THE SILENCE OF THE PRESS – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  When we talk about corruption in the media, we should be mindful of the fact that it works in several ways.  It isn't only what the press reports that can mislead us, it's what the press chooses not to report. 

I've observed over the years that leaving out critical information is often a more effective way to slant the news than reporting a story that favors a reporter's position. Mark Steyn at NRO comments on one story the press just won't report:

When you look at all the formulaic sludge that wins the Pulitzer Prize for Most Unread Multipart Series, it is striking that not one of the major newspapers has done an investigative series on the proliferation of "honor killings", not in Yemen or Waziristan but in the heart of the western world. Instead, as Phyllis Chesler writes:

The mainstream media rarely covers them. More often, local media does, but even local media does so walking-on-eggshells, careful to quote from at least one apologist and one know-nothing. Usually, the (hardcopy) mainstream media covers such events weeks later, only briefly, or as a way to “spin” any possible prejudice against the perpetrators involved. Sometimes they are mentioned, but only in passing. Rarely do follow-ups appear. Usually, a wire service piece is used, and no original reporting is done. Sometimes, the newspaper’s blog might refer to a piece which first appeared in another newspaper which, in turn, has mentioned the subject only in passing.

And...

The media's attitude to "honor killings" is not only shameful and dishonors the dead; it's also part of the reason why America's newspapers are sliding off the cliff: Their silence on this issue is merely an especially ugly manifestation of how their news instincts have been castrated by political correctness.

What is so disgraceful, of course, is that this sin of omission is often committed by "feminists" in journalism.  Their feminism doesn't seem to extend too far.  They seem thoroughly unconcerned about the fate of Muslim women.  As Steyn writes:  "Multiculturalism trumps feminism, and so the media accepts a two-tier sisterhood in which Muslim girls are run over, stabbed, strangled, drowned and decapitated for wanting to live like the women they read about in The New York Times and The Washington Post."

The sad fact is that modern feminism has too often been a branch office of the hard left, and on the hard left the rights of women have never been particularly important...not compared to, say, insuring the triumph of anti-American elements around the world.  That self-proclaimed "feminists" can go along with this without an outcry from their sisters or from women's studies departments in universities says a great deal about what feminism has become, and what universities have become.

June 17, 2010