If a free press is the cornerstone of democracy, you’d never know it from studying American history. The media in this country has always been partisan, often sensationalized, and shapes public opinion in irresponsible ways. It was even worse in the earliest days of the American republic.
But never mind the past. We live in the here-and-now. I’ll dispose of Fox News first: It’s not news, or journalism; it’s entertainment. Fox entertains by pandering to the partisan bias of its conservative audience, and has been known to lie to its viewers. (That’s why it paid a $787.5 million defamation settlement to Dominion Voting Systems). If you watch Fox and ignore legitimate news, you’re being exposed to a drumbeat of propaganda, and are poorly informed.
Reputable news media adhere to journalistic standards of objectivity, accuracy, and neutrality; and views its mission as being to inform. The mainstream media (MSM) aren’t perfect, but are far more objective and even-handed than Fox and the plethora of other rightwing foghorns. Its perceived “liberal bias” often arises from factual reporting clashing with what conservatives want to hear. People who get their news from MSM are better informed.
My subject today is Daily Mail, a U.K.-based tabloid I sometimes use because they get details of news stories faster (by paying for stories), have more photos, and publish names before other news outlets. But Daily Mail is biased, and their stories are laced with partisan attacks. Here’s a sampling of headlines from their October 1, 2024, online edition:
Never mind that Trump is far and away the biggest liar. The Walz “lies” they’re calling out? Their story begins with this one: He was “one of several assistant coaches,” not “the coach,” which in their eyes apparently means he doesn’t deserve any credit for the team’s victories. This is Daily Mail’s idea of a headline lie.
Next: Walz said he carried “weapons of war … in war.” As Daily Mail says, that’s false. Like Vance, he said it to make a political point (about gun control), but his fib was far more innocuous. If this minor exaggeration is disqualifying, why aren’t J. D. Vance’s lies about Haitians stealing and eating pets, and Trump’s countless lies on subjects large and small (mostly large), also disqualifying?
Daily Mail also attacks Walz for claiming to be a “retired command sergeant major.” He’s retired, and he was a command sergeant major.
They also called out Walz’s DUI arrest, which was plea-bargained to a lesser charge. But they don’t tell readers it happened in 1995, almost 30 years ago and long before he was in politics. If that’s disqualifying, why isn’t Trump’s 34-count felony conviction also disqualifying?
What Daily Mail does is pounce on a Democratic politician’s trivial flaws, while ignoring Republican politicians’ major flaws. This partisan bias is systematic and ongoing in all their reporting over a long period of time.
“J. D. Vance is weird” became a Democratic campaign meme because it resonates: Vance is weird. Insisting women’s only legitimate role is being housewives and producing babies is weird; s0 is asserting it’s okay to “make up stories” about an ethnic group to pressure the media to pay more attention to his anti-immigration rants. It’s not okay to provoke race hatred, bomb threats, and school closures to score dubious political points; that’s beyond weird, reckless, and irresponsible. It’s unethical and, as local authorities said, “very dangerous.” Walz’s weirdness pales by comparison.
And what is Daily Mail’s evidence that Walz is “weird”? Their story says they conducted a poll in which 40% of respondents picked Vance and 35% picked Walz as being more weird than the other. That 35% pretty closely coincides with Trump’s base support, and isn’t far off the percentage of Americans who embrace wacky conspiracy theories. These people calling Walz weird doesn’t make him weird.
If Walz sometimes exaggerates, then Daily Mail is also guilty, because this headline grossly exaggerates the impact of the longshoremen’s strike. Daily Mail undermined their sensational headline in their own story, which says, “Supply chain experts say consumers won’t see an immediate impact from the strike because most retailers stocked up on goods …. But if it goes more than a few weeks, a work stoppage would significantly snarl the nation’s supply chain, potentially leading to higher prices and delays in goods reaching households and businesses.” Even if that happens, it hardly amounts to “shelves [being] stripped bare.”
This story begins, “A social media influencer is blasting Saks Fifth Avenue for allegedly not accepting her dress return, even though she said ‘there’s nothing wrong’ with it.” You know the drill: Shifty consumers exploit retailers’ generous return policies by buying expensive products, using them, then returning them for a full refund after they’re done with them. Unsurprisingly, retailers have caught on to this scam, and many are cracking down on it.
Daily Mail explains, “Brittany Paige, who has just over 30,000 followers on a TikTok devoted to her lifestyle content, posted a video Thursday ripping the luxury American retailer for rejecting her return of a $700 Ramy Brook dress. It was just one of several dresses Paige bought for her sister’s wedding, in which she was the maid of honor.” So here’s someone trying to borrow a fancy dress from Saks to produce “lifestyle content” for profit, without paying for use of the dress.
Poor girl, didn’t she get the memo? Saks is onto her. She complains, “Do not shop at Saks Fifth Avenue. There is something extremely fishy going on with Saks, and they’re basically robbing people and scamming people left and right.” I’d like to know why Daily Mail is giving this scammer a free platform to call Saks a robber and scammer?
This is what you get from tabloid media. I prefer real news.