Selective Outrage and the Crisis of Credibility

Journalists are increasingly more concerned with pushing partisan narratives than honestly uncovering truth. Americans are sick of it.

After a few days away from headlines and hashtags, I turned to my email just in time to find former CNN political analyst, Chris Cillizza waving the flag of moral indignation over Donald Trump’s lack of empathy. His complaint? Rather than commiserate with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz after the tragic assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Trump criticized the governor as a “grossly incompetent person.”

The murders were undeniably horrific. No one should excuse or diminish such violence, and the killer deserves the fullest weight of justice—particularly the capital kind. But Cillizza’s response, loaded with selective outrage focused on Trump, felt less like a cry for unity and more like a one-star episode of Orange Man Bad.

Like the guy yelling “no offense” before an insult, Cillizza begins with, “I’m no Trump hater.” Forgive readers for trusting their own eyes and ears over the self-labeling of political pundits.

In the not-so-distant past, media fury over political insensitivity might have been perceived as righteous and admirable. But that moral high ground eroded somewhere around the time cities burned and store clerks were attacked by BLM’s “peaceful” protesters. In the last few years, store clerks, innocent bystanders, and police officers no longer qualify for the same degree of outrage as victimized political actors of a favored stripe.

And Tim Walz, particularly, contributed to the problem. While Minneapolis burned, his leadership style was less “decisive action” and more “open-window aromatherapy,” with his wife famously remarking that she enjoyed smelling the burning tires from the governor’s mansion.

Where was all the leftist outrage when Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were gunned down in Washington, D.C., for the crime of standing in public while being Jewish? Walz said nothing. Neither did Chris Cillizza at the time.

We live in an era where political violence is real and cuts across every ideology—but media outrage only seems to activate when the victim is on the left. That’s not empathy; it’s narrative convenience.

Remember the Jussie Smollett hoax? Democrats called it a modern-day lynching. When it finally unraveled, the story pretty much disappeared - except for Cillizza’s concern about the damage to “real” hate crime victims. No mention of the damage done to public trust or to Trump supporters falsely smeared.

Cillizza argues that Trump has no interest in uniting the country during moments of national sorrow. But where was the rant for unity when President Biden lit up Independence Hall in blood-red lighting circa 1938 Germany and declared half the electorate a threat to democracy? Instead, Cillizza responded with a tepid “head scratching.”

No doubt Cillizza and many of his colleagues actually believe they are dispassionate observers, objectively calling balls and strikes. But objectivity is more than a vibe; it’s a discipline. It takes courage to challenge those you agree with and honesty to question your own bias - qualities as rare as a conservative guest on CNN getting to finish a sentence.

Consider how the media handled Biden’s cognitive decline. Foreign leaders saw it. Voters saw it. Even late-night comedians dipped a toe into reality. But legacy media outlets largely echoed the White House line, treating concern as conspiracy, evidence as a deepfake, and repetition of DNC-approved talking points as proof.

Gallup’s latest poll shows only 31% of Americans trust the media a “great deal” or a “fair amount.” It’s an all-time low—lower than Congress, government lobbyists, and pharmaceutical salesmen.

But today’s journalists don’t see it. They can’t. Instead, they blame “low-information” voters, who must be racists, misogynists, and homophobes. Blaming the audience is a convenient way to absolve themselves from asking hard questions—like whether their own worldview might warrant scrutiny.

Journalists aren’t the only ones living in echo chambers of their own making. We all have a tendency to talk mostly to people with whom we agree, mistaking consensus for truth. And no, Journalists aren’t immune - but they are a big part of the reason for Americans increasingly confining themselves to ever-shrinking ideological circles. If we can’t trust the news, we turn to friends.

“My truth” has replaced the truth, and journalism - once a courageous pursuit of fact - has become a passion play dressed in the body language of moral superiority.

This leaves us not only skeptical of the press but less able to think and reason together. If we can’t agree that all tragedies deserve empathy, that all leaders deserve scrutiny, and that truth doesn’t need a partisan permission slip, then we won’t solve the crisis of trust now plaguing our public life.

Yes, we should expect more from our political leaders. But we should expect just as much from those who claim the authority to hold them accountable.

Until that happens, Americans will continue to reject the selective outrage that is conditional, curated, and confined to the preferred narratives dictated by today’s partisan journalists.

They should give the rest of us a break by not whining about that.