This Campaign Isn’t Trump vs. Hillary, It’s Trump vs. the Media
If a terrible natural disaster in Louisiana can be blamed on a Republican president, then it’s one of the biggest stories of the decade. If the lack of a public statement on a Louisiana disaster during a presidential vacation might reflect badly on a Democratic president, it’s best to treat the flood as a “page A4″ story, check-the-box journalism.
A paranoid schizophrenic shooting a Democratic Congresswoman in Tuscon warrants national conversation on whether the Tea Party’s rhetoric is inherently inciting to violence, and whether gun owners as a whole represent some threat to their fellow citizens. But an illegal immigrant shooting a young woman in San Francisco offers no further explanation or discussion, no need for a national conversation on whether a “sanctuary city” might protect dangerous criminals. A racist madman shooting up a Charleston church group indicts all Southerners, but the twisted cruelty of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell is just a “local crime story.”
If there really is a giant and widening cultural gap between America’s elites and the rest of the citizenry in “flyover country,” how much of it is driven by narrative-minded journalism? If you die in a particular way that can advance the Democrats’ legislative agenda, your death is going to be an enormously big deal. If the circumstances of your death are politically inconvenient to the Left — Brian Terry or the Benghazi four or those who died on the waiting list for the VA — there are no greater lessons to be learned or need for further action; it’s just an unfortunate set of circumstances. One set of citizens are in the picture; one set of citizens on the periphery get cropped out. It just doesn’t fit the picture that someone wants to create.
.. The national media, as defined by the news networks, largest newspapers, newsweeklies, cable news networks, and news radio, have a collective worldview. That worldview likes to spotlight and give in-depth coverage to particular kinds of stories — perhaps better to say “narratives.” If a story contradicts that narrative, the media as a whole will rarely ignore it completely. It will just get “check-the-box” journalism, the five-paragraph wire service article on page A4. But when something comes along that confirms one of their preferred narratives, it becomes a multi-day story, generates opinion columns and “think pieces” and essays and house editorials and spurs calls for a “national conversation.” The media has decided this news story has an importance and meaning that goes far beyond the particular event, and should shape how its audience sees the world.