After some Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol in 2021, the national media aggressively reported on people who showed disrespect for the Capitol Police and for the rule of law itself. They touted groups like "Sedition Hunters" who aided Biden's Justice Department in prosecuting Trump backers inside the Capitol, the violent and the nonviolent.
But now, with the parties in power switched, suddenly it's the media who favor "sedition," in disrespecting law enforcement and the rule of law itself, especially on mass deportation. Exhibit A is National "Public" Radio and Odette Yousef, NPR's so-called "Domestic Extremism Correspondent."
In January 2022, Yousef touted the "Sedition Hunters" for seven minutes, never once classifying them as on the Left. They were "independent researchers" and "online sleuths." Some of these hunter heroes weren't even Americans. Yousef gushed about the Dutch: "Mary has been working with a group called Capitol Terrorists Exposers from her home in The Hague." But you couldn't use her last name, because heroes face villains.
These days, it's somehow not "domestic extremism" when radical leftists seek to undermine attempts to enforce immigration laws and capture illegal immigrants, both the violent and the nonviolent. Instead, Yousef and NPR championed the "ICE Resistance" in two days of reports lasting 15 minutes on the badly named show "All Things Considered."
On Nov. 19, the headline online was "Grassroots resistance swells in the wake of the immigration crackdown in Chicago." Anchor Juana Summers began by noting the deportation effort has "touched the lives of citizens and non-citizens deeply," leading to "a swell of grassroots resistance."
Yousef chronicled a group called Protect Rogers Park, a "community defense network," and went riding around with "community organizer" Gabe Gonzalez. They banded together against "an expected onslaught of federal immigration enforcement." Their goal? "To make the work of immigration enforcement as inefficient as possible." To rage against the machine, in leftist parlance. But no one was identified as the Left.
NPR also interviewed activist Jill Garvey and described her take: Their project is opposing "an authoritarian strategy that, unchecked, could ultimately eat away at the freedom and rights of everyone in this country." Garvey claimed Trump is forming a "national police force" to "occupy" and "terrorize" cities. None of this is pernicious conspiracy theorizing or "domestic extremism."
On the night of Nov. 20, Yousef leaked out one label about Protect Rogers Park: "It's known for its international diversity and as kind of a hotbed for lefty activism." This makes them a pile of NPR listeners, for sure. Anchor Ailsa Chang described it as "hyperlocal grassroots work to counter enforcement activities." Yousef said the group's goal was "getting people to the scene of an ICE arrest to make it annoying -- you know, loud, slow, and ultimately expensive."
In this second report, Gonzalez claimed ICE's goal is "kidnapping people." Yousef allowed a brief rebuttal from the Department of Homeland Security: "Illegal aliens are not kidnapped. They are arrested for breaking the law." But the leftists performed "continuous proactive patrolling" to foil "aggressive immigration raids."
NPR wrapped up with Garvey touting their work to "protect vulnerable people" with "a little bit of contagious courage." Chang repeated: "A little bit of contagious courage."
This is not how NPR would describe right-wingers blocking an entrance to an abortion clinic. You could describe that activism as "protecting vulnerable people" with "contagious courage." It's designed to be loud and make abortion clinics "as inefficient as possible." But that's not heroic at NPR. Performing the abortions is heroic.
This is why conservative taxpayers are happy that NPR was defunded. They've never "considered all things."
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.