The media's coverage of the chaos that resulted after police officer Darren Wilson was not indicted for any crimes after shooting black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last August has drawn a tremendous demand for reporters and journalists to do a better job in such situations.
That call for people in the mainstream media to be more “fair and balanced” in their work led Dylan Byers to tweet: “How long til the 'blame the media' thing stops?” If the media reporter for the Politico website was looking for sympathy, he was sorely disappointed.
@StephenGutowski responded by asking if the media “contributed nothing to what happened last night?”
“Apparently not enough for them to feel somewhat responsible for stoking the fires,” the Twitchy staff noted.
“How long til the 'blame Bush thing' stops, you imperviously self-absorbed hack?” @pinupartist fired back with both barrels, while @Sanchez put forth a question of his own: “How long before the media stops blaming the cop?”
@DamnCat then asked:
How long until the press proclaims the validity of the grand jury determination? How long until the press heralds Officer Wilson's good judgment and proper actions? How long until the press admits that Michael Brown's actions are responsible for his death?
How long until the press calls out the race-baiting profiteers including [Al] Sharpton, [Jesse] Jackson, [Barack] Obama and the Brown family?
“That long,” the blogger concluded.
@LegalizeShemp then asserted: “Maybe it will stop when liberals stop blaming Fox News?”
"So the media throws fuel on the fire, then plays the victim card?” asked DamascusGate. “Good Lord!” the poster noted before stating that he was hitting his head on his desk as a sign of frustration.
@ThePenguin agreed, proclaiming: “I've developed a perpetually bruised forehead these last six years.”
“Should we sue in court or Congress for a 'Be Kind to Desks Week'?” Stephen L. Hall inquired.
“Yes, the media are the real victims here,” @Journalist3000 answered sarcastically, while @Dick_Beninya added: “[P]oor, poor widdle media! When you all stopped being reporters and started being Pravda, you lost any right to whine.”
“Ask your colleagues,” @LiIMissRightie replied. “Maybe when they act as reporters and not as advocates.” In a similar tweet, @RBPundit said: “As soon as the media starts acting responsibly” and “when the media has more Jake Tappers and fewer Chris Hayeses.”
“When you stop picking sides and start acting like reporters again,” @JeraldRowlett noted before @iowahawkblog joked: “I'll get back to you on that after Al Sharpton's press conference.”
@Thomasismyuncle responded: “When u guys take even a smidgen of responsibility?” and @JmeMiller1974 had a similar reply: “When the media actually reports the news without bias or agenda.”
“Gee, Dylan,” @djm1992 stated, “maybe if you sycophantic Obama butt-buddies would start actually doing your jobs impartially and not blame everything on race and racism, perhaps we'd take you more seriously and show you more respect. Just a thought.”
@Mary(Mothertobe) was extremely pessimistic when she responded: “Hell would freeze over, and the sun would explode before Dylan and other liberal journalists actually be credible non-biased reporters.”
The fact that many reporters were in the midst of rioting in a St. Louis suburb wasn't lost on several bloggers.
“Let's ask the people who had their businesses destroyed in Ferguson,” @Matthops82 stated, and @TheRightWkingM asked: “Can I get back to you after my building stops burning? -- Ferguson store owner.”
@MrThomasHoffman went a step further: “[S}eeing as you guys incited a lot of this with inaccurate reporting, I think it will be quite awhile yet,” a phrase echoed by @RyanLGustafson after he stated: “You guys got everything wrong and prompted a bunch of horrible people to descend upon a city and trash it.”
As NewsBusters previously reported, this isn't the first time Byers has gotten into trouble while posting online.
In mid-August, the Politico columnist hammered Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery's tweet that “black ppl don't work for @politico” as “offensive and factually inaccurate” since the staff is “obsessed with diversity” in everything but viewpoint.
After reading a Pew Report that indicated the liberal MSNBC cable channel had lost 24 percent of its prime-time audience during the previous calendar year, Byers was happy to spread the bad news around.
“Conventional wisdom has it that cable news doesn't have much of a future,” he commented. “The audience is old and getting older, the television landscape is growing more and more fractured, appointment viewing is becoming a thing of the past, etc.”
It's unlikely that Byers will change his ways even after being pummeled by so many tweeters. After all, his comfortable post at Politico gives him the opportunity to lean to the left whenever he decides to do so, and he does so on a regular basis.
