Bari Weiss Case Shows What's Wrong With 'Woke' Media

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

When editor/writer Bari Weiss aired her grievances yesterday with the publisher of The New York Times in her now-famous letter of resignation, she laid out most of the problems with the entire 'woke' Progressive media, all of which ring true for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

When Weiss joined the Times three years ago, she wrote that she had hoped to be part of "the free exchange of ideas in a democratic society." But instead, she learned that "a new consensus has emerged in the press . . . that truth isn't a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job it is to inform everyone else."

Weiss wrote about Twitter being the "ultimate editor" of the Times, and said that "stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions."

Instead of writing the first draft of history, as journalists once aspired to do, Weiss complained, "now history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative."

All of which is true about the Inquirer.

Let's look at today's online version of the Inquirer to see "the narrowest of audiences" that the newspaper seeks to satisfy with stories that fit their narrow version of reality. 

As you can see, racism lurks around every corner. Check out these headlines and some of the lead paragraphs from just one day's batch of stories:

-- "Seventy percent of Superfund sites are within a mile of public housing, report finds."

 "'Environmental racism has played a central role in this devotion,' " the report's authors wrote. 'Laws and policies have put Black and Brown communities in direct proximity to environmental toxins.' "

-- "George Floyd family set to announce a lawsuit against Minneapolis."

-- "A shootout with an undercover Philly cop put her in prison at 18. Now she runs a record label for current and former inmates."

"I'm here to make people as uncomfortable as possible," said BL Shirelle.

-- "Burlington County plans to drop Freeholder title; pending legislation would make it mandatory."

"Continuing our work to end systemic racism must be everyone's objective and eliminating an antiquated title from an era when slavery and racism [were] tolerated is one step we can take right away," Director Felicia Hopson said in a statement."

-- "Diversity job openings fell nearly 60 percent after the coronavirus hit. Then came the Black Lives Matter protests."

-- "As a Black student at Haveford College, I know what racism looks like at 'liberal' institutions."

-- "Teen with ties to Will Smith is raising our racial consciousness, one T-shirt at a time."

-- "Housing encampment on Parkway ties Black Lives Matter to housing."

This is the steady diet of Progressive ideology that the Inquirer is feeding its readers. For most of these 'woke' warriors, the plague of racism begins every day when they go in the bathroom, squeeze a tube of toothpaste, and see white.

My favorite example of the Inky orthodoxy -- a June 17th column from intellectual drill sergeant Elizabeth Wellington. The headline "Systemic racism has affected all of us. Here's how to start unlearning its harmful lessons."

This shrill, humorless column was filled with helpful lessons on how to unlearn systemic racism, according to Wellington the oracle. She also printed lessons to recognize, and probably memorize, written in bold print, such as "Racism is an act, not a state," and "The effects of slavery continue." 

In her marching orders for an enlightened new society, Wellington told us we must all unlearn the belief that "Color doesn't matter" and that "There is only one race: the human race." 

All harmful thoughts according to Wellington the ideologue. In its place, we must now all recognize as a superseding, prevailing truth that "Black experiences are valid."

I guess Martin Luther King's dream about having his children judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" is officially dead, according to Wellington. And she's now telling us not only how to think, but what to think. 

Why would anyone read this garbage, much less take it seriously? 

Under Wellington's ridiculous column, in the comments section, I couldn't resist posting a quote from economist Thomas Sowell, who happens to be Black:

[The Inky has a bold new 'woke' policy of capitalizing Black and Brown when it comes to race, but white, you guessed it, is still lower case.]

Systemic racism "really has no meaning that can be specified and tested in any way that one tests hypotheses," Sowell wrote. But according to Wellington and her Inky bandmates, it's all settled science.

In her resignation letter, Weiss talked about the cowardice of her publisher and her editors, who praised her in private for her courage, but failed to defend her publicly when colleagues called her a Nazi, a racist, a liar and a bigot. Her sin: publishing diverse viewpoints on the Op-Ed page, which was what that page was created to do.

"The truth is that intellectual curiosity -- let alone risk-taking -- is now a liability at the Times," she wrote. "Op-eds that would have been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired." 

