NewsBusters Columns

This week, Paul Krugman of The New York Times posited a theory: Red states cause depression and suicide. In a column titled “America's Red State Death Trip,” Krugman wrote: “In 1990, today's red and blue states had almost the same life expectancy. Since then, however, life expectancy in Clinton states has risen more or less in line with other advanced countries, compared with almost no gain in Trump country. At this point, blue-state residents can expect to live more than four years longer than their red-state counterparts.”

This year's education scandal saw parents shelling out megabucks to gain college admittance for their children. Federal prosecutors have charged more than 50 people with participating in a scheme to get their children into colleges by cheating on entrance exams or bribing athletic coaches. They paid William Singer, a college-prep professional, more than $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators and to change test scores on college admittance exams such as the SAT and ACT. As disgusting as this grossly dishonest behavior is, it is only the tiny tip of fraud in higher education.

The other day, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki subjected herself to a hard-hitting interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS's 60 Minutes. Stahl lectured her for allowing “harmful” or “hurtful” speech to be posted on her platform, without any fact-checking. Welcome to the latest demonstration of the traditional “news” media mercilessly pounding away at social media for having the audacity to allow dissenting information that undermines their expert narratives and authority.

The other day, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki subjected herself to a hard-hitting interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS's 60 Minutes. Stahl lectured her for allowing “harmful” or “hurtful” speech to be posted on her platform, without any fact-checking. Welcome to the latest demonstration of the traditional “news” media mercilessly pounding away at social media for having the audacity to allow dissenting information that undermines their expert narratives and authority.

So The Wall Street Journal noted the problem this way:  "Bloomberg No News. His reporters won’t investigate Democrats—but Trump is fair game." The editorial said, in part, this, bold print for emphasis supplied: “Mike Bloomberg joined the Democratic race for President on Sunday, creating a conundrum for his journalists at Bloomberg LP. Do they quit covering 2020? Do they stand on the principle of editorial independence, while promising to treat their billionaire proprietor like any other Joe, Pete or Elizabeth?

Audiences paying to see Last Christmas got more than a yuletide romance. The film, starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, toes a politically correct line. That includes broadsides against Brexit and clunky pleas for tolerance. Tolerance for the pro-Brexit movement, apparently, proved in short supply. Audiences were similarly scarce.

ABC aired the American Music Awards on Sunday, November 24, and the big surprise was that none of the featured pop stars launched into a political diatribe about the horrors of the Trump era. The shock factor was reserved for one of the most vicious assaults on God ever projected by Hollywood.

ABC aired the American Music Awards on Sunday, November 24, and the big surprise was that none of the featured pop stars launched into a political diatribe about the horrors of the Trump era. The shock factor was reserved for one of the most vicious assaults on God ever projected by Hollywood.

Reporters are supposed to cover both sides of the story, where there are two sides to it. Journalists trumpeted this principle in defending a recent story in the Harvard Crimson that sought to quote both sides about an immigration controversy. But in the real world, this principle is often ignored. If a reporter doesn’t want to cover both sides of the story, she just pretends there aren’t really two sides to it, and then quotes only the side she likes. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to come earlier each year. Though the dates remain the same, the promotions from advertisers don't. Christmas decorations are appearing before Halloween. Merchants can't wait for Thanksgiving to end so they can promote “Black Friday,” itself beginning days and even weeks before the day after Thanksgiving.