A.G. Gancarski
On Friday morning, Florida’s senior U.S. Senator blamed “legacy media” for its role, in part, in an alleged effort to silence dissenting voices.
“An effort to silence, intimidate & wipe out dissenting voices by an oligarchy in legacy media, big business & big government is now fully underway,” Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted.
The rather cryptic tweet did not offer specifics to back up the claim, but the Senator’s use of “legacy media” is a recurring once since the 2020 presidential election as part of Rubio’s arsenal of criticisms.
In December, the Miami Republican blamed the “legacy national media” for holding double standards in terms of coverage of different states’ COVID-19 mitigation efforts, singling out Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo as someone who has performed worse than Gov. Ron DeSantis, but has received friendlier treatment from mainstream outlets.
“But the Governor of New York, a state that has double the death rate of Florida for a hundred thousand residents, their Governor got an Emmy for his press conferences. These are important things to point to because I think they point to a broader problem and that is a constant narrative that is making people distrust what they’re hearing from the legacy national media,” the Senator warned in an appearance on Miami television.
These critiques surfaced on a contemporaneous Fox News Channel hit in which Rubio lashed the “legacy media” for depicting Florida as a “COVID disaster.”
That same “legacy media,” posited Rubio, had a “deranged hatred” of former President Donald Trump.
“Because of their deranged hatred of [Trump], many in legacy media will never give him credit for #OperationWarpSpeed an unprecedented achievement that did what many experts doubted could be done, produce an effective vaccine for #Covid19 in less than 7 months,” Rubio said, eschewing punctuation for passion in defense of Trump.
The “legacy media” also was brought to account in a December statement on abortion politics. The Senator was trying to pressure the U.S. Supreme Court into entertaining challenges to the vote from the former President’s legacy team.
“According to the left & their partners in the legacy media, the Supreme Court was the appropriate place to legalize abortion & redefine marriage, but it has no business taking up claims regarding a presidential election,” Rubio asserted.
With a reelection campaign already begun, the Senator will continue to lambaste the “legacy media,” and it may be best understood as code language for the right, deployed in the context of potential primary and General Election challenges next year.
6 comments
Ron Ogden
January 29, 2021 at 11:38 am
How about it being “best understand” as a resounding and long-delayed indictment of the “profession” of journalism, which was nondescript and ne’re-do-well even when I was practicing it a half century ago and his since deteriorated into a coven of dastards and dreamers following each other in a daisy chain of self-congratulations.
Hmmm? How ’bout that?
Tiffany
January 29, 2021 at 1:50 pm
Well, yes you are right, many gooballs are passing themselves off as journalists. The problem is the right believes them. And then the GOPs go along even when they know it isn’t true. Why, for personal or party gains. Are they thinking at all about the constituents? No.
The legacy media, that go to school, have sources, know the truth are really all we have. Please realize that, the sooner the better.
Ron Ogden
January 29, 2021 at 2:55 pm
Tiffany — the problem is NOT that the right believes them, it is that the LEFT believes them. For two years they fed you a trough of swill about how Donald Trump conspired with Russia to buy an election. It was SWILL, but you didn’t dare incur the wrath by questioning it.
Ron Ogden
January 29, 2021 at 3:19 pm
Tiffany — the problem is NOT that the right believes them, it is that the LEFT believes them. For two years they fed you a trough of swill about how Donald Trump conspired with Russia to buy an election. It was SWILL, but you didn’t dare incur the wrath by questioning it. The fed it to you not because they wanted you to know the truth but because they hate Donald Trump and they want you to hate him, too.
Sonja Fitch
January 30, 2021 at 3:47 am
Lol. Little Marco does the SEE ME kick again! Marco is only going to Fox News. Why? Cause little Marco lies and Fox News promotes lies! Common Good and Common Truth are absolutely necessary for our democracy! Shhh little Marco!
James Robert Miles
January 30, 2021 at 9:48 am
Sonja: you are preventing the conservatives from having an outlet to spew their lies. Faux News promotes lies as that is their schtick. Conservatives have a right to promote their lies and liberals are trying to stifle their “free” speech! The truth be damned. To conservatives, lying is a part of “free” speech!! Pathetic!
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