The agenda-driven media downplayed concerns about Sen. John Fetterman’s health following his stroke in May, despite the fact he often struggled to put a single sentence together while campaigning for office — an NBC reporter was obliterated for daring to suggest that the Pennsylvania Democrat had difficulty in engaging in conversation without the use of closed captioning.
With Fetterman now hospitalized with depression, the same media has taken no real interest in how he is doing despite the fact that it has been weeks since he was admitted — in fact, many in the media go out of their way to praise Fetterman for having the strength to seek help and even run interference for him by reporting that he takes time out of his around-the-clock care for mental health issues to tend to his duties as a U.S. senator.
“Perhaps he can become the face of a mental health epidemic,” CNN’s Michael Smerconish said. “We can all benefit, so thank you, John Fetterman.”
Dr. Marc Siegel spoke with Fox News Digital and said the status of Fetterman’s health is relevant, be it physical or mental.
“Mental illness should not be covered any differently than any other illness,” Siegel said. “Having said that, the people of Pennsylvania are owed a senator… we certainly deserve more transparency here.”
In commenting on the media’s lack of intellectual curiosity he added, “It’s all political positioning rather than health concern or ability to function.”
Fetterman was struggling to adjust to Senate life and had to rely on technological aids to help him communicate with colleagues and his own staff, according to Fox News. He was hospitalized in early February after feeling lightheaded at a retreat for high-powered Democrats. and a week later he checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment for clinical depression.
Then again, NBC reporter Dasha Burns tried to alert Americans to Fetterman’s struggles and was vilified.
In addition to network colleague Savannah Guthrie pushing back to insist other journalists claimed Fetterman was just fine, liberal podcast host Molly Jong-Fast said Fetterman “understood everything I was saying, and he was funny.” MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle tweeted that there were “absolutely no issues” with Fetterman when she spoke with him.
ABC News’ FiveThirtyEight went so far as to suggest that those criticizing Fetterman’s health were biased against people with disabilities, and there were calls of “blatant ableism” on MSNBC.
All of this coming BEFORE the November election, of course.
NewsBusters conservative managing editor Curtis Houck told Fox News that the press is being selective in how they cover Fetterman’s health issues, citing a New York Times story earlier this month headlined “Cloistered at Walter Reed, Fetterman Runs His Senate Operation From Afar.”
“The media are wholly capable of doing two things at once in putting the spotlight on mental health and how the stresses of work and campaigning can wear someone down. At the same time, Fetterman’s a senator for a key state that’s still one of the largest in the country by population and elected in perhaps the most-covered race from the midterms,” Houck said.
“The New York Times was correct to state that much of the work in a congressperson’s office is done by staff, down to press releases, tweets, and writing legislation. But to imply it’s really no big deal that a senator can be absent for an indefinite period of time and all that’s needed is a staff to run a Senate seat is insulting to both constituents and the institution,” he continued. “Committee hearings, community appearances, press conferences, and votes are just a few of the areas that require a sitting representative’s presence in a way an unknown staffer can never fill.”
Houck pointed out that he has struggled with mental health issues over the years and questioned how Fetterman got into this position.
“It’s not pointing fingers at any one individual, but a collective effort of where things broke down by his team and a press that, aside from NBC’s Dasha Burns, breathlessly worked to get him in office,” he said.
“For any member of Congress, there are layers and layers of people around you and, in a statewide campaign with a following like Fetterman’s, that was the case on a massive scale and considering his slow cognitive recovery from a stroke,” Houck added. “The conversation should have been that it was sad he ended up where he did and that he was arguably taken advantage of by people who should put his health first.”
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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