Bari Weiss Is Dead Wrong—Good Journalism Isn’t About Being Pro-America |
CBS Evening News over the weekend released five “principles” that would guide the program under Tony Dokoupil, who was installed into the anchor role at the show as part of a number of changes by editor in chief Bari Weiss. One of the principles is “We Love America.” It mirrored how Washington Post Opinions section editor Adam O’Neal promised the section would be “unapologetically patriotic” under his leadership after he took the helm last summer.
Weiss is blocking anti-Trump content from being aired; O’Neal is directing an editorial page that now constantly defends the president, including an editorial on Saturday extolling Trump unilaterally overthrowing the Venezuelan government. That rightward shift is exactly what the billionaires (David Ellison and Jeff Bezos) who installed these new execs were aiming for.
But their framing of center-right, pro-Trump journalism as pro-America and patriotic is telling—and alarming. Patriotism and loving America, whether in journalism or politics, does not mean ignoring some of this country’s biggest problems, from racism to income inequality to an authoritarian president. And with Trump acting like a dictator, what we need from journalism and other key institutions in society right now is not celebrating the United States but its exact opposite: questioning how America got to the point where it twice elected a law-flouting madman and how to prevent that from ever happening again.
It’s worth........