Political bias in today’s media

Author: cristo71

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#1
cristo71
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I have never seen it this blatant.

I recall a very different time in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Diane Sawyer… one could not easily discern their political leanings because they did their jobs well. Contrast them with their current counterparts:  Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, Jim Acosta, Yamiche Alcindor— their biases are obvious. Contrast yesteryear’s Tim Russert (RIP) on Meet the Press with today’s Chuck Todd.

Now, I know that journalism tends to appeal more to the left leaning, so a center-left bias has always been there. It seems that the more blatant variety I lament here started gaining momentum during Obama’s presidency. He was young, charismatic, the first black president, and he quickly became a media darling. Enter President Trump, and the script quickly flipped. Nothing he did or could do would ever solicit anything resembling a compliment from mainstream reporters. When Biden was elected, the media met him with an overwhelming sense of relief. All he needed to be and do to garner such a welcoming reaction was not to be Trump. He was treated with kid gloves. Whatever pushback he gets from the media lately is simply media not wanting to end up on the wrong side of history to an embarrassing degree considering Biden’s glaring missteps.

In summary, today’s TV media and most of the major print media have lost their journalistic professionalism and are now merely the media arm of the DNC. If you disagree, why? If you agree, do you think the profession will ever get back to its previous standard? Will it produce another one of the greats?
#2
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@cristo71
Good post.

If you agree, do you think the profession will ever get back to its previous standard?
Not as a whole. The internet has ensures that little lakes of fakery will remain.

Will it produce another one of the greats?
It will. These things ebb and flow.

But something is already happening. The media itself will not report it, but it is happening. Let me summerize...

1. Leftist news organizations are losing viewers like a sinking ship loses rats.
2. Several late night leftist stalwarts have suddenly become more... shall we say, conservative?
3. Leftist reporters are being laid off or fired in pleasingly high numbers.
4. Young people are increasingly conservative.

When the MSM says, "young people", they invariably mean the green haired, nose ring kind, but there are millions of young people in mid-america who are not entitled urban leftist loons.

The talking heads in MSM will drown as people realize how partisan they are. The big news organizations will be forced from sheer need to survive to become more objective. The rapid growth of news sites like OANN and DailyWire show that the public is changing.

Regular, non-cable TV will slowly die and fade away.
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@ethang5
The nature of balance Mr E, is that the moderate centre eventually restablizes the chaos.

And the media today is just about selling sensationalism....There's no interest in the mundanity of day to day life.

People will believe what they want to believe.....And then they have to get up and go to work...Or the bathroom....Or the kitchen.

Or to bed.

Night Night Sleep Tight.

Don't let the Liberal Bugs Bite.
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@cristo71
today’s TV media and most of the major print media have lost their journalistic professionalism and are now merely the media arm of the DNC. If you disagree, why?
Neutrality and objectivity are not the same thing. The media’s responsibility is the former, not the latter.

Let’s start with Trump. You didn’t say specifically, but you paint a picture of a guy who’s not that bad and yet just can’t get a fair shake by the media.

The media treated him terribly because that’s how he acted. Trump as a human being is everything we teach our children not to be. He’s a narcissist, a pathological liar, childish, petulant, ignorant, and vile. His literal first day in office was marked by telling (through his press secretary that we are all paying for) a blatant lie so easily provably false all because it hurt his ego. He would continue to call the news media the enemy of the people and break one presidential norm after the other culminating in the absolute pathetic figure we see today who just two days ago sent a letter to Georgia demanding that they declare him the winner of the election that took place 10 months ago.

None of this is normal, so there is no reason to expect he would have been treated normally. It never ceases to amaze me how folks on the right act as if there is no connection between actions and consequences.

Regarding the overall point here, the news has most definitely gotten more biased. I think part of this is the natural evolution of media but it’s mostly because of the internet. Unlike in the old days, you no longer need to be vetted to have your own platform. Any point of view you want to consume is out there so the main networks now have to complete with extreme voices from both sides. I don’t see this changing.

But today we have two sides to our media that are not the same. You say the media treats Biden with kid gloves. I don’t agree with that, but what I will point out is the fact that left leaning media criticizes Biden far more than right wing media ever criticized Trump, so if you really care about this I have no idea why you have nothing to say about that. Just a few days ago a Newsmax anchor went on a viral tangent booting his guest right of the show for having the temerity to say something negative about Trump (and it wasn’t even a serious critique). It’s gotten to the point where anti vaxers now have an advocate on the number one news show on cable. There is nothing like this happening on the left.

