Why did the media ignore Joe Biden’s creepiness for eight years only to report on it now>
Here’s a typical apologetic.
All of those frames made appealing pitches just a few years ago. Editors would be happy to get a “lovable Uncle Joe strikes again” story. The environment is not the same now. Certainly the media is not nearly perfect when it comes to covering gender and power. But in the era of #MeToo, there is far less appetite for a story that makes light of a candidate behaving badly toward women.
It’s not about #MeToo.
If Biden were a sitting senator who wasn’t running against prog favorites, this story would stay boxed up. And Flores, a former Bernie ally, would never have come forward.
It’s not a new enlightenment. It’s the media’s ongoing use as a political hit machine for certain political interests.
In the big picture, damaging stories against lefty Dems get covered up. Unless there’s an interest by even leftier Dems in taking them down. It’s no coincidence that this story appears just as Biden is prepping his entry into the race.
We saw the same thing with a Beto O’Rourke story.
Times have changed. Reporters now would look twice at a new politician who is handsy on camera. They’d ask questions about it and likely look into his private conduct. And women like Flores are taking big risks and speaking out.
Nah, they wouldn’t.
It took a lot of work to call Franken out and there’s constantly talk of a comeback. 2014 was not some sort of dark age. Attitudes haven’t changed all that much.
Only the politics of it did.
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