Their opportunity for major influence probably doesn't come along very often. But if this is correct, two local newspapers basically created the bathroom war that dominated the news cycle for weeks and resulted in some decisions that did or could do serious damage to businesses or institutions, not to mention the sensibilities of many Americans.
In Here's Who's Controlling the Bathroom Debate, Bernie Reeves contends that two McClatchy chain newspapers, the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer, formulated and drove the whole agenda. Excerpt:
For two straight weeks, the Raleigh paper published from four to seven pieces a day on the subject – news articles, editorials, guest opinion, editorial cartoons, letters to the editor, and blurbs in their political happenings column. The theme that emerges is to exhort readers to approve of transgender lifestyles and special rights. If you do not, you are responsible for the amount of business dollars lost to the state from cancelation by businesses, entertainers, conventions, and tourists boycotting North Carolina until H.B. 2 is repealed. /snip/
Very few of the 70-plus mentions of the subject in the paper over two weeks are balanced, such as not mentioning PayPal's hypocrisy. The dailies employed the blitzkrieg style of left-wing journalism for a subject few care to know about, creating an overall effect of desperation.
Manipulating opinion like this is an impressive accomplishment. But it couldn't happen without people being so susceptible to accusations of politically incorrect thinking. The one thing many of us appreciate about Donald Trump, perhaps the only thing, is his willingness and courage to stand up to political correctness. While he didn't do it in this case, maybe we can learn something from him anyway.
Editor's Note: Is it possible to say "yellow journalism" is this context without making someone think of urine? Robo-ed | Get your mind out of the gutter. Sleepless.
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