The Hunter Biden train wreck rolls over Times, Post

The Associated Press runs a weekly feature titled “Not Real News: A Look at What Didn’t Happen.” It’s a smug feature that sets a dangerous precedent.

The report attempts to debunk junk swirling around on social media. But it’s easier to knock things down than it is to dig them up. Most journalists tend to focus on the latter. Let’s hope that never changes.

That’s why this week’s admission by the New York Times and Washington Post is so telling. Both esteemed arbiters of all that’s proper to print in a polite society had to get down in the dirt and admit Hunter Biden is a train wreck. And that’s putting it as nicely as allowed in a family newspaper.

The Washington Post — in an insulting headline — blasted Friday: “Here’s how The Post analyzed Hunter Biden’s laptop.” Yes, after the New York Post broke the story a year and a half ago. The DC paper has also offered up an explainer, for readers who need help wondering why this entire topic was treated as dog poop by so many for so long.

In case we forgot to mention, Hunter Biden is the son of President Biden.

The Times and Post should be ashamed. They do admit the FBI has Hunter Biden’s MacBook and the agency is investigating whether he properly reported income from business dealings.

The Washington Post states some verified emails involved a deal Hunter Biden pursued with the CEFC China Energy conglomerate for which he was paid nearly $5 million. Other verified emails related to his work for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, for which Hunter Biden was paid as much as $83,333 or a month, or $1 million a year, the New York Post states.

What does this tell us? Partisan politics is alive and well inside the newsrooms of America’s media outlets. The New York Post stuck to their Hunter Biden story and has been vindicated.

The New York Post tells they “exclusively revealed the existence of Hunter Biden’s emails after being given a copy of the hard drive from a damaged MacBook Pro laptop that the owner of a repair shop in the Biden family’s hometown of Wilmington, Del., said was dropped off in April 2019 and never retrieved.”

The AP, deep down in a political story, is reporting some Republicans are already agitating for partisan investigations of figures like Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Biden’s son, Hunter. That, they say, will be wedge issues that could land the GOP back in control of Congress.

Here’s how we see all this. A free press must remain vigilant and non-partisan while hunting for lies, crimes, abuse and neglect while calling out politicians and pundits who try to quash a good story just because it doesn’t fit the narrative of the prevailing political winds.

The New York Times and Washington Post can be great newspapers. They sometimes do meaningful work. They just need to get out of their own way.

The AP needs to stop trying to be the voice of America and just chase down the news. If a tweet or post somewhere in the cesspool of trolls and scam artists on the web does warrant coverage, then have at it. But a running feature of every little oddity that fires up TikTok is just a waste of time.

There’s a reason why Boston Herald readers pick up this paper. We’re not afraid to call out those who are out to hurt others — even if it does go against the tide. If you have a story you want covered, just let us know. We do chase down all tips sent to newstips@bostonherald.com. We print the real ones we dig up.