Meghan McCain has lashed out at the corporate US media with scathing criticism over their handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, arguing that it was an example of "absolutely stunning journalistic malpractice" that harmed ordinary Americans.
She noted that the media had picked their partisan sides in highlighting the events, voluntarily hushing up stories which had the potential to damage one party and amplifying stories that made the other party look bad, and that this wasn't anything new. However, she claimed, the case of Biden's laptop went "far above and beyond" any partisan media behaviour that had taken place in the past.
"It is the most blatant examples of media favouritism that I have ever witnessed and a betrayal of the American public".
In her op-ed for the Daily Mail, McCain suggested that the majority of the American public had "lost faith in journalistic institutions" and added that it was difficult to blame them for such attitude considering the recent actions of the mainstream media, specifically in regards to the story surrounding the laptop that Hunter Biden purportedly left in the 2019 in the repair shop and never recovered.
McCain pointed out that the story was based on "absolute treasure trove of evidence" had been broken by the New York Post and Daily Mail in 2020, but it took The New York Times to start reporting on the matter two years – based off the same material from the same laptop.
She recalled that at the time in 2020 The New York Times, other media and "every Blue Checkmark on Twitter" brushed off the news as "fake", trashed or ignored it. McCain further evoked the statements by the National Public Radio, which described the articles about Biden's laptop as "not really stories", "pure distractions", a "politically driven event", and a "waste" of the listeners' and readers' time. Politico labelled the story a "Russian disinfo" with numerous media outlets repeating the claim.
Two social media giants Facebook and Twitter were outright suppressing the story, taking down the posts containing the information about files found on the "laptop from hell", which suggested that the Biden facility engaged in shady business schemes in China and that Hunter used his political connections to make exorbitant sums of money. At the same time, neither of social media suppressed or took down posts with the recent New York Times' story about the same laptop, McCain stressed.
"As I said, partisans ignoring bad news is not new. What is new is the media's complicity in the coverups, and by doing so they are causing a festering rot between our journalistic institutions and the American public".
McCain suggested that professional journalists should have been more curious about the story and should have investigated it before brushing off. She admitted that the laptop files contained sensitive information including on Hunter's addiction, but still insisted that its contents were a "fair game" for journalists since his father was running for the Oval Office at the time. McCain underscored that if it had been an article about shady business dealings of the Trump children, the mainstream journalists would have definitely considered it a fair game.
However, The New York Times (and only it) wrote an article on the topic only two years later, she points out. The newspaper offered no explanation for the change of heart that had prompted the publication of the story about the federal investigation into Hunter Biden's possible criminal violations of tax laws, foreign lobbying and money laundering rules, which was related to the files allegedly found on his infamous laptop.
The TV personality suggested that the newspaper decided to publish the story for two reasons – because the walls may be closing in on Hunter in terms of the investigation against him and because his father, Joe Biden, had already won the presidency.
McCain insisted that the media treated Hunter Biden "like a child, who is not responsible for his own behaviour", despite such red flags as evidence of Biden receiving a payment from a Chinese tycoon with alleged ties to the Communist Party in the form of a $80,000 3.16 carat diamond. The only reason for such treatment was to ensure his father, Joe Biden, better chances in the election, McCain concluded.
"I was working in corporate media during the 2020 election, there was a hesitation in pitch meetings to even mention anything to do with Hunter Biden […]. I have hundreds of examples of explicit media bias that I saw and experienced. I assure you with all sincerity that the corporate media is Democrat-aligned, and it is an egregious ethical problem".
The TV personality went on to stress that the media are "flushing their credibility down the toilet" by actions like this and insisted that The New York Times, the rest of the mainstream media as well as the Big Tech companies owe The Daily Mail, The New York Post and Fox News, which reported the Hunter laptop story, an apology.
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