The Most Hypocritical Date on the Media’s Calendar
On Memorial Day, big U.S. news agencies praise the heroism of fallen U.S. service members — in between reports that legitimize and encourage the kinds of anti-democratic movements those service members against. In the warped view of today’s media, it’s fine to extol those who served while also trashing their legacy.
Right-wing media often downplay anti-democratic threats from far-right movements, like those supporting Russia against Ukraine. Mainstream media — news organizations that try to portray themselves as nonpartisan — do the same with Islamist terrorism and the threats posed by Iran. In the new episode of They Stand Corrected, I explain how and why this happens.
The deepest hypocrisy surrounds coverage of those killed in World War II. The media never mention that Allied Forces fought against Islamist forces of the Third Reich. Today’s global Islamist terrorism movement is based on a mix of centuries of Muslim attacks on Jews and Nazism.
These big mainstream news agencies also avoid mentioning the tens of millions of civilians killed in World War II. I visited Nuremberg on a journalism program, and stood where Allied bombings destroyed so much of the city. I thought about the children killed. and I knew that despite the horror, the actions of the Allied Forces were absolutely heroic. They were fighting against evil.
For that matter, major news agencies generally refuse to acknowledge the existence of civilians killed in other wars raging right now. But when Hamas makes such claims against Israel, the media “reports” those claims as fact every day. It’s a journalistic fiasco that feeds vicious, murderous antisemitism worldwide — the kind that led to the horrific slaughter of a couple in Washington DC.
To all who gave their lives fighting for democracy: thank you. It’s up to us, in every generation, to carry on the legacy.