The Wall Street Journal has a feature called “Notes on the News” which is supposed to “walk you through the biggest news stories of the week.” Unfortunately, their writer, Tyler Blint-Welsh is so inept and full of bias that he misses key points in his summaries to the detriment of WSJ readers.
For instance, on July 26, while writing about federal agents being sent to US cities, he describes how federal officers have been patrolling Portland, Oregon since July 2, but utterly leaves out the fact that violence in Portland has been going on for much longer; many people and property have been injured, yet he ignores that fact in order to focus on the presence of federal authorities. He further mishandles the scenario by describing the use of force on protesters as “apparently without provocation.” However, anyone watching the videos of the circumstances can’t possibly make the assumption of apparent provocation; doing so is utterly inappropriate and dishonest. The protesters were trying to set the courthouse on fire with people in it, but he completely omits that from his analysis. He also chooses not to include the fact that the federal agents were there to protect the federal buildings that the mayor refused to protect but managed to mention that the mayor was tear-gassed by federal agents. The lopsided point-of-view is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. Blint-Welsh also analyzes the situation with unemployment benefits which face an expiration at the end of the month, saying “that lack of progress could jeopardize the $600 weekly unemployment supplement that millions of Americans have been relying on since the pandemic triggered record numbers of jobless claims.” He further describes how the Democrats want to extend the $600 until January 2021 while noting that the Republicans want to reduce the benefit amount. However, he conveniently leaves out the fact that the reason the Republicans want to cut back payments is because a large number of recipients are paying more to stay home than if they went to work — which is hampering economic recovery. Forget about the fact that it shouldn’t be so readily available to collect because jobs are available. The extension that the Democrats want is unconscionable but he’s making it seem like the Democrat position is reasonable and that the Republicans are selfish and cold-hearted.
It’s hard to imagine that Blint-Welsh is so uninformed as to not know what’s actually going on, so the only conclusion is that he is intentionally distorting these situations. That is egregious for both the integrity of the Wall Street Journal and those who have to read his diatribes.