Being a writer, I lived for many years in New York City. During that time, I always enjoyed watching the local news. I liked the tough, hard-nosed style of the local anchors. They didn’t mince words. Muggings, murder, mayhem: They gave you the news, and they gave it to you straight.
They also didn’t play favorites politically. They reported on conservative mayors like Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg the same way they covered liberal mayors like Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams.
Now, it’s common to see female reporters focusing on the psychological effects of news events. How do people ‘feel’ about the fire/robbery/bridge collapse?
The local TV broadcasters treated all politicians the same. There was a kind of disciplined professionalism in their coverage. You got the feeling if they showed any kind of consistent bias, the highly intelligent New York audience would cry foul.
The green, green grass of home
During my New York years, when I would travel home to my parents’ house in Portland, I would enjoy watching the local news there, since it was so different. Portland, being a low crime/high trust city for most of its existence, didn’t have much news to report.
And so I would sit and chuckle to myself as I watched stories about a bake sale at the senior center, or a feel-good piece about a disabled person who learned to ski, or maybe there was a fire and the local firemen rescued the neighborhood’s favorite cat.
And of course, the local newscasters were folksy and upbeat. This was the Pacific Northwest. There was always a hiking story. Or a fish story. Or the opening of a new artisanal coffee shop story.
In terms of politics, our TV news was always respectful of whoever was the governor or mayor, regardless of their political orientation. That was expected. It was the right thing to do.
Besides which, the only politicians anyone noticed in Portland were eccentric amateurs like Mayor Bud Clark, who was a popular tavern owner and made a famous poster of himself: “EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ART,” it said and showed him naked in a trench coat flashing a statue outside an art museum.
I sigh just thinking about it. Portland, when it had a sense of humor.
The winds of change
Now, in Portland, there is a firm and obvious left-wing bias in all the local TV news. When did that happen?
I remember when Trump was first elected, there was a big push by the national media to vilify the new president in every way possible. But Trump was such an unusual president, it seemed to come with the territory.
I assumed the hysteria would die down eventually and that Trump would get the same treatment as Ronald Reagan. Attacked as a crazed “authoritarian” at first, but eventually, the media and his detractors would see that he was just a normal conservative.
At the same time, I fully expected my local media to not take sides. Their beat wasn’t Washington, D.C. They would continue with their cat stories and their ski reports.
George Floyd did nothing wrong (or did he?)
It was the George Floyd incident that began the politicizing of the local news in Portland. When we were told that Floyd was murdered by an evil white policeman, the local media felt obligated to express some form of outrage.
This was no time for nuance or objectivity. George Floyd was the victim of horrible police abuse (supposedly). So even the local news people, who didn’t know anything about the case or what actually happened, felt obligated to join in, with emphatic denouncements of police brutality.
Who can be in favor of police brutality?
Interestingly, when the summer riots of 2020 began in Portland, the local news stations returned to a more objective perspective.
Every night, they would send reporters downtown to check on the wild skirmishes and nocturnal riot-subculture that dominated Portland during the “100 Nights of Protest.”
Much of this reporting was genuinely objective. What was odd though, was that these local newsrooms almost exclusively sent women downtown to report on the violence. That always seemed strange to me. Not that women can’t withstand tear gas and flash bombs and being hit by flying objects. I’m sure they can.
But I noticed this, because it was another example of progressive values permeating the local TV news establishment.
These outlets were so determined to demonstrate their belief in equity and equality, they were willing to send young, inexperienced female reporters into the midst of a professional riot.
Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images
Not your grandpa’s local news
Twenty years ago, the lineup of most local news programs was fairly uniform. A one-man/one-woman team of anchors, with a woman doing the weather and a man doing sports. Usually, it was men out in the field, covering crime, death, and car accidents.
Now though — at least in Portland — we are in an era of mostly female anchors, men doing the weather, sports being co-ed (we have a lot of women’s sports teams), and sending mostly female reporters into the field.
These female reporters are different from male reporters in that they tend to ask victims and eyewitnesses about their emotional response to whatever has happened to them.
The “emotionalization” of the news seems to have happened at all levels of the news business. Now, it’s common to see female reporters focusing on the psychological effects of news events. How do people “feel” about the fire/robbery/bridge collapse?
This new approach to news, emphasizing emotions over facts, also seems to suggest an increasingly leftist-oriented local media.
Trump’s invasion
Lately, Portland is in the news again, with Trump threatening to “send in the troops” if our local authorities can’t stop the attacks on ICE agents and clean up Portland’s dystopian streets.
Though our local news programs make half-hearted attempts to appear neutral, they are quick to amplify the idea that Trump’s plan to send troops is an “invasion.”
They further promote their leftist version of the situation by never mentioning the presence of Antifa or even calling them by name. This creates the impression that the people harassing and attacking the ICE officers are just concerned citizens, though it is pretty obvious from the news footage that they are not.
And of course, for every one interview they show of people supporting Trump’s plan, they show three interviews of people denouncing him and claiming that Portland is doing just fine. (It’s not.)
No, in Portland the local news is now an appendage to our leftist establishment. And you know that in those newsrooms, in those studios, there are plenty of people who don’t agree with the continued destruction of Portland. But they have to go along with it, or they’ll lose their jobs.
‘Portland Strong’
The craziest thing of all is that the new catchphrase being pushed by the left is “Portland Strong.” This is hilarious, considering Portland is the most touchy-feely, socialistic, nanny city in the country.
The last thing Portland is is “strong.” If we were strong, we wouldn’t have drug addicts, the homeless, and anarchist radicals in total control of our streets.
Portland, Lifestyle, Culture, Local news, Progressivism, Essay, Men and woman, Emotionalization, Boob tube