So is there bias on both sides? Of course, but the two sides are not the same.
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@cristo71
If you remember the 80s and 90s fondly as a high point in journalism, you have nothing earlier with which to compare memory. Do you not remember Watergate, for example? Lauded now for their apparent journalistic excellence, Woodward and Bernstein at WaPo would have botched their story, and Nixon may have stayed in office [bad result, so it was good he was forced to resign] had Bradlee, their editor, not coached them on verifying sources with other sources for confirmation. They were ready to publish on first discovery, and almost blew it. No, even the 70s were not high journalism. To me, Bradlee was the real journalist deserving the praise.
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#6
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@Double_R
Neutrality and objectivity are not the same thing. The media’s responsibility is the former, not the latter.
I would say that media which strives toward being unbiased have a responsibility towards objectivity, not neutrality. You seem to argue that; did you get your statement reversed by accident?

As for coverage on Trump, what I am saying is that mainstream media painted as catastrophic a picture as possible. Any good news was either ignored or mentioned in a begrudging fashion, with negatively slanted verbiage, qualifiers, and caveats thrown in. I get it— you don’t like Trump or his presidency. But almost half the country did, and an appreciable number thought he was the most effective president in their lifetimes. Mainstream media neither reflected that fact nor even comprehended it.

If Trump were presiding over this Afghanistan withdrawal, CNN et al would be screaming from the rooftops about it and speculating about a third impeachment (and rightly so for once, IMO). Anyone who is honest with themselves would admit to this. Instead, we have Don Lemon saying “Let’s stop piling on this president, ok?”

But today we have two sides to our media that are not the same. You say the media treats Biden with kid gloves. I don’t agree with that, but what I will point out is the fact that left leaning media criticizes Biden far more than right wing media ever criticized Trump, so if you really care about this I have no idea why you have nothing to say about that. Just a few days ago a Newsmax anchor went on a viral tangent booting his guest right of the show for having the temerity to say something negative about Trump (and it wasn’t even a serious critique). It’s gotten to the point where anti vaxers now have an advocate on the number one news show on cable. There is nothing like this happening on the left.
You are referring to the entirety of media here, but I am specifically referring to mainstream media which has at least attempted to build a national reputation on the aforementioned objectivity. Newsmax, MSNBC, The Epoch Times newspaper, Huffpost, and Fox News (although their anchors are more professional than CNN’s IMO) do not apply. The inclinations of these outlets should be well known. No, I am referring to CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Associated Press, etc.

That important point aside, if you think that Newsmax has no left wing counterpart, then I don’t think you’re aware of Democracy Now.


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@949havoc
Yes, I’m well aware of Watergate, but, no, it was before my time. I’m also aware that the term “yellow journalism”— the penchant for sensationalism— was coined in the 1800’s. None of us are that old!

It’s a matter of degrees— I’m not claiming that the 80’s set the gold standard, just that they were far more objective than the present day. Again, my point is that present day journalism is the least professional I have yet seen… in MY (none too short) lifetime…

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@ethang5
Good post.
Thanks; I appreciate that!

It will. These things ebb and flow.
I think and hope you will be proven right eventually, but it is so very hard to visualize currently.
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@cristo71
There are many issues at play.

Journalists are often left leaning.

with the best will in the world, it’s near impossible to extract personal bias from such things entirely.

There has been a massive change in the way we consume and pay for news.

News is now funded by per click advertising on line, sold television advertising, and subscriptions. With the advent of the internet, the wealth of available alternatives means that the business model of news requires generating views.

Psychology and social media algorithms drive engagement.

Social media and search algorithm learn what you find engaging and shows you more of it. 

News is competing in this space for revenue. This means that sensational news, news that confirms people’s underlying bias is shown more prominently, generates more traffic, and makes news organizations can make more money than middle of the road examples

The feedback cycle is self reinforcing.

You click on news you find engaging based on your bias; it reinforces your bias; it drives traffic, algorithms learn what you find engaging, shows you more of it: makes the media organizations show more of it for revenue reasons.. etc.

A Similar way to how terror organizations radicalize people online.


