Contemporary “Journalism” is Not A-OK

As we enter 2020 and a new decade, media pundits among the blue-check Twitter brigade should strongly consider making a new year’s resolution to avoid rushing to judgment with hot takes that can sometimes ruin lives.

Is it unfair to suggest that media personalities who champion the cancel culture should themselves be eligible for cancellation?

Recall that several West Point cadets were accused of advocating white supremacy merely by flashing the OK gesture during the Army-Navy football game.

A subsequent investigation by military authorities revealed that the cadets were merely playing the silly and relatively harmless circle game.

By then, they had already been convicted in the court of mainstream media and social media public opinion. This is hardly surprising since 2019 was chock full of hoaxes and fake news, usually revolving around an anti-Trump theme.

Trenni Kusnierek of NBC Sports Boston even went on taxpayer supported public radio to call for the immediate expulsion of the cadets with a dishonorable discharge.

The discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was her source that the future officers used a hate symbol.

So far, the only mainstream outlet to call out Kusnierek (who apparently likes to use the OK symbol herself) is the Lowell Sun newspaper in a Boston area on its December 30 editorial page [bold added for emphasis].

“As we close out 2019 let us hope that 2020 brings a return to responsible journalism where news and analysis take precedence over activism and virtue signaling…If Kusnierek cared to learn a little more about the SPLC’s credibility issues, or could be bothered to explain to the audience that the gesture is universally considered benign, she’d be providing journalistic analysis, but her agenda was clear: These white men were bad and were guilty and little more needed to be adjudicated…

“Further, Twitter being what it is, a photograph emerged of Ms. Kusnierek making a very similar gesture. It made its way around social media largely due to the fanbase of the Kirk Minihane Show — a popular podcast and one of the very few outlets that bothered to shine a light on the craven and irresponsible analysis of the football game.

“Should Trenni be ‘immediately expelled and dishonorably discharged’ from her job?

“We reached out to Kusnierek but have received no comment at the time of publication.

“Maybe she’ll apologize to the honorable cadets she smeared. Some of those young people are bound to see combat.

“Like so many in the media, that particular reporter is content to levy heavy accusations at innocent people based on the rules of progressive intersectionality but feels no pressing need to undo the damage or even apologize to the innocent victims.

“In 2020, let us hope for a better media than this.”

In an era when newspapers have less and less relevance, congratulations to the Sun for calling for accountability.

Neither Kusnierek or her employer has publicly responded to the editorial or the criticism on the Minihane podcast (as well as the soft-launched Gerry Callahan podcast, the latter which officially premiers on January 6).

Kusnierek used to appear on WEEI’s now-defunct Kirk and Callahan radio show where she debated political issues while almost always advocating for the knee-jerk liberal, identity politics position.

Trenni Kusnierek currently hosts Early Edition on NBC Sports Boston.

[Featured image credit: fotografierende/Pixabay]