Drew Holden Profile picture
Link to my Substack about the media, @Holden_Court, is below. Also seen in: @nytimes @NRO @federalist & more. Keeper of receipts. Maker of🧵threads🧵

Apr 27, 2022, 13 tweets

🧵THREAD🧵

The corporate press has gone from reporting on Florida’s parental rights legislation to advocating against it in the blink of an eye.

I break it down for @FreeBeacon, with a few callouts below.⤵️
freebeacon.com/media/watch-th…

Outlet after outlet went from using the bill’s actual name or indicating that critics called it the “don’t say gay” bill to adopting the misleading title without qualifier, parroting the language of progressive advocates.

It only took @CNN a week.

@nytimes, are you lumping yourselves in with the bill’s opponents?

Sure looks that way.

These from @NPR presented without comment.

It took less than a month for the bill to go from being “so called” to simply called for @PBS.

If you read only @CBSNews, you would be forgiven for thinking that the name simply changed along the way from the “Parental Rights in Education” bill to the “Don’t Say Gay’ bill.

Look I wasn’t holding out hope for anything better from @MSNBC.

For @ABC it was even the same author who wrote both! @kiaraalfonseca

But my favorite had to be @AlJazeera, an outlet owned by the government of Qatar, where the death penalty is still on the books for homosexuality.

Some outlets didn’t even bother to describe the bill as anything but how partisan activists named it, like @washingtonpost, @politico, @axios and @voxdotcom (go figure)

This is why so many people have lost faith in the media.

When corporate outlets can’t help but become partisan actors, why would anyone think they can be trusted to call balls and strikes on the issues?

Language matters. We’ve gotta push back against this implicit advocacy if we want to create enough space for reasonable, fact-based debate to exist in our public square.

Also, in case you missed the news, I’m now a staff writer for @FreeBeacon. So be sure to download the app and follow our socials for all my latest.

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