Media is selectively sinister
Last week, in their nightly crossover, CNN’S Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo entertained themselves by mocking conservatives and Trump-friendly media for using what they consider scare tactics to alarm the American people and get them to vote for the GOP candidate in November.
The two anchors got into character, affecting blustery, overwrought voices as Lemon lampooned reports that “Democratic cities are in chaos right now,“to which Cuomo sarcastically responded, “Crime is rising.”
“Oh my God it’s so bad,” Lemon, clearly enjoying himself, smirkingly declared.
The entire exchange was a comedy roast meant to belittle anyone not fully embracing the aftermath of the George Floyd protests as simple-minded opportunists or worse.
The pair of cable news journalists slapped away contentions that “crime is rising as they defund the police” as Chris Cuomo joked as empty suppositions, not worthy of a serious airing.
Let us do what the two marquee stars of the “most Trusted Name in News” channel did not do: look at the facts.
According to NBC News, “Over 1,500 people have been shot in Chicago, almost 900 in Philadelphia, and more than 500 in New York City so far in 2020 — all up significantly from the same time last year (1,018 in Chicago, 701 in Philadelphia and 355 in New York).”
Just over the Fourth of
July weekend, 30 people were shot in Philadelphia, which has seen homicides spike upwards of 30% compared to 2019.
Similarly, Atlanta is also up in shootings by 20% compared to the same time in 2019. One of the victims was an 8-year-old girl named Secoriea Turner who was in the car with her mother when a group of armed people converged.
Tragically, in the year of Black Lives Matter, it is the Black community being hit hardest by this spate of violent crime. Add to that the fact that COVID-19 has ravaged the community and left in its wake large-scale unemployment and more widespread poverty and it is clear that conditions all-around are calamitous.
Undoubtedly a factor — and one we can expect Lemon, Cuomo and most of the elite media to ignore — is the persecution of the police. In some cases police have been ordered to disengage from areas where criminality has occurred and it is fair to conclude that many in law enforcement are reticent to put themselves in a position that could leave themselves at the mercy of the 2020 cultural tribunal.
Many in the media, like those who laugh off the suggestion that their cheerleading for lawlessness may have had dire consequences, will try to continue to ignore the tragic condition on the streets and instead celebrate the public demonstrations that can be triangulated on Chyrons and in their teleprompters into attacks on President Trump and Republicans more broadly.
This may be a pleasurable exercise for those members of the press but it is a grave disservice to those Americans suffering at the hands of this current crime spree. Those victims need the storytellers in news studios to tell their stories more than ever.