One of the biggest journalism news items is that the New York Times admitted that the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop is true. The Times, other mainstream media outlets and cable news networks, and Big Tech treated the laptop story as a right-wing fabrication and fake news.
Journalists and journalism at large should have properly vetted the laptop story before dismissing it or burying it in the 2020 presidential campaign.
For context, New York Post reported on the laptop story in 2020. The story is that President Biden’s son, Hunter, abandoned a laptop at a Delaware repair shop. Upon investigation of the laptop’s contents, it was discovered that it contained financial documents, text messages, and emails about how Hunter leveraged his father’s power into doing business deals.
It took the New York Times over 17 months to verify the laptop story, while the Times immediately pounced on any anti-Trump or Russiagate story during the Trump presidency.
Conservatives and Republicans alike blasted the Times for its lack of investigative journalism ethics on social media. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said, “The New York Times admits what we’ve known for years: the Hunter Biden laptop story was true. Big tech’s censorship of this story was a disgrace.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fl.) thought that this was a cover-up, “The @nytimes confirmed what many of us already knew: the Democrats and their allies in media and Big Tech conspired to cover up the Hunter Biden story to help @JoeBiden win a presidential election.”
Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-Col.) posted, “Now that the New York Times has even confirmed the Hunter Biden laptop’s veracity, can we begin to admit that Joe Biden is, by definition, a compromised politician?”
The Times’ partisanship has a long history, but recent events like the laptop story show how it has become more blatantly partisan and pro-Democrat.
