Gingrich Schools the Media — and we would do well to listen

Jonathan Rosenblum’s article on media manipulation was written before Newt Gingrich stared down CNN’s John King last night. Gingrich received not one, but two standing ovations for denouncing the media’s descent into smear campaigns instead of permitting Republicans to first discuss issues of substance. The audience leapt to its feet, because the only people who fail to recognize the media’s leftist bias are those who share or exceed it. The Associated Press, playing its assigned role, simply omitted the multiple standing ovations from its report, although even a single standing ovation is a rare and notable phenomenon in a candidates’ forum.

The same bias that the media displays against Republicans, it also displays against religion, with the worst treatment reserved for traditional Judeo-Christian religious denominations. The only people who fail to recognize the media’s anti-Charedi bias are those who share or exceed it. The result is that it is foolish to believe even a word of what is written about Charedi Jews. I may have written about this often, but even so, I was fooled.

When I heard the Tanya Rosenblitt story, I knew that there was something more there than met the eye, but I could not have imagined the chasm between the narrative told by the media vs. that given by RJR. After all, CNN told us that “she did not anticipate the storm it would spark” — although, as RJR points out, when she traveled to a different neighborhood in order to board a less convenient bus, it is hard to escape the logical conclusion that she intentionally provoked it. Haaretz informed us that the bus driver called police because an unidentified “ultra-Orthodox male passenger… held the door of the bus open and would not allow it to move,” while in RJR’s version, police were called because Rosenblitt was “singing, making challenging remarks, and occasionally leaning into the aisle… her goal [being] to provoke a confrontation.” Yediot gave Rosenblitt a platform from which to claim “until yesterday, I was sure that I live in a free country,” whereas according to RJR (and common sense) it was her intention to deny the other passengers, including women, the right to sit as they choose. [And the Jerusalem Post, playing its assigned role, simply altered the title of RJR’s piece in order to blunt his attack upon the media.]

Which version is closer to reality? That much should be obvious. And yet I have yet to unearth even one article in the “mainstream” media, save for RJR’s article itself, which portrays Rosenblitt as anything other than a modern-day Rosa Parks — although Parks’ own children rebutted previous claims that she would have anything to do with attempting to force people to abandon sincere expressions of religious preference.

Thank you, House Speaker Gingrich, for helping it to be put so succinctly: I am tired of the elite media protecting rabid secularism by attacking Charedim.