The French created an ingenious prison cell so confining
that the occupant of the cell could never stand, sit or rest at ease. They
called it, appropriately enough, “the little ease.”
Conservatives, libertarians and independents in Connecticut
must occasionally feel the constraints of the little ease, but there are
outlets in the state that relieve the constant pressure. Pastor Will Marotti’s
radio program on WTIC 1080 provided some release.
The above-named groups have been short sheeted in Connecticut
for decades. There has been little presence of conservative, libertarian,
independent and contrarian political opinion in Connecticut’s left of center
print media for decades. Nationally, the print media is overwhelmingly
neo-progressive. One detects the strong odor of bias in the print media from
things not said.
Gallup polling has been measuring the public’s Confidence in Newspapers since 1973. According to a 2022 poll,
“Percentages of Democrats, Independents and Republicans who have a great deal
or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers, trend from 1973 to 2022. Currently,
35% of Democrats, 12% of Independents and 5% of Republicans have confidence in
newspapers. The readings for Republicans and Independents are the lowest since
1973, when the question was first asked.”
The low percentage figures for Republicans and Independents
suggest that major news outlets have not satisfied either group. And, sadly, the
low percentage of Democrats who remain unconfident in major media outlets, at
35%, is nothing to write home about.
The easiest way to alienate Republicans of all varieties
across the left-right spectrum, and independents as well, is to refuse to allow
space in media outlets to those who fall somewhat to the right of Connecticut’s
neo-progressive media. Connecticut’s media has made it plain for decades that
there is no room at the inn for Republicans, independents and, most
importantly, contrarians.
According to a recent Pew Research Center study, a 2022
Pew Research Center poll detects a widening split between reporters and the
general public on the question: Do opposing sides deserve equal coverage in
news reports? The poll found, “Journalists in the United States differ markedly
from the general public in their views of ‘bothsidesism’ – whether journalists
should always strive to give equal coverage to all sides of an issue. A
little more than half of the journalists surveyed (55%) say that every side
does not always deserve equal coverage in the news. By contrast, 22% of
Americans overall say the same, whereas about three-quarters (76%) say
journalists should always strive to give all sides equal coverage.”
Taken together, both polls map media bias. And the bias
favors the left rather than the right in major media outlets.
A Syracuse University study, “The American Journalist Under Attack:
Media, Trust & Democracy,”
based on an online survey with 1,600 U.S. journalists conducted in early 2022,
shows that “journalists who said they were Republicans continued to drop from
18 percent in 2002 and 7.1 percent in 2013 to 3.4 percent in 2022.”
As usual, reliable data and polls confirm the uncomfortable
reality that every Connecticut reader confronts when reading presumptive “non-partisan”
news.
An accomplished radio host of eleven years and a masterful
interviewer, Marotti, the pastor of New Life Church in Wallingford, has
been very much in the habit of bringing new eyes to comfortable and
insufficiently examined “certitudes” only lightly touched by our left of center
media.
This is not an easy assignment. Connecticut is now, for all
practical purposes, a one-party state. The state has become efficient in moving
forward legislation that favors the political interests of the dominant Democrat
Party over the muted objections of Republicans who have been counted out of the
political ring.
As a conservative-libertarian-contrarian witness of the status quo, Marotti joyfully placed
himself in opposition to the ruling elite, a posture one would expect of any
courageous journalist. In addition, he was – dare one say it? – an upholder of
Christian virtue and liberty.
John Stuart Mill, an apostle of liberty, once wrote, “If all
mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in
silencing mankind.”
In Connecticut, liberty of speech is easily throttled in a
state in which all political power is vested in a single party. For as long as
Marotti was with WTIC News Talk 1080, the throttlers were not entirely successful.
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