Andrew Sullivan criticized the media for his coverage of the recent deadly shootings in the Atlanta area for spreading a “narrative” about the violence caused by anti-Asian prejudice, despite the lack of evidence to prove it was a hate crime.
Much of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party condemned racism against Asian Americans after it was reported that six of the eight victims who died in a trio of massage parlors were of Asian descent, although an ongoing investigation has yet to determine racism. as a reason.
In an article published in his Substack “Weekly Dish”, Sullivan raised the alarm about how “narratives” are replacing news with “grotesquely distorted” media coverage of the shootings.
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“The coverage of this story is proof, it seems to me, that American journalists have officially abandoned the habit of attempting any kind of ‘objectivity’ in reporting these stories,” wrote Sullivan. “We are now in the enlightened world of ‘moral clarity’ and ‘narrative modeling’ social justice.”
“Here’s the truth: we still don’t know why this man did these horrible things … That’s why we have complete investigations and trials in America,” explained Sullivan. “We have only solid information about the reason, which is the mass murderer’s confession to law enforcement: that he was a religious fundamentalist who was determined to live according to chastity and failed repeatedly, as is usually the case. the 9/11 suicide bombers or the mass murderer at Pulse nightclub, he took his anguish at the source of what he saw as his temptation and committed a mass murder. This is bad in the classic fundamentalist sense: a perversion of religion and sexuality and repression in violence. “
Although he emphasized that the country should not take the murderer’s confession to the police “as definitive”, he noted that “his story is supported by acquaintances and friends and family”, that his apparent sexual addiction played a role in the shootings.
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“We still have to find none reliable evidence of anti-Asian hatred or intolerance in this man’s story. Maybe we will. We cannot rule this out. But we know that his roommates say he was once asked if he chose spas for sex because women were Asian. And they say he denied it, saying he thought those spas were the safest way to have quick sex. This needs to be verified more. But the only evidence about a possible anti-Asian bias points away, not in its direction, “wrote Sullivan.
Sullivan then took aim at The New York Times and The Washington Post for his uninterrupted coverage portraying the Atlanta shootings as an anti-Asian hate crime with more than two dozen stories combined. He also called on several others, including New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, author Ibram Kendi and “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah for jumping to conclusions.
“None of them mentioned that he killed two [W]it hurt people too – a strange thing for a white supremacist to do – and it hurt a Latin. None pointed out that the connection between the spas was that the killer had visited them. None explained why, if he were associating Asians with Covid19, he would be exposed to the virus when having sex with them, or would consider these spas as ‘safer’ than other ways to have quick sex, “said the columnist.
“They didn’t do it because, in their worldview, they didn’t need it. What you see here is the insistence of the social justice ideology, as [New York Times executive editor] Dean Baquet explained temporarily that this intention does not matter. What matters is the impact. The individual killer is, in a way, irrelevant. Your intentions are not material. It is only a vehicle for the oppressive structural forces that critical theorists believe. And it is in this ‘story’ that the media elites decided to focus: what, as far as we know, has not happened. “
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The Weekly Dish columnist criticized the role of Critical Race Theory in the media’s narrative impulse, as the “only evidence” they need is to “verify the identity” of the victims and the culprit, adding “If the victims are [W]hite, they don’t really count. Everything in America is driven by hatred of white supremacy of some kind or another. You can insert any fact, any phenomenon, in this rubric to explain it. “
“Treating the individual as unique, guaranteeing rights, defending the presumption of innocence, relying on objective and probable evidence: these fundamental liberal principles are precisely what critical theory aims to deconstruct. And the elite media is at the forefront of this war on liberalism, “wrote Sullivan.
Sullivan debunked the notion that “white supremacy” is driving the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans, pointing to the 2020 statistics in New York City that show that 18 of the 20 reported hate crimes were committed by blacks and Hispanic Americans. He also pointed out that while there has been an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes, the rate is still much lower than it was in the 1990s, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
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“It seems to me that the main role of the media in cases like this is to provide some data and perspectives on what is really going on, to allay irrational fear. Instead, they contribute to the distortion by publicizing a breathless incident, without a single verifiable link to anything like this – and scare people unnecessarily, “wrote Sullivan. “The media are supposed to submit easy, convenient narratives in a hurry to judgment to relentless empirical tests. Now, for purely ideological reasons, they are rushing to promote ready-made narratives, which actually point away from the empirical facts.”
“Presenting sixteen separate articles on the misogynous hatred of anti-Asian white supremacy based on a possibly completely unrelated incident is not journalism. It is fueling irrational fear in the cause of ideological indoctrination. And it seems that this is where all the elite media are. going, “he concluded.