Media silence on voter registration attack deepens our divide

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/media-silence-on-voter-registration-attack-deepens-our-divide

In the hours and days after Gregory Timm plowed his vehicle into a tent of Republican Party volunteers registering voters in the parking lot of Kernan Village Shopping Center in Jacksonville, Florida, national coverage of the event has been alarmingly lacking.

The problem isn’t that Timm’s attack on the GOP wasn’t covered by most of the media. It’s that it wasn’t covered with the same voracious appetite news organizations have whenever someone who is even peripherally associated with the Right does something to a Democrat.

This isn’t whataboutism; this is realism. It gets to the heart of why people, especially conservatives, believe the media doesn’t just have a liberal bias, but it either doesn’t cover stories that show when conservatives are attacked, or it buries them.

One of the more common observations I hear from people on how my profession reports on politics in this country centers on how Trump has been covered since he became president.

The conversation typically goes something like this: “I don’t mind that you scrutinize every move he makes or what his motivations are, that is your job. I just want to know why you didn’t cover the last guy with the same gusto, which was also your job.”

It is fair to say that logic should also apply to how incidents are covered that affect Republicans. There would have been a week’s worth of cable news coverage, several nationwide protests, and someone calling for a national conversation by now had the victims of Timm’s attack been supporting anyone but Trump.