When a man was arrested for threatening Rep. Ilhan Omar, the media swarmed to cover the story, in the same way it had been ignoring stories about arrests of “resistance” members for threats aimed at Republican elected officials.
Now, back to back, there’s been another arrest. This time of a Maine woman for sending a threatening letter to Senator Collins, along with some white powder, seemingly over her vote to confirm Justice Kavanaugh.
The media has provided much less coverage of this arrest than of the Omar arrest, even though the powder makes this a much more serious incident. And the fact that it targeted a member of the Senate, rather than a freshman House member, should have led to more coverage.
The fact that it didn’t is a routine matter of media messaging bias.
The media sought to clear Rep. Omar from accusations of anti-Semitism by changing the subject so that she appeared to be a victim.
But getting death threats is now just part of the reality of public life. It does not mean that you’re in the right.
The media however not only underreports threats, like those received by Senator Collins, but the few media accounts of the Collins arrest, managed to wedge Omar’s story into it. The same doesn’t hold true for Omar stories which contained no mention of previous threats against Republicans.
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