As a result of all of this; you end up with with a stratified media landscape that provides stories that cater to a specific demographic that they are competing for.

So in this respect; the driving factor for media bias is not the media itself - but us.

This is not an issue with the left explicitly - the issue is the same, and in some cases worse on the right.

So in this respect - anyone who is consuming only one dimension of media on either side is being radicalized you some extent.

While HuffPo, Rachael Maddow, Occupy Democrats or the Young Turks can often be pretty biased; they are objectively more accurate than the likes of, say, infowars, or the youtube/video/rightosphere.


#10
RationalMadman
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Right Wing media is actually such a pisstake a lot of the time, I genuinely watch it for entertainment sometimes as it can be funny.


I just laugh, it's so obvious how many logical fallacies and rhetorical tools she's using, yet she does it anyway as people will fall for it. She talks about Afghanistan issues, which Trump's deal and Bush's decisions are the entire reason it's happening right now. Then she talks about border migrants suffering, which the Right Wing want to suffer even worse... What an absolute joke. It's actually amusing.
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@cristo71
Yes, none of old enough to recall the 19th century. By the way, welcome to the site
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ethang5
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@cristo71
I think and hope you will be proven right eventually, but it is so very hard to visualize currently.
I'm 60. I've seen it happen before.
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#13
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@Ramshutu
with the best will in the world, it’s near impossible to extract personal bias from such things entirely. 
That’s just it— with few exceptions, the best will in the world is becoming nonexistent in journalism.

There has been a massive change in the way we consume and pay for news.
Indeed, we have the best media money can buy.

So in this respect; the driving factor for media bias is not the media itself - but us.
Right. Perhaps we pay lip service to objectivity as a society, but we actually prefer validation.

This is not an issue with the left explicitly - the issue is the same, and in some cases worse on the right.
I’m not saying it’s an issue with the left per se; I’m saying it’s an issue with journalism and people’s trust or mistrust in it, and whether trust in it is warranted. It’s actually a boon TO the left— corporate media is furthering its political aims under the premise of centrism.
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@cristo71
It’s actually a boon TO the left— corporate media is furthering its political aims under the premise of centrism.
I think It’s actually corporate media is furthering it’s financial aims under the premise of journalism.

I think the reality is that what’s attributed to bias, is actually more sensationalism. 

I mean, if the left wing media is attempting to further political aims they are doing an utterly atrociously bad job of it.
#15
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You seem to argue that; did you get your statement reversed by accident?
Yes, thank you for the correction.

I get it— you don’t like Trump or his presidency. But almost half the country did, and an appreciable number thought he was the most effective president in their lifetimes. Mainstream media neither reflected that fact nor even comprehended it.
It’s not their job to reflect it, their job is to cover what happens and hold power to account, which is exactly what they were doing.

I agree with you that there was some bias and that they made everything he did look terrible, but I also believe he earned that every step of the way. In fact I might even go a step further and say they didn’t make him look bad enough. Trump truly was so much worse than any network could have possibly made him look, to capture the true danger this man posed they would have had to make themselves look like conspiracy theorists, they weren’t willing to go that far.

Just one small example to make this point, Bill Maher said for years the man was not going to leave and got nothing but criticized as being over the top, then came Jan 6th.

The coverage should have been worse. But so many Americans love to see themselves as above it all, so they pretend it’s just a both sides thing when sometimes it really isn’t.

As far as the Biden point, I think you’re correct that the coverage would be worse if it were Trump, but let’s not pretend they’re giving Biden a free pass here. I consume a lot of left wing media and have seen almost nothing positive said about Afghanistan.

That important point aside, if you think that Newsmax has no left wing counterpart, then I don’t think you’re aware of Democracy Now.
Democracy Now is a 60 minute program, Newsmax is an entire news network. Newsmax has more viewers in 2 days than Democracy Now has in an entire month. They’re not comparable.
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@Double_R
Yes, thank you for the correction.
You’re welcome.

“I get it— you don’t like Trump or his presidency. But almost half the country did, and an appreciable number thought he was the most effective president in their lifetimes. Mainstream media neither reflected that fact nor even comprehended it.”
It’s not their job to reflect it, their job is to cover what happens and hold power to account, which is exactly what they were doing.
Oh, contrer, mon frer. That an unpresidential, former private citizen with all the subtlety of a stomach pump should garner such a large and dedicated following is highly newsworthy— probably the biggest story never told by the MSM.

