Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Our daily newspaper, through its selective reporting, is turning Honolulu into an island, isolated from events on the Mainland.

Today, protests against Obama’s immigration policy are spreading nationwide. We who pay for our subscriptions deserve unbiased coverage of the news, which it seems we are not getting. They don’t cover peaceful protests.

Bias in reporting?

Nevermind printing op-eds that somehow fail to mention Bernie Sanders as a possibility for president despite his outstanding position in the polls (check out today’s paper for an example of that). Being fair to Sanders (and to readers, I must add) seems counter to their ideology. I am thinking more of the national news we don’t get.

Reading the paper, who would know that since Ferguson there have been protests rolling across the country that amount to the largest civil rights demonstrations since the 1960s? When an incident of police shooting takes place, they may cover it, but omitting the spreading national reaction against police shooting black men and women and escaping prosecution for their crimes might be said to be a type of crime against journalism.

Currently there is ongoing national reaction to Obama’s raids and deportation of asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America. See the snip below.

Are these raids taking place in Hawaii? If the news media ignore this news, how can we know if they are taking place right here in Hawaii? How can we participate in the national political debate if we are uninformed?

Check out the number of protests reported in this morning’s headlines on Democracy Now:

National Resistance Grows to ICE Raids Against Central Americans

Across the nation, resistance is growing to the Obama administration’s new wave of raids targeting Central American families who came to the United States seeking asylum after fleeing violence in their home countries. This week, protests have been held in Newark, New Jersey; New Haven, Connecticut; Boston, Massachusetts; Homestead, Florida; Auburn, Oregon; San Francisco, California; and outside the White House in Washington, D.C. Protests are also planned for New York City today. The newly elected mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney, has signed an executive order saying Philadelphia will no longer participate in a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement program in which local law enforcement share data with immigration agents. Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has called on the Obama administration to end the raids immediately and to extend temporary protected status to all families who have fled violence in Central America. Today, The New York Times editorial board published a strong condemnation of the raids, calling them "shameful" and writing: "A new year has dawned upon an appalling campaign of home raids by the Department of Homeland Security to find and deport hundreds of would-be refugees back to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. ... It’s no wonder that Donald Trump is applauding the policy, and taking credit for it." We’ll go to Texas for more on the deportation raids later in the broadcast.

[Democracy Now, headlines, 1/8/2015]

If you’re on Twitter, you can get news in just a few minutes that will never appear in the paper. At the same time you won’t find many people tweeting about the latest luxury condos going up in Kakaako.

Why does the paper promote these developments on its news pages? It should be obvious: the luxury developments bring full-page and multi-page ads.

Why doesn’t the paper report on protests, or follow up to see what’s related in Hawaii? Protests don’t bring ads, and I think it’s very fair to raise questions of bias in news coverage as well.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 1/08/2016 07:50:00 AM