Just when you thought the polarization and partisanship permeating the media industry couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did so in 2022.
And the sad part is, the trend won’t reverse itself anytime soon. How bad are things these days for the industry? An October New York Times poll shows that 60 percent of voters view the media as a threat to democracy.
With that backdrop, here are the top five news stories of 2022, even if the national press covered some of them very lightly.
#5 The crisis at the U.S. Southern border
The numbers are staggering: More than 5 million migrants have crossed into the U.S. in the first two years of the Biden administration. To put that into perspective, 27 U.S. states don’t even have a total population of 5 million people.
Meanwhile, the $1.7 trillion-dollar omnibus package passed by the Senate contains nothing in terms of border security through walls or fences. This despite that more than 850 migrants having died trying to cross the U.S. border in the past year, a record. This also despite more than 100,000 Americans dying of overdoses fueled by fentanyl, much of which comes across the border through Mexico after being produced in China.
Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 98 Border Patrol encounters with non-U.S. citizens on the terror watchlist in fiscal year 2022.
But most of the national media have simply ignore these stories. President Biden also seems to have no interest, as seen in his refusal to visit the border to assess the situation.
#4 President Biden’s handlers continue to hide him from the press
President Biden had a decent year. He was looking at a red wave in the House and losing the Senate, but Republicans underperformed in the House and Democrats maintained control of the Senate.
So, one would think the president would finally be more accessible to the press. Instead, he’s given exactly one interview since the midterms, with actress-turned-talk-show-host Drew Barrymore.
As for press conferences, the president finished the year with five solo press conferences. For context, his predecessor, Donald Trump, held 35 solo press conferences in his final year in office.
Will any of this change in 2023? It’s highly unlikely.
#3: The Jan. 6 hearings preempt everything
The Jan. 6 hearings blotted out all regular programming in 2022. And when a news event such as Hurricane Ian threatened to take the hearings off center stage, the committee simply postponed the hearings to maximize audiences.
The hearings were highly partisan, for instance, not allowing for cross-examination of witnesses. The committee also hired a former ABC News president and producer, James Goldston, whose job, as described by the New York Times, was to “help the House committee … produce TV-ready segments for all its public hearings.”
In the end, the committee didn’t move the needle of public opinion. Republicans/Trump supporters ignored the hearings, while Democrats embraced them.
#2: Cable news’s oldest network undergoes complete overhaul. Or does it?
CNN saw big changes in 2022. Its top-rated anchor, Chris Cuomo, was jettisoned right before 2022 began. The network was sold to Discovery, which promised to bring CNN back to journalism and away from an opinion-heavy model under Jeff Zucker.
Top hosts and commentators were shown the door, most notably media critic Brian Stelter, senior legal analyst Jeffery Toobin and Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza.
CNN’s new president, Chris Licht, has made numerous other changes, but so far the network has continued to see viewership and profits plummet to new lows.
With the 2024 campaign season beginning in earnest in early 2023, the question will be: Can CNN cover both Democrats and Republicans with the fairness and objectivity it has promised?
#1: The Twitter Files and the FBI’s continued interference in elections
Elon Musk’s tenure as Twitter CEO may be ending soon. But it has already been profoundly consequential after Musk released damning emails and documents that appear to show “shadow banning” (censorship and de-amplification) of conservatives.
The Twitter Files also document how then-President Trump was banned from the platform for “incitement” despite some officials stating it was unwarranted while others compared him to Hitler.
The seventh installment of the Twitter Files shows how the FBI consistently pressured Twitter to provide agents access to user data in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.
The agency was also in regular contact with Twitter executives at the time to warn of the damning contents on Hunter Biden’s laptop having the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, which was later verified as authentic by multiple news organizations after the New York Post’s original reporting in October 2020 was dismissed.
On cue, the major broadcast networks, along with CNN and MSNBC, have mostly ignored the Twitter files or sought to dismiss the contents as “old news.”
Nothing should come as a surprise anymore when it comes to overt media bias. But the lack of interest from the press in this massive bombshell still manages to shock.
Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist and a Fox News contributor.