But to assume your premise— if Trump was properly held to account, Obama clearly was not— he let the banks off easy after the Great Recession, the “red line” in Syria, Trump’s “children in cages” also occurred under Obama’s watch, etc. These decisions were soft-pedaled. As I said, he was, and continues to be a media darling, clearly.

As for Biden, he claimed to be moderate on the campaign trail. He put the lie to that claim once he took office. I don’t recall him being held to account early on. I do recall him being asked what ice cream he preferred by one of our many “hard-hitting, gotcha journalists.” As I already said, once an issue simply becomes too big, too egregious to ignore, it is eventually reported. NO ONE wishes to be remembered as being on the wrong side of history, as I said in my OP. However, the initial reluctance is all part of the bias I am talking about.

Anyway, it’s all about “selection of detail.” The media form a narrative. They no longer just report the news; they decide the news.

Democracy Now is a 60 minute program, Newsmax is an entire news network. Newsmax has more viewers in 2 days than Democracy Now has in an entire month. They’re not comparable.
*sigh* Alright, then… Free Speech TV! It is well beside the point I’m making.
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@cristo71
Obama clearly was not— he let the banks off easy after the Great Recession
Trump would have let them off even easier, as would any Republican, how else do you think they got into the recession under Bush Jr.? Lax regulation on banks and their habits of lending vs pocketing money is a very Republican trait.

Obama actually was a great leader, economically. I have no idea what to even criticise in the guy since the only things he did wrong were due to pressure from the Right-Wing to 'not go that far left'.

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@cristo71
 NO ONE wishes to be remembered as being on the wrong side of history,
I mean, some people do in my opinion but those that do are either diagnosably insane and/or are narcissistic sociopaths who aren't the type of narcissist that wants to be seen as heroic.

Some examples of significant people I believe who genuinely wanted to be remembered as assholes in the history books include the likes of Genghis Khan, Ted Bundy and Stalin (his name was fake anyway so I won't type his first name, his real name was Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili) Genghis Khan also wasn't Genghis Khan, his real name was Temujin and his clan had been wiped out while he was young so he was left with no official clan/family name.

I think part way through his campaign, Hitler became content with being an absolute villain who whether he won or not would go down as a tyrannical lunatic, this became extremely blatant when Italy turncoated after overthrowing Mussolini and instead of negotiating, he made the Nazis themselves capture Mussolini and used Mussolini against his will as a puppet until eventually even Mussolini got fed up of Hitler's lunacy and tried to escape where he'd been assigned as a guerrilla leader by the Nazis (this isn't entirely how it worked but essentially Hitler had begun to accept that he was the bad guy and blatantly didn't believe in his cause in his later days, just in power).
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#19
cristo71
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@949havoc
By the way, welcome to the site.
Thanks!

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@cristo71
But to assume your premise— if Trump was properly held to account, Obama clearly was not— he let the banks off easy after the Great Recession, the “red line” in Syria, Trump’s “children in cages”…
Let’s use the kids in cages example. There were two elements to this, the building of the facilities and the separation of the children.

The cages were built in 2014 as a way of dealing with a crisis where we saw a sudden and sustained cascade of migrants coming to the border which our facilities were not built to handle, so they built them in an emergency and they were built for everyone.

Under Obama (as well as Bush, Clinton, etc.) kids were separated from their parents when officials had reason to believe the child was in danger or when the parent was prosecuted for a crime. That’s common sense.

Then came Trump.

Under Trump, he decided that he would prosecute every single illegal border crossing, thereby separating every single child from their parents, and did so figuring we had these cages here so they would be a perfect place to house them. This had never been done before. And as much as Trump pretended he was doing nothing different, he also admitted many times that he was doing it for deterrence purposes. Consistency in his lying was never a concern.

These two things are not even close to being the same thing. The Trump freak out had nothing to do with the mere fact that some kids got separated, it was the purposeful, cruel, calculated, systematic separation of kids that made everyone freak out.

So did any of this matter to the right wing pundits? No, of course not. They just claimed fake news and argued that Obama did it too. He didn’t.

But here we are, talking about bias in the media in part because of it. Facts matter. Context matters. Yet every argument I have ever heard claiming the media was unfair to Trump is built on false equivalences just like this one.

I do recall him being asked what ice cream he preferred by one of our many “hard-hitting, gotcha journalists.”
It’s called a honeymoon phase, every president experiences one, except Trump. Why - because they just hated Trump? Well, I’m sure him lying overtly to the media since literal day one and branding the media to his followers as the enemy of the people may have had something to do with that. Again, actions have consequences. You cannot credibly argue that Trump was treated unfairly without taking his actions into account.

And even beyond that, the political right really likes to pretend the ice cream question was serious, it wasn’t. It was really a joke about Trump making reference to the fact that we finally have a normal human being in the White House. That would be inappropriate under normal circumstances, but there weren’t normal circumstances because Trump wasn’t normal. You can’t disregard that fact to claim media bias.
#21
949havoc
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@Double_R
Under Trump, he decided that he would prosecute every single illegal border crossing, thereby separating every single child from their parents, 
And, of course, by your logic, the illegal occupying parents, who think they have a right to come here illegally when it is nothing but occupation, have no responsibility whatsoever for putting their kids into this circumstance by ignoring  immigration law. It isn't the kids dragging the parents across a sovereign border, now, is it? Those parents seeking a better life can do so legally, and thereby no one is incarcerated, are the? Law and order. It isn't just a slogan on a hat, bud. It every person's responsibility.
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#22
cristo71
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@Double_R
Yet every argument I have ever heard claiming the media was unfair to Trump is built on false equivalences just like this one.
Then, of course, there was the old “good people on both sides” narrative. It was as effective as it was misleading and out-of-context. Agreed, context matters. Again, selection of detail. Then there’s the virtually countless, negative speculations and “backing the wrong horse”:

MSM warned of a Trump caused war with North Korea. Wrong.
MSM warned of a Trump caused war with Iran. Wrong.
MSM warned of a Trump caused recession. Wrong.
MSM anticipated that the Muller investigation would lead to Trump’s impeachment. Wrong.
MSM made a darling of Michael Avenatti. Wrong.
MSM made a darling of Gov. Cuomo. Wrong.

Not just unfair to Trump, but *more than fair* to the other side of the aisle. Here ya go:  MSM completely ignored the Hunter Biden story prior to the election, when it could have, you know, informed the public and held Joe Biden to account! The story *conveniently* broke after the election. Do you not see the partisan timing in this? Do you see why one might opine that they are merely the media wing of the DNC?


If not, can you please provide some examples of MSM holding Biden to account before the election? You know, when doing their job could have made an actual difference?

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@cristo71
The big issue with your response is related to bias.

You’re biased, I am biased.

To establish the validity of the behaviour of the media in terms of your list; one needs to correctly qualify the exact nature of media portrayal of the events at the time: And qualify whether that portrayal was reasonable, in the context of that time.

The issue is that if you’re biased you can’t do either of those things properly.

Your perception of overall portrayal of events by the media is going to be massively biased By the  sources you consume telling you they were biased; both before and after the events.

Secondly, your perception of what is reasonable will also be specifically coloured by those same sources.

Both are massively impacted by the fact that the events are 1/2/3/4 years ago.



This is all to say that for each item, are you able to correctly quantify the specific way the media reacted in broader context - or is your opinion on what they said coloured by what Fox News, or various conservative sources told you they did?

Are you able to quantify the window of reasonable journalistic behaviour for those given events. Or are you simply portraying their behaviour as unreasonable because biased sources you consume persuades you that the correct interpretation of events was something else?


For example on your list: North Korea. 

The media, widely reported on escalating tensions and rhetoric when NK had a deliverable nuclear weapon; Trump talked about fire and fury. The factual reporting suggested was bad and made the prospect of hostilities more likely, and that it could lead to further destabilization. I don’t think that was unreasonable. You also had a bunch of talking heads and opinion writers saying it was a bad idea, and could cause hostilities; and some saying it’s about time - and a lot of opinion conversation about how NK Has been going on for so long that perhaps this type of talk and unpredictability could lead to beneficial results as the status quo had failed.

In this respect; while I won’t say the MSM was straight down the middle; they were way closer to the middle than to your interpretation of events.


The bleach one is a perfect example.

Trump suggested that they should look into disinfectants into the body to cure COVID 

That’s one of the Dumbest things I have ever heard coming out of someone in powers mouth.

