Too Soon? The Woke Media Scolds Will Let You Know

Too Soon? It’s a famous dilemma for fans of free speech in the wake of tragedy. (Famously illustrated by comedian Gilbert Gottfried when he tried to make a funny post 9/11.)

Too Soon reared its head in the wake of Sunday’s tragic death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter and seven other unfortunate souls. To say that Bryant is famous mocks the term. On the check box of fame he ticked off all the relevant boxes. He was a famous athlete. He was famous in L.A. or NYC. He was famously non-white. He was more famous for his first name than his last. He was also infamous as a bad boy. And finally— sadly— he’s famous for being  dead at the very young age of 41.

Is it too soon to make that last point? Perhaps. But it’s not as unpopular a point as the one made in the early hours following the helicopter crash Sunday in L.A. by Washington Post writer Feliz Somnez. She had the temerity to cut through the St. Francis of Assisi comparisons being applied across all American media to mention that Bryant had settled a sexual assault civil suit in 2003 by admitting he’d had non-consensual sex with a teenage employee of a Colorado hotel. 

Outrage Nation immediately buried her for being Too Soon in mentioning the less savoury bits of Bryant’s life. More remarkably in this #metoo era, where you thought sexual assault was a hanging offence, her employers at the Post suspended her for a few days because of… something, something… we’re not sure. When was brutal honesty a drawback in journalism? (Somnez was reinstated Tuesday and immediately attacked her employers in print, demanding an answer to why her freedom of speech was curtailed.)

So is this the Left’s new standard over Too Soon? There’s no point trying to draw a concrete line from this episode. While Bryant’s failing was arguably far worse than anything ex-senator Al Franken committed in a silly photo that resulted in his expulsion from the Senate , Bryant’s memory was illuminated on the Empire State building. Franken, meanwhile, was simply lit up by his SJW peers who figured there are a million liberal-guilt white guys we can expend, but there’s only one Kobe. 

In today’s Cancel Culture hysteria the line moves according to political expediency. Anyone not divining this moving target is then subject to an intimidation barrage that makes them wish they’d never been born. Because, as we’ve mentioned here before, the woke Left believes you’re free to an opinion— so long as it’s the same as their opinion. Which the Washington Post was careful to observe.

If you don’t believe in this double standard observe what happened to the Progressive icon Bernie Sanders when he locked up with rival Democratic Party leadership contender  Elizabeth Warren. Now, Warren’s relationship to truth is a May/ September romance. Here today, gone tomorrow. One day she’s a Cherokee, the next she’s falsely accusing school boards for firing her because she was pregnant.

After a brief burst in polls, Warren has settled into a sullen second place in the Socialist Sweepstakes lane behind Bernie. To rein him in she concocted a story that Sanders had told her a woman can’t win the presidency. Anyone who knows Sanders’ bonafides found this entire narrative absurd. When asked in the recent Des Moines DNC debate if he’d said any such thing, Sanders snorted categorically and denied the claim.

But the old Lefty was not counting up his sensitivity points properly. A woman was, without any corroborating evidence, accusing him— a white male— of a woke thought crime. Under the SJW statutes, that’s worthy of a savage internet beating (see: Kavanaugh, Brett). The CNN host Abby Phillip is up on her checkbox journalism, however. No sooner had Sanders denied the charge than Phillip turned to Warren and asked, “Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” Game. Set. Match. (Sadly for Warren, playing to the media chorus has not resulted in restoring her to contender status.)

To say the media is complicit in this charade is like saying Hillary Clinton feels “urges” to beat Donald Trump. Their role in “guiding” public opinion has now overtaken their role as honest purveyor of news to the nation. The ease of this perversion was perfectly captured by the Jussie Smollett hoax, launched a year ago yesterday. 

The black actor went for a walk in sub-freezing Chicago temperatures at 2 AM to get a Subway sandwich.  Then he was "attacked" by two "white" men shouting "This is MAGA country”. He was tied with a rope and bleached, he said. Naturally there was a rapt liberal-guilt appetite for this kabuki theatre. Smollett knew his audience. For almost two weeks, SJW media flailed the white patriarchy.

Then the whole case collapsed overnight. One year later, no charges have been laid, no one convicted of a rabidly racist hoax. No media has apologized for staining its reputation by giving Smollett  credibility. 

It’s little wonder that CNN host Don Lemon and his pals are laughing at rubes who still believe in a fair media and a just society.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of  Not The Public Broadcaster. He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also a best-selling author whose new book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports And Why The Free Market Could Save Them is now available on brucedowbigginbooks.ca.