If you’re a news hound, you know that The New York Times, long – and long justifiably – seen as the most important newspaper in the world, has devoted exactly zero coverage to a bombshell report earlier this month that California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell several years ago was pretty successfully targeted by a spy from China.
And if you don’t know about this Swalwell story, you should. He’s a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which means that he’s been privy to many of the nation’s most important national security secrets. In addition, he has long been a genuine super-spreader of the myth that President Trump is a Russian agent. So although there’s no evidence so far that Swalwell either wittingly or unwittingly passed any classified or otherwise sensitive information to this alleged spy, understandable questions have been raised about his judgement and therefore his suitability for a seat on this important House panel. Further, he hasn’t denied having an affair with this accused operative, who was known as Christine Fang here, and Fang Fang in her native country.
In other words, it’s a pretty darned big story, and The Times decision to ignore it completely (not even posting on its website wire service accounts of developments) is a flagrant mockery of its trademark slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and clearcut example of media bias – especially since the paper showed no reluctance to report on his abortive presidential campaign this past year or his (always unfounded) attacks on Mr. Trump.
At the same time, if you don’t know about l’affaire Swalwell, you’ve got a pretty compelling excuse. Because The Times has by no means been alone in its lack of interest. Joining it in the zero Swalwell coverage category since the China spy story broke on December 8 have been (based on reviews of their own search engines):
>The Associated Press – possibly the world’s biggest news-gathering organization
>Reuters – another gigantic global news organization
>Bloomberg.com – whose founder and Chairman, Michael Bloomberg, is a leading fan of pre-Trump offshoring-friendly China trade policies
>USAToday
>NBC News
>CBS News
>MSNBC (The FoxNews.com report linked above says this network covered this news once briefly, but noting shows up on its search engine.)
>National Public Radio (partly funded by the American taxpayer)
>McClatchy (another big news syndicate)
Performing slightly – but only slightly – better have been:
>PBS (one reference on its weekly McLaughlin Group talk show – nothing on its nightly NewsHour)
>ABC News (one news report)
>The Wall Street Journal (one news article, one opinion column)
The Swalwell story isn’t the world’s, or the nation’s, or even Washington’s biggest. But it’s unmistakably a story, and the apparent blackout policy of so many pillars of journalism today, coming on the heels of similar treatment of the various Hunter Biden scandal charges, further strengthens the case that a national institution that’s supposed to play the critical role of watchdog of democracy has gone into a partisan tank.
The only bright spots in this picture? Social media giants Twitter and Facebook haven’t been censoring or arrogantly and selectively fact-checking Swalwell-related material. Yet.
