At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday, former President Donald Trump gave a rambling speech late into the night in which he demanded Democrats drop criminal investigations against him, pushed 2020 election conspiracy theories and said Democrats are ācheating on elections,ā erroneously claimed that immigrants are ācoming from mental institutions and insane asylums,ā and cracked incoherent jokes about Hannibal Lecter.Ā On Friday morning, many front-page headlines bought the campaignās preemptive spin that Trumpās speech would be one of āunityā and healing.Ā The speech hit many of the usual notes heard from the former president over the last nine years, but media outlets spent the week previewing the Trump campaignās spin that his speech would aim to unify and ābring the country together,ā suggesting that the attempt on Trumpās life last weekend had turned him into a more āsereneā person. Despite the reality of the former presidentās remarks Thursday night, many newspaper front pages on Friday morning ran stories highlighting Trumpās recounting of the recent assassination attempt and claiming that his convention speech was āsomber,ā āunifying,ā and āhealing.ā
The media is desperate for balance. Theyāre not able to say āthis man is a deranged fascist whoās harmful to the country and the worldā. Theyāre fighting decades of professional inertia.
They just canāt do it; their training doesnāt let them. Itās kind of like asking a scientist if theyāre certain that burning fossil fuels causes global warming: their training practically insists that they say āthereās strong evidence that it doesā instead of āyes, of course it doesā.
If they came out and said it, they wouldnāt be ābalancedā. When you realize that the media cares more about balance than truth, it helps explain a lot of why we are where we are.