NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: Why isn’t the media more upset about Antifa’s attacks on journalists?

Ngo isn’t alone in thinking that these attacks on the press are being downplayed. So does Nancy Rommelmann, who as a journalist has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and has been an author for decades…

She was attacked in the streets, she says, and threatened online, with her photo publicly posted. Rommelmann believes the traditional media are ignoring the street violence for political reasons – they don’t want antifa’s extremism to be seen as discrediting to liberal causes. “I can tell you that 100% of the people that have attacked and continue to attack me, they’re all on the left – all of them. And I consider myself a liberal,” Rommelmann said.

To the extent that traditional news media are forced to cover antifa, Rommelmann says, they do so only when its adherents clash with right-wing protesters, and draw equivalencies with right-wing violence regardless of whether comparisons are warranted. After the assault on Staab last month, Rommelmann began venting on Twitter about why the media refused to acknowledge that “black bloc protesters [those wearing black ski masks and other garments to obscure their identities] in Portland are the MAIN source of violence. Proud Boys and right-wing groups rolled through [just] four times in 2020. Then who tf was committing the violence every night?”

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Eventually some in the media did catch on but the reality of what was happening never quite overtook the conventional wisdom about what was happening. The left-wing politics of most reporters always seemed to lead them to shield Antifa, BLM and other violent left-wing agitators from as much criticism as possible. If some journalists got roughed up in the process, better not to focus attention on that.

As Fredo would say, these guys were the first to arrive on Normandy Beach — you’ve got to cut them some slack when they get aggressive.