Media top headlines June 1
A new report on violence gripping Portland amid an anti-police push and more round out today's top media headlines.
New York Times writer Margaret Renkl scolded Americans in a Memorial Day weekend column who "refused" to give up social gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but alternatively celebrated gatherings of Black Lives Matter protestors in various columns she wrote last year.
The liberal writer seemingly ignored her past writings lauding the number of people attending Black Lives Matter protests amid the early months of the pandemic. She blasted those Americans she sarcastically referred to as "patriots," blaming them for the lack of "another kind of Memorial Day," in which the lives saved from the coronavirus by Americans joining together in a commitment to national service may have otherwise been known.
"We have lately been reminded of the absolute necessity for Americans to be motivated by warm fellow feeling across divides of region, race, class, politics, religion, age, gender or ability; to cultivate a sense of common purpose; to make sacrifices for the sake of others," Renkl wrote. "And that reminder came in the form of watching what happens when such qualities are absent, even anathema, in whole regions of the country."
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"Lied to by the president of the United States and egged on by craven commentators, many Americans staunchly refused to give up social gatherings, no matter that staying home was the best way to keep the virus from spreading," she continued. "They refused to wear masks, and they mocked and harassed people who did. Some are, even now, rejecting a vaccine that could keep the virus from mutating into so many variants that there will be no hope of containing it. And they have done it all, they insist, because they are patriots."
Renkl stated the pandemic was the country's chance to come together across divisions, and that although many complied with measures intended to keep people safe, "too many of us did not."
"But for those ‘patriots,’ we might be able now to imagine the proclamation of another kind of Memorial Day, one that commemorates not self-sacrifice in war but the lives we saved by joining together to serve the same cause," she wrote.
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"If Vietnam exploded the unquestioned commitment to national service, the coronavirus pandemic should have been the very thing to bring it back," Renkl added. "That it did exactly the opposite tells us something about who we are as human beings, and who we are as a nation. There is more to mourn today than I ever understood before."
Renkl's heavy criticism was a seemingly drastic shift from her views on large gatherings last summer amid the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd. In a column published Jun. 15, Renkl lauded the number of people attending a protest organized by six teenagers in Nashville, Tennessee.
"In less than a week, six Nashville teenagers created a march that drew 10,000 peaceful protesters and gave hope to a whole city," she wrote.
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"The protesters, most in their teens and 20s, chanted 'Black lives matter' and ‘No justice, no peace’ and ‘Not one more’ as they marched for more than five hours. There was not one hint of disarray in their ranks, no angry confrontations with National Guardsmen or police officers clad in riot gear," she continued.
In another column a week earlier, Renkl called on White Christians to "join the righteous cause of the protestors" while lamenting the former's "sins" in their treatment of minorities.
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Renkl's apparent double standard towards social gatherings for different groups reflected the approach for which the mainstream media was ripped last summer as coverage of the coronavirus was slammed as being "politicized" after its focus shifted to positive coverage of massive protests with no social distancing.
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