And if an editor persists in getting a story published "that does not explicitly promote progressive causes," Weiss wrote, every line in the story must be "carefully massaged, negotiated and caveated."

This is my exact experience whenever I write for an outside publication. And I wind up facing layers of editors and the inevitable fact-checkers, who spend hours questioning every word.

Everyone is on edge for fear of setting off the Independent Thought Alarm. Or worse, inciting the Twitter lynch mob, or as Weiss described it, "the digital thunder dome."

Censorship is everywhere, and every story has to fit a familiar mold. Everyone must be 'woke' every minute of the day, or they risk being branded a heretic.

As a result of rampant fear, cowardice, and widespread group-think, "The paper of record, is more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people," Weiss wrote. She could have been talking about Philadelphia's paper of record, as well as New York's.

In her resignation letter, Weiss revealed that many colleagues who were too afraid to defend her publicly sent her private notes decrying the "new McCarthyism" that has now "taken root at the paper of record."

In every newsroom, cowardice abounds. And the thought police are everywhere.

In a story about Weiss's resignation, former NYT staffer Judith Miller talked about the paper's new "red flag" system which "effectively enables even junior editors to "stop or deny the publication of an article containing a controversial view or position."

The Inquirer has taken this red flag system one step further. In their bold new plan to dismantle "systemic racism in our coverage and our culture," which I outed last week, the Inquirer has proposed "creating a process for flagging sensitive content" that would presumably be available to any staff member. How's that for self-censorship?

Frankly, the Inquirer can't be trusted in anything they report, because, like the Times, they're writing for the narrowest of audiences, and they don't have a problem with tailoring the facts to fit a preconceived narrative.

For a textbook example of this, I refer you to a blog post I wrote on April 3rd, under the headline, "What a social justice reporter left out of her inspiring story."

In that post, I examined a story written by Samantha Melamed, the Inquirer's official "social justice" reporter, about the case of Cynthia Alvarado, a 27-year-old Philly mom who worked as a dancer at a gentleman's club. 

A jury sent Alvarado to prison for life without parole in 2010 for her involvement in the murder of another woman. Thanks to the efforts of District Attorney Larry Krasner, a crusading Villanova sociology professor, and a bunch of idealistic law students, Alvarado was sprung from jail earlier this year, without having to endure any due process.

In her story that ran March 30th in the Inquirer, Melamed left out all the tawdry details of the murder, which cost another woman of color her life. Melamed also covered up D.A. Krasner's actions in the case, which involved abandoning a prosecutor's traditional role and taking a couple of legal dives in court.

But nothing's too low for our bottom feeder of a D.A. whom Melamed and her mates are always covering for, because they share the same Progressive ideology. Meanwhile, Melamed also failed to divulge the true details of Alvarado's plea bargain, readily available in court records.

In writing her sanitized but uplifting story of a woman of color unjustly accused but finally freed by crusading social justice warriors, Melamed committed a crime against journalism by draining the story of all of its color, violence and passion. 

She did it by not mentioning the true facts of the case, which included an illicit romance, heavy drug use, and startling evidence that Alvarado, who had her own rap sheet before the murder, may not have been the greatest mom. 

How on earth do you write a story about Alvarado's case and not mention her occupation as a dancer, her habit of taking along her one-year old daughter in a car seat on drug buys, and her use of colorful language such as, "This is why he fucks me. Because I'm a ride or die bitch."

Why would you dress a stripper up in a nun's habit? Because you're a social justice warrior out on a mission, so you have to sanitize, scrub and censor to deliver an uplifting story that fits preconceived notions.

In her resignation letter, Weiss outlined three rules of survival for "independent-minded young writers and editors" trying to survive today's newsrooms, which are packed with sheep and herds of grazing sacred cows.

Rule One -- "Speak your mind at your own peril," Weiss wrote.

Rule Two -- "Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative."

And finally, Rule Three, which I wish somebody had told me about before I got fired by the Inquirer:

"Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain," Weiss wrote. "Eventually the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you'll be hung out to dry."