The media’s double standard on political violence

The mainstream reaction to political violence reveals who deserves to remember and who is willing to forget, Dr Victoria Fielding.

. Charlie Kirk The following murder and media circuses appeared in the US and Australia about the facts about the mainstream media.

There is no need to say that the media should abandon and condemn political violence in an uncertain manner. Indeed, doing this properly, putting a mirror in the society, and even if it raises the uncomfortable facts about the victims of violence, it is to talk about the causes of political violence.

Instead of hosting and contributing to conversations about the mainstream media, right -wing extremism and its inevitable explosion to political violence, it contributes to normalizing more and more political discourse. In doing so, it makes it possible for the right-wing architects and the beneficiaries of right-wing radicalization. Donald Trump – To re -frame it with its own movements as the error of the left of violence.

The sad fact is that when the right -wing political violence comes to the left wing people, the media is treated by the media. However, no matter how provocative and controversial they are like right-wing people-kirk, they treat journalists much more important. This media inequality stems from the structural media inequality between leftist ideas and right -wing ideas.

Imagine how Kirk has become a home name in the days after the murder of this media inequality in reporting political violence.

Nevertheless, how many people remember the names of Minnesota state representative? Melissa Hortman And her husband Mark Hortman was assassinated at home in July this year? And Minnesota Democratic Senator John Hoffman And he was dressed like a policeman and was shot by the same armed man who occupied their homes.

Hortans’s murderer, 57 -year -old White Conservative Evangelical Christian, Vance Boelter, had a hit list of democrats, which he plans to assassinate. This was a textbook of politically motivated right -wing violence against the left wing democratically elected representatives. Nevertheless, this event was treated by the media much less meaningful than the murder of Hard Right Media Famous Charlie Kirk.

In order to show a different emphasis on two right -wing political violence, this graph compares the number of US online news stories. News bank Four days after the murder, Charlie Kirk’s database was compared with stories about Melissa Hortman four days after her death. Kirk took more than twice the number of words.

Since Kirk’s murder, Hortman has returned to the news about Kirk after the news agenda months ago after the news agenda.

The same story can be explained by the Analysis of Newsbank online news articles, which reveal a sharper inequality between two political violence, and from the main current news of Australia.

In the first four days after the murder of Hortman, Kirk talked about 360 articles in four days, and 33 articles brought Hortman again about Kirk.

This scope inequality, in which Hortman is considered less important than Kirk, causes a structural prejudice to the right wing ideology in the mainstream media.

This structural prejudice is automatically less legitimate to left wing people than right -wing people. This means that even when people are strongly killed for their political views, they are rapidly disappearing from the media narratives and their grievances are emphasized and forgotten.

On the contrary, the victim should only be for right -wing people who are not emphasized by the media, but also launder their reputation to present them as perfect victims in death and life.

A disappointing example of this phenomenon that occurred in the entire media is “ABC”. stenography After his death, he reports about Kirk’s wife’s public statements. Anywhere in this piece, ABC Kirk White Supremacist RacismDeep women’s enmity, arms violence support and how such extremist discourses harm vulnerable groups.

Emphasizing the toxic effect of Kirk on the public sphere does not imply that he deserves to be killed. But ignoring or Ezra Klein Incredibly and aggressively discussed New York Times – The right way to do politics – It serves to legitimize.

At the same time, vulnerable groups such as real victims of Kirk’s harsh hateful movement-nomads, LGBTIQ+ people, trans people, women are considered to be important enough to be. They are authorized by the silence of the media.

To contribute more to this media inequality, which is the right-wing perpetrators of political violence, where the right-wing victims of political violence, such as Kirk All these perpetrators Right-right forgotten. Their evils are not accused of the collective “right -wing” culture in which they come, but rather, as only wolves, they are described as contradictory values that are not associated with the political climate fermented by the movements they are mentally comfortable and contributing.

The best example of this media phenomenon, assassination During the 2024 elections, he turned to Trump. Trump was held as a legendary hero who survived a bullet without humanity. Thomas Crooks-Halala benign By journalists, “acting alone and does not have strong political views”.

Inside Rare journalism efforts To recognize the scammers, sympathetic is treated as a “good child .. At the same time, it is defined as using a number of technological tools to be obsessed with weapons and masking continuous internet activity.

This internet event, which remains a mystery, shows that it is not “lonely, but that it is radicalized online. Imagine that Crooks is not white, male and American for a moment. At that time, no stones would be left to find out how to assassinate the presidential candidate Trump at that time.

Worse, not only the left -wing victims of right -wing political violence are less worthy of the status of grievance, but also strengthens the mainstream media Trump and political allies to mislead the right -wing violence on the left.

As I wrote after the Trump assassination attempt, Trump’s Maga movement was not controlled in the media, he blamed them in a treacherous attempt at the assassination attempt, “They” left, democrats, immigrants, and the audience, regardless of the audience.

With the great embarrassment of the mainstream media, the same thing happened after Kirk was killed. Although none of the gravitational facts are unknown, Trump accused of shooting immediately “Radical left“. Once upon a time, proud masthead, Wall Street JournalHe followed Trump’s leadership, He reports incorrectly Kirk’s shooter’s bullets contained messages that exhibited anti-fascist and pro-trans messages, which is a story that created the scores Slander titles Not surprisingly worldwide Australia.

Evidence as the facts about Kirk’s killer emerge – documented In the meantime, this white, Mormon, armed man from a non-mainstream media-cumhurist family points to the fact that the armed man has dived into the subcultures of internet on the far right. Groypers. This subculture is aligned with the white nationalist, Holocaust inten. Nick FuentesThinking that hard conservatives like Kirk are very moderate.

The mainstream journalists look far and shrugged instead of making a speech about the dangers of right -wing radicalization, a problem caused by toxic media discourse. They do not want to investigate that Kirk’s contribution and how the political beneficiaries of these cultures contribute to the toxic and hateful online and mainstream discourse radicalized people like Kirk’s killer, because it would be to turn a mirror on the part they do.

What is caused by this structural inequality in the media is that the left is always politically and culturally injured by right -wing extremism and violence, and the right is allowed to benefit and benefit from right -wing extremism and violence.

When the left wing victims of the left wing are forgotten, the right -wing victims of political violence that contribute to radicalization are glorified, left wing people are wrong for right -wing violence and right -wing perpetrators are not framed as a problem of political culture, the result, the health of the right extremism makes it even stronger.

Nevertheless, those exposed to the diseases of this extremism are silenced and ignored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rj7shjo3gy

Dr Victoria Fielding is an independent Australian columnist. You can follow him on the yarns @Drvicfielding or bluesky @drvicfield.bsky.social.

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