What’s The Matter With Minnesota Media?

"The bias of the main stream media is toward sensationalism, conflict and laziness." -- Jon Stewart to Chris Wallace

To listen to them, Minnesota media are the very reason you can read this, can know anything about the world or live in a democratic country. Virtually impossible to overstate their self-regard, they had a hilarious meltdown when President Trump accurately tweeted “Fake media are the enemy of the American people.” They quickly dropped the all important “fake” and proceeded apace to a collective mental breakdown. They also tweeted or linked to tweets expressly comparing themselves to the beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. This was obscene.

National media excess over the election of Trump–wasn’t he supposed to be impeached ages ago?–seems to have given Minnesota media the excuse to drop the small portion of the mask they pretended to wear, especially on Twitter. Always liberal, frequently insufferable, permanently thin skinned, Minnesota media is now an all out arm of the resistance. As has been said, democrats now take their cue from the corrupt and dishonest media, rather than the other way around.

Trust in the media is at a deserved all time low. As a friend of mine would say, they did it to themselves. A jaw dropping two-thirds of Americans believe the mainstream press publishes fake news. This is particularly delicious because the phrase itself was created by the media in order to disparage news outlets and platforms it didn’t like or couldn’t control or both. As I’m fond of saying: “shot with their own gun.”

Better than anything you can read locally is Sharyl Attkisson’s just published “Americans Don’t Trust The Media And For Good Reason.” You shouldn’t expect this to be promoted on social media by local democrats with a byline.

Minnesota media are no less unhappy than their national counterparts in the election of Donald Trump. Rather than check their impulse to show that unhappiness, and hence bias, and provide a modicum of balance, they’ve gone all in, apparently in an attempt to keep up with them.

Contrast the coverage of Michele Bachmann with that of Keith Ellison. Almost any coverage of Bachmann is negative while Minnesota media give active cover to Ellison. When David Duke endorsed him for DNC chair, there was a media blackout out in the hotdish state. When Ellison said Kim Jong Un was a more responsible leader than President Trump, Twitter was devoid of Minnesota reporters mentioning it. This is all too typical with numerous issues that reflect badly on the Regressive Left. Minnesota media are largely political agitprop. Take them seriously at your peril.

Not long ago, Rachel Stassen-Berger of the Pioneer Press literally sat next to Ellison on stage at the Humphrey School (I was in the second row) when Minnesotans were reeling from the sickening news that barbaric female genital mutilation had come to the state. This brave Daniel Pearl didn’t ask him a single question about it. Such things happen on purpose.

Neither the Pioneer Press, nor the Star Tribune, ran an editorial condemning it. Tom Weber of the insufferable MPR was actually Master of Ceremonies at terrorist linked CAIR’s annual banquet last fall. Recent testimony before the Saint Cloud city council indicated white children were being bullied and harassed by Somali youth to the degree they can no longer go to their neighborhood playgrounds. Where is Star Tribune immigration reporter Mila Koumpilova, who I consider quite good, on the story? Nowhere. Suki Dardarian has an agenda and reporters must execute on it. Who is Suki Dardarian? I’m glad you asked.

No Minnesota media of any platform of which I am aware has covered sharia advocate and anti-semite Linda Sarsour. Why not? She is a prominent leader of the “Women’s March.” Bad for the narrative? If so, these rubes in Minnesota will be kept from it, at least for as long as local media have any say.

Last week, the Star Tribune’s Patrick Coolican had his head handed to him by Howard Root when trying to defend the indefensible: intentional non-coverage of Sen. Al Franken obstructing the nomination of Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Again, a Minnesota media blackout on the story and not just by his newspaper. Coolican actually published, without permission or warning to Root, a portion of a private exchange in order to make him look bad. Root gave Blois Olson permission to print the conversation in its entirety, which can be read here. This is who local media are.

Both Coolican and Stassen-Berger spend a lot of time in Ben Golnik’s office (think of high school on steroids) but more on that next week, including oleaginous staffers who play teacher’s pets to them.  For now, Minnesota media bias outright is a tough enough slog to get through.

Recently an Antifa flag was hoisted at the Hennepin County jail and the county flag burned. Zero Minnesota media outlets covered the story save for Alpha News, whose report can be read here. How to explain that? It wasn’t “local” enough? No, it showed the true colors of Antifa and right now they’re on a Regressive Jihad™ against the president. Consequently, our local Daniel Pearls are loathe to give them bad press, by which I mean report straight news.

Patricia Lopez, former political editor and now an editorial board member of the Star Tribune, recently tweeted that Trump supporters were Nazis because she reckoned the use of “MAGA,” the campaign motto of the most successful campaign in American political history, was akin to Sieg Heil! She quietly deleted the tweet, which tells you all you need to know about her journalistic integrity.

Hilariously, in the 2012 campaign, MPR reporter Tom Scheck claimed his Twitter account was hacked when he published a tweet, meant to be a direct message, sputtering about Clint Eastwood’s withering dissection of empty chair Obama at the RNC convention. No one believed him, of course, even though MPR said it was assigning him social media editors. Times have changed now, though. Any reporter similarly caught today would ignore it and delete it, Lopez it.™

Star Tribune house conservative D.J. Tice is out today with a piece rightly saying violence against speech one disagrees with is never justified. In making that case, of course, Tice trashes the president at every turn. Democrats never, ever, do this. But republicans line up to trash their own in order to seek approval from the Regressive Left media.

Political television is just a bad as print or radio, only different. “Almanac” and “At Issue” routinely have on only the most abject, self-loathing republicans and certainly, if it can be avoided at all, never conservatives. The hosts of “Almanac” don’t select their guests. I’m uncertain about “At Issue.” In any event, producers routinely make sure only the weakest, most thoroughly compromised Minnesota republican swamp dwellers appear on their shows. Exceptions apply but they’re notable for being so.

If you ever wonder why we’re surrounded by republican governed states, while on track to lose statewide next year, watching those shows should solve the mystery.

* * * *

Minnesota media may or may not know they have a credibility crisis because of their obvious, at times obnoxious, political bias. I could have given many more examples of this than I did but the ones noted give a good flavor of the disease. Follow the people I’ve mentioned on Twitter, as well as other members of the media. Pay particular attention to what they retweet and what they don’t. You’ll be red pilled in an instant.

Minnesota republicans all too often fear local media for reasons that mystify me. This is a third tier media market; we’re not dealing with the cream of the crop. How hard is it to reject the premise to transparently loaded questions, turn it around and deliver a message that works for you? Instead, we’re treated to republicans pandering to those who have no desire to see them succeed and who, in fact, are the opposition.

“You can’t simply ignore the media,” I can hear the not-bright-set say. Of course not and that’s not what I’m suggesting.

What I am saying is that Minnesota media’s reporting, and nonreporting, indicts them and anyone not on the Regressive Left who plays their game on their terms are being played for fools.

* * * *

In addition to Alpha News, John Gilmore is also a contributor to The Hill. He is the founder and executive director of Minnesota Media Monitor.™ He blogs at MinnesotaConservatives.org and is on Twitter under @Shabbosgoy.

John Gilmore

John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter