Georgia Voting Reform Coverage: Moved Goal Posts, Mischaracterizations, Media Bias

In what could be the purest example of media bias and ineptitude, the coverage over a voting reform law in Georgia has steadfastly avoided reality, even within generally unbiased outlets. Coverage, spin, and public pressure from left-wing activists forced Georgia-based corporations to take public stances on an issue they didn’t want to.

Summary

After a voting reform bill was passed and signed into law in Georgia, corporations based