for BigTrial.net
When editor/writer Bari Weiss aired her grievances with The New York Times yesterday in her now-famous letter of resignation, she laid out most of the problems with the entire 'woke' Progressive media, all of which ring true for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
When Weiss joined the Times three years ago, she wrote that she had aspired to be part of "the free exchange of ideas in a democratic society." But instead, she learned that "a new consensus has emerged in the press . . . that truth isn't a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job it is to inform everyone else."
Weiss wrote about Twitter becoming the "ultimate editor" of the Times, and said that "stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions."
Instead of writing the first draft of history, as journalists once aspired to do, Weiss complained, "now history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative."
All of which is true about the Inquirer.
Let's look at today's online version of the Inquirer to see "the narrowest of audiences" that the newspaper seeks to cater to with stories that fit their narrow version of reality.
As you can see, racism lurks around every corner:
-- "Seventy percent of Superfund sites are within a mile of public housing, report finds."
"'Environmental racism has played a central role in this devotion,'" the report's authors wrote. 'Laws and policies have put Black and Brown communities in direct proximity to environmental toxins.'"
-- "George Floyd family set to announce a lawsuit against Minneapolis."
-- "A shootout with an undercover Philly cop put her in prison at 18. Now she runs a record label for current and former inmates."
"I'm here to make people as uncomfortable as possible," said BL Shirelle.
-- "Burlington County plans to drop Freeholder title; pending legislation would make it mandatory."
"Continuing our work to end systemic racism must be everyone's objective and eliminated an antiquated title from an era when slavery and racism [were] tolerated is one step we can take right away," Director Felicia Hopson said in a statement."
-- "Diversity job openings fell nearly 60 percent after the coronavirus hit. Then came the Black Lives Matter protests."
-- "As a Black student at Haveford College, I know what racism looks like at 'liberal' institutions."
-- "Teen with ties to Will Smith is raising our racial consciousness, one T-shirt at a time."
-- "Housing encampment on Parkway ties Black Lives Matter to housing."
This is the steady diet of Progressive ideology that the Inquirer is feeding its readers. My favorite example -- a June 17th column from Elizabeth Wellington, under the headline "Systemic racism has affected all of us. Here's how to start unlearning its harmful lessons."
It was filled with helpful lessons on how to unlearn systemic racism, according to Wellington the oracle. She also printed lessons to recognize, and probably memorize, written in bold print, such as "Racism is an act, not a state," and "The effects of slavery continue."
In her marching orders for an enlightened new society, Wellington told us that we must all unlearn "Color doesn't matter. There is only one race: the human race."
And that in its place, we must now recognize as a superseding, prevailing truth that "Black experiences are valid."
I guess Martin Luther King's dream about having his children judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" is officially dead, according to Wellington, who is now telling us not only how to think, but what to think.
Can you believe anybody would want to read this garbage?
Under Wellington's ridiculous column, in the comments section, I couldn't resist posting a quote from economist Thomas Sowell, who happens to be Black:
[The Inky has a bold new 'woke' policy of capitalizing Black and Brown, but white, you guessed it, is still lower case.]
Systemic racism "really has no meaning that can be specified and tested in any way that one tests hypotheses," Sowell wrote. But according to Wellington and her Inky teammates, it's all settled science.
In her resignation letter, Weiss talked about the cowardice of her editors, who failed to defend her when her colleagues called her a Nazi, a racist, a liar and a bigot for publishing diverse viewpoints on the Op-Ed page, which was what that page was created to do.
"The truth is that intellectual curiosity -- let alone risk-taking -- is now a liability at the Times," she wrote. "Op-eds that would have been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired."
And if an editor persists in getting a story published "that does not explicitly promote progressives causes," Weiss wrote, every line in the story must be "carefully massaged, negotiated and caveated."
"The paper of record, is more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people," she wrote. She could have been talking about Philadelphia's paper of record.
In her resignation letter, Weiss revealed that many colleagues who were too afraid to defend her publicly sent her private notes decrying the "new McCarthyism" that has now "taken root at the paper of record."
In a story about Weiss's resignation, former NYT staffer Judith Miller talked about the paper's new "red flag" system which "effectively enables even junior editors to "stop or deny the publication of an article containing a controversial view or position."
The Inquirer has taken this red flag system one step further. In their bold new plan to dismantle "systemic racism in our coverage and our culture," the Inquirer has proposed "creating a process for flagging sensitive content" that would presumably be available to any staff member. How's that for self-censorship?
Frankly, the Inquirer can no longer be trusted in anything they report, because, like the Times, they're writing for the narrowest of audiences, and they don't have a problem with tailoring the facts to fit a preconceived narrative.
For a textbook example, I refer you to a blog post I wrote on April 3rd, under the headline, "What a social justice reporter left out of her inspiring story."
In that post, I examined a story written by Samantha Melamed, the Inquirer's official "social justice" reporter about the case of Cynthia Alvarado, a 27-year-old Philly mom who worked as a dancer at a gentleman's club.
Alvarado was sent to prison for life without parole in 2010 for her involvement in the murder of another woman. Thanks to the efforts of District Attorney Larry Krasner, a crusading Villanova sociology professor and a bunch of idealistic law students, Alvarado was sprung from jail earlier this year.
In her story that ran March 30th in the Inquirer, Melamed left out all the tawdry details of the murder, which cost another woman of color her life. Melamed also covered up D.A. Krasner's actions in the case, which involved abandoning a prosecutor's traditional role and taking a couple of legal dives in court. Melamed also failed to divulge the true details of Alvarado's plea bargain, which was readily available in court records.
In writing her sanitized but uplifting story of a woman of color unjustly accused but finally freed by ![]()
crusading social justice warriors, Melamed also committed a crime against journalism by draining the story of all of its color and passion.
She did it by not mentioning the true facts of the case, which induced an illicit romance, heavy drug use, and some startling evidence that Alvarado, who had her own rap sheet before the murder, may not have been the greatest mom.
How on earth do you write a story about Alvarado's case and not mention her occupation as a dancer, her habit of taking along her one-year old daughter on drug buys, and her use of colorful language such as, "This is why he fucks me. Because I'm a ride or die bitch."
Because you're a social justice warrior on a mission to sanitize, scrub and censor, all to deliver an uplifting story that fits your preconceived notions.
In her resignation letter, Weiss outlined three rules of survival for "independent-minded young writers and editors" who are trying to survive today's cowardly newsrooms where independent thought has all but been abolished.
Rule One -- "Speak your mind at your own peril," Weiss wrote.
Rule Two -- "Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative."
And finally, Rule Three, which I wish somebody would have told me before I got fired at the Inquirer:
"Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain," Weiss wrote. "Eventually the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired our reassigned, and you'll be hung out to dry."