The poor darlings don’t know what to do.
Here are screencaps of actual news searches I performed on “Biden” on Berlingske.dk and DR.dk at about noon (CET) on Tuesday, January 17, 2023:
Berlingske:
Danmarks Radio (DR.dk):
Berlingske’s most recent news item that’s actually about the American president is already three days old (“Another five classified docs pop up at Biden’s home”), but that’s just a wire service article. Their last piece with a byline was the day before (“Bad timing with the found documents”) and emphasizes how the misplaced documents are inconveniencing Democrats.
Meanwhile over at DR, they published the same news service article on the 14th and their most recent piece with a byline dates from the 12th: “Top secret marked documents found in Biden’s garage: ‘An involuntary gift to Republicans.’ ” So they, too, saw the story mainly as allowing Republicans to pounce.
It’s not hard to guess why there’s nothing more substantial about Biden from either outlet: it’s because they really don’t understand America or its politics at all beyond the mush they’re spoon-fed by their ideological masters on the other side of the Atlantic and the spoon-feeding has been suspended.
Here’s CNN’s home page as of about 16:00 today:
Hm. Nothing there.
How about the old gray lady?
Nothing there, either.
Washington Post?
Well, you’ve got to squint a little, but there are actually a couple of things there: in the sidebar there’s an opinion piece entitled “Two things can be true: Biden broke no laws. His lawyers made a mess.”
(Hurray for journalismishness!)
Also, a “more coverage” bullet under the heading “What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media but didn’t report” informs us “No visitors logs exist for Biden’s Wilmington home, White House says in response to GOP request.”
Finally, just to belabor my point, here’s the home page of National Public Radio:
They’ve got a great big banner headline letting us know what’s at stake in “Elon Musk’s tweet trial,” but nothing at all to let us know what’s at stake in the special counsel investigation into the actual president of the United States. An investigation that was announced on the 12th, obviously to no particular fanfare in Berlingske or DR.
The poor darlings don’t know what to do because they’re not getting the cues they rely upon.
An independent Danish media study several years ago found that roughly 78% of Danish media stories about America cited the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, or National Public Radio—all of which are identified by the independent Pew Research center as being left-biased media.
Those left-biased outlets are the feeder organizations for Danish news media—print and broadcast alike.
The Danish media aren’t obliged to run breathless 24-7 coverage of American politics, but that’s exactly what they did (and still do) when there’s hay to be made over something Donald Trump is alleged to have said or done and their American peers are doing St. Vitus’s dance over the story. So the absence of such coverage when it’s a Democrat under fire is notable.
And ought to be a little embarassing.
This is why Danes are so poorly informed about America: because their own media aren’t giving them news of America, but news of the Democratic Party. More accurately, news spun and approved by the Democratic Party.
There is some speculation on the American right that Biden’s present troubles aren’t accidental but a direct result of the Democratic establishment’s exasperation with his intention to seek a second term. Having stubbornly refused to step down gracefully, the powers behind the power are forcing the issue upon him: desist.
Maybe, maybe not. It’s just a theory. But over the weekend there were signs that the establishment’s patience is running thin. Jake Tapper asking some actual tough questions on State of the Union. Jonathan Karl on This Week running the same damning video as Tapper: a palpably delighted Joe Biden saying that when he saw the government documents splayed out on the floor of Mar-a-Lago (by the FBI), he wondered “how could anybody be that irresponsible?” And other signs and portents and omens sugesting that Biden’s not going to get the usual covering fire from the establishment.
How confusing all this must be for Danish journalists and their editors!
It shouldn’t be: there are plenty of facts to report, and independent journalists interested in investigative journalism have a veritable smorgasbord of angles to choose from.
My personal favorite is actually a mere tangent: it’s that Hunter Biden was apparently paying $50,000 per month to “rent” his father’s house in Delaware, when public records suggest Joe Biden didn’t even own it—in fact, there’s evidence to suggest that on some public documents Hunter Biden claimed to own the house. That’s interesting because it looks so very much like whitewashing: “I can’t just give you your share of the money from the China deal, Dad, because it would leave a paper trail, so why don’t we just pretend I’m paying you fifty grand a month in rent?”
I’m not saying it is whitewashing: I’m saying it looks like it, and in my professional capacity in the financial sector it’s sure as hell the kind of arrangement we’d want to look at pretty closely and consider reporting to the authorities.
That’s an angle I’d think an enterprising journalist might want to look into. If there’s nothing there, so much the better: debunk anyone who’s saying there is.
Another curiosity is the timing. Jonathan Karl even noted as much on This Week:
The White House says it is committed to transparency, but the first batch of documents was discovered on November 2nd, just days before the midterm elections, and the public didn’t learn of it until this week, and only after reporters started asking questions.
Yeah: funny, that.
This isn’t the first time the Danish media have embargoed a story that damaged their narrative of “Democrats good, Republicans bad.”
Nor will it be the last.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Danish media return from this period of relative silence with a more critical view of Joe Biden, now that their ideological overlords have apparently agreed to allow it.