National Review’s Jim Geraghty is very, very good at journalism, and he has more than proven himself indispensable when it comes to in-depth reporting on consequential stories that the MSM would rather not wade into.
To much of the media’s credit, they’ve been devoting a lot of coverage to Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan policy over the last couple of weeks. But they’ve apparently decided that it’s time to move onto other things.
Unfortunately for them, Geraghty’s not ready to move on, and he’s not willing to excuse their frantic search for squirrels:
Mark it down, Thursday, September 2 is the day that vast swaths of the U.S. national media turned their attention away from the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, and the Americans stranded there, and turned to domestic news stories.https://t.co/Qi2fWSrMz7 pic.twitter.com/md2ANiDRGl
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
The hurricane’s damage to the New York City area, the Texas abortion law, the continuing effect of the pandemic, and the California wildfires and governor’s recall are big stories, no doubt. https://t.co/Qi2fWSabHz
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
The lead story at MSNBC this morning was, “What Jim Jordan’s phone call to Trump on Jan. 6 reveals about the GOP.” The top item on Memorandum this am was the Times story, “Joe Rogan, A Podcasting Giant Who Has Been Dismissive of Vaccination, Has Covid.” https://t.co/Qi2fWSabHz
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
The Los Angeles Times home page focuses on the South Lake Tahoe wildfire and the California gubernatorial recall election; you have to go way down the page to find any news about Afghanistan.https://t.co/Qi2fWSrMz7 pic.twitter.com/7VrbpIvL95
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
Nor are more DC and politics-focused publications still focused on Afghanistan. As I write the Jolt this am, Axios’ top item was, “Private companies are changing who gets to go to space” At Politico, “How Covid data gaps allowed Delta to proliferate.”https://t.co/Qi2fWSrMz7
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
You can almost hear the sigh of relief in big-city newsrooms as the news cycle return to “normal,” after about two weeks of absolutely brutal coverage for the Biden administration.https://t.co/Qi2fWSrMz7
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
Keeping our attention on Afghanistan, and watching the Taliban’s brutal rule of death, might make our national shame intolerable. No, it’s time to go back to familiar, reassuring stories about how bad Jim Jordan, Joe Rogan, Texas and gun owners are.https://t.co/Qi2fWSrMz7 pic.twitter.com/mmMIeRxTAM
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
The mostly urban and blue-state readers and viewers of these news organizations like hearing how much more sophisticated and morally superior they are to Republicans. Afghanistan challenged their certainty that their leaders are always the wise good guys.https://t.co/Qi2fWSrMz7
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 2, 2021
And the media certainly can’t allow that to continue.
Biden's handlers were always counting on their loyal media to change the subject as quickly as possible. It seemed like a few of them trembled on the edge of breaking from the pact, so awful was Biden's debacle and so fearsome its implications for the safety of journalists. https://t.co/MKKqttlfbN
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) September 2, 2021
Guess they ultimately decided that pissing off the president by doing their jobs just wasn’t worth it.
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Related:
Jim Geraghty’s latest damning thread examines ‘the true extent of Biden’s lies about Afghanistan’
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