Sunday, May 13, 2018
Sunday morning news always provides me with a lot of ammunition when it
comes to showing just how news organizations slant their stories against Trump.
So, I was not disappointed when I opened a local daily today to find
one more in a series of distorted stories designed to influence Northern New
Jersey voters to vote against the GOP this fall.
In New Jersey, no subject is so sensitive as The Sandy Superstorm that
hit this region on Halloween in 2012.
Therefore, the subject became a symbolic tool against the Trump
Administration and the GOP who are resisting Democratic efforts to pass a
pork-filled Sandy aid package – and the story was ripe with anti-Trump rhetoric
by an author who has a history of ranting and raving against Trump.
Like previous stories written by the same author, the story left out
critical facts and engaged in what many critics see as class manipulative tools
for slanting news.
By narrowing the information to the fact that the GOP does not want to
pass the aid package as it, the story implies that the GOP is attempting to
screw New Jersey again.
To understand how media manipulates in stories such as this, there are particular
slots in which slanted information is installed. Headlines and kickers often
tell readers how they should interpret the story.
This is very much the case in this story, where the headline implies
that the state of New Jersey is “under attack” by the Trump administration, because
the GOP won’t pass the aid package.
Selection of sources also skews stories like this, and this is no exception
with six prominent Democratic leaders quoted before the story ever gets to a
Republican and when it does, it picks two republicans who are sympathetic to
the Democratic cause – partly because one is in a high risk area in the 2018
midterms, and the other has a quote that largely implies misinformation – which
I’ll get to shortly – even if most reader aren’t likely to get to the end of
the story anyway.
The first quote in the story is from the most patrician politicians in
the state, Rep. Pascrell, whose press releases would qualify him for “the spin
doctor of the year award,” following a script written for him from some Democratic
think tank and a leader in the anti-Trump campaign of the last year and a half.
The pullout quote – which is something larger meant to call attention
to a specific biased point come from a notorious Democratic south jersey
political boss, selected here to be most provocative and add to the story’s
credibility, when the story is only telling half the facts in order to convince
voters that the GOP is essentially evil.
What is left out, of course, is the actual argument being made on the federal
level, and how common it is for the winning political party to steer federal
funds to those districts that supported them. Every president does this. Reagan
and both Bushs did it, so did Obama and Clinton when they were in office. But
it appears that when it comes to Trump, this becomes something out of the ordinary.
So, today’s GOP according to this story helps send tax dollars to “moocher
states” when in the past places like New York, New Jersey and California could
have borne similar titles.
This, of course, is the story’s effort to boost support for the anti-GOP
movement for the mid-term election and steer its readership into believing the
GOP is stealing from them somehow.
Republicans are “reprehensible,” according to the third Democrat quoted
in a row for this story.
The GOP clearly does not want to use federal funds to help New Jersey
and New York build a gateway project, a rail tunnel between northern New Jersey
and New York City. But part of the excuse is that both rail systems involved
have failed to meet safety requirements that are conditions for the funding, a
fact that this story conveniently left out. The GOP has a lot of motive for
wanting not to give the region this perk since New York and New Jersey
massively supported Clinton in 2016.
The story, of course, piggy backs on the fact that a GOP tax rehaul, is
forcing governments in New Jersey to deal with the fact that they over tax
their residents. But to divert attention, local politicians are blaming Trump
for denying tax write offs the wealthiest home owners while boosting the
salaries for ordinary workers.
The fourth quote in the story by another Democrat suggests that if the
GOP gets away with not funding Sandy aid it will continue to come after New
Jersey in other ways in the future. This, too, is classic spin, making a conclusion
without any real evidence to support it, a conclusion the author conveniently
did not challenge or seek proof of, and certainly made no effort to get a GOP
response to.
By the time we finally get to the first of two GOP legislators three quarters
of the way through the story, we have been thoroughly subjected to so much
negative spin that we ignore the fact that the first of the GOP legislators is
under the gun because he faces a serious challenge in the mid-term election and
is already known to be sympathetic to Democratic causes.
Could the author not find any legitimate representative to explain the
GOP side of this story – since it is clear the only side the author wants to
give us is the Democratic one?
What the author is not telling us is why the GOP is opposed to giving
New Jersey Sandy aid.
In fact, the GOP is willing to fund it, but not under the conditions
Democrats have set, when the Democratic pork accounts for “billions” in aid
spending unrelated to Sandy, which includes funding of The Smithsonian in
Washington, and Head Start facilities throughout New Jersey that had little or
not damage from the storm.
The other token Republican quoted in the story is from a shore district
hit hard by Sandy and so is concerned about the loss of aid. But he also was
mistakenly quoted as saying he was concerned about Trump’s unwillingness to
fund a child health program called CHIP.
This quote implies a significant Democratic spin, an almost blatant lie
that this story and other media have bought wholesale when two Democratic legislators
brought it up in Paterson late last year.
Trump in fact is absolutely willing to fund CHIP. But Democrats are
holding the bill hostage in order to force Trump to support their Dreamer legislation.
Trump has even agreed to fund the Dreamer legislation but only if the
Democrats support funding his border-security measures.
Since they won’t, it is the Democrats who are preventing CHIP from
being funded, just as they are preventing aid for Sandy because of the pork
they’ve attached to this bill.
The story in my local Sunday newspaper mentions none of this, which is
how media manipulates the public by telling only one slanted side of a story.
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