The Vicious Media Attack Against Clarence Thomas
Mark W. Hendrickson
Character assassination by innuendo is one of the slimiest forms of journalistic malpractice. The current target for character assassination is Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Launched by a story in ProPublica earlier this month, multiple media outlets are now trying to outdo each other in besmirching Thomas’s character for obvious ideological and partisan reasons.
Even the Christian Science Monitor, which was founded to counteract “yellow journalism” and whose stated creed is “to injure no mam,” has joined the media mob. The Monitor’s use of specious innuendo to trash the reputation of Thomas in the kangaroo court of public opinion is disgusting. The tawdriness starts with the headline: “High court, low accountability: How Thomas scandal threatens Supreme Court.” “Scandal”? Says who? The only scandal is that media outlets are trying to manufacture a scandal where none exists and that journalists are trying to tar and feather a good man with insinuations (but no evidence) that he is corrupt.
The editorial introduction to the Monitor article leads with this inflammatory statement, “Why does the highest court in the United States have the lowest ethical standards?” As a lawyer in court would cry, “Objection! The statement is misleading and assumes a conclusion not yet adjudicated.” The question is clearly prejudicial and manipulative. According to its author, the reason people are supposedly asking this question is because “a GOP megadonor has been treating a Supreme Court justice to opulent vacations and loans of a private jet.”
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https://spectator.org/the-vicious-media-attack-against-clarence-thomas/