He was rightly blasted for it; the MSM were pretty accurate - using the word disinfectant - when I searched last; MSNBC occasionally mentioned Injecting bleach; and there examples of commentators and left wing politicians being flippant with comments about drinking bleach. There wasn’t that much of a difference between how dumb what he said was vs how dumb it was portrayed.

I do remember though - an article from some Anonymous right wing woo factory saying that “The MSM is being too harsh on trump because when he said ‘disinfectant’ he actually meant ‘medicine’


This is a source of a huge amount of perceived media bias - that the media treats what Trump does worse than you think it should - because you think Trumps behaviour was more reasonable than it was.







#24
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@cristo71
Trump tried to ask questions about new UV light as a disinfectant technology in layman's terms and the Media decided to interpret it as "Trump wants to kill Americans" simply for asking questions.


Food for Orangemanbad crowd.

Every day for 4 years it was solid confirmation bias media, reporting to degrees how much Trump was Hitler on that particular day.

You can see how the media treats people that ask questions. Only the media is allowed to ask questions.

Just ask Nikki Minaj.
#25
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@cristo71
Brian Stelter recently had a show explaining why it was dangerous to do your own research and why you should not ask questions of authority in DC.

We are living in Orwellian times indeed.
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Double_R
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@949havoc
Law and order. It isn't just a slogan on a hat, bud. It every person's responsibility.
Right, law and order. Because that’s what every parent who lives in extreme poverty and gang violence thinks about when they take their children for a walk down the street as they pass by decapitated heads hanging from street lights… ‘I have to wait my turn like everyone else’.

So for those who don’t wait their turn, well those people are criminals for fleeing with their children and must be held to account. Cause having those people come here is the biggest problem we face. That and of course our elections being stolen.
#27
FLRW
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"I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs." -Donald Trump
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Greyparrot
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@cristo71
The amount of gaslighting and the Mandela effect on the left is astounding.

Most people on the left believe all sorts of misinformation and lies such as:

1) Thousands of unarmed blacks are killed by the police every year.
2) Thousands of children die from Covid-19 every year.
3) Only a few thousand enter the country illegally and almost all by airports.
4) Antifa is mostly peaceful or a myth
5) Dozens of police were killed on Jan 6 by radical facists.
6) Trump's agreement  6 months ago forced Biden to give up airbases so we couldn't get the Americans out.

and on and on. If it's a story from the media, there is gaslight all around it spreading misinformation to every Democrat in America.
#29
Greyparrot
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@FLRW
"So it would be interesting to check that" -Trump

You left out that context Mr. Gaslight, or is Trump or anyone else not a Democrat not allowed to ask questions about technology?

I guess non Democrats need to check with the Ministry of Misinformation as Orwell prophesized.
Topic's author
#30
cristo71
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@Ramshutu
You’re biased, I am biased.

To establish the validity of the behaviour of the media in terms of your list; one needs to correctly qualify the exact nature of media portrayal of the events at the time: And qualify whether that portrayal was reasonable, in the context of that time.

The issue is that if you’re biased you can’t do either of those things properly.
By your own admission above, neither can… you?

The media, widely reported on escalating tensions and rhetoric when NK had a deliverable nuclear weapon; Trump talked about fire and fury. The factual reporting suggested was bad and made the prospect of hostilities more likely, and that it could lead to further destabilization. I don’t think that was unreasonable. You also had a bunch of talking heads and opinion writers saying it was a bad idea, and could cause hostilities; and some saying it’s about time - and a lot of opinion conversation about how NK Has been going on for so long that perhaps this type of talk and unpredictability could lead to beneficial results as the status quo had failed.
I, too, feared reprisals from North Korea. So I’m with you up to this point. When those reprisals never happened, and tensions de escalated, MSM did not reflect upon their failed analysis. To the contrary, they doubled down on “wrong” by switching the narrative to “President Trump is cozying up with dictators rather than our own allies!!”

In this respect; while I won’t say the MSM was straight down the middle; they were way closer to the middle than to your interpretation of events.
Says your presumption…

The bleach one is a perfect example.
It is a perfect example of MSM taking a poorly worded phrase out of its larger context and unashamedly embellishing upon it. UV light can act as a disinfectant, by the way. Thanks for exemplifying my point, but I actually would find it more compelling if you addressed the second half of that post re: the timing of the Hunter Biden story.