s notable that only one is being blamed. Sanders unleashing crazed “Bernie Bros” is a simple narrative that reinforces existing, media-flattering narratives, whereas the latter is far messier, and would require the New York Times to examine its own role. Guess which one we’ll be getting nonstop coverage of in the coming days?

http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/action-alert-with-sleazy-innuendo-nyt-lays-virginia-attack-at-bernie-sanders-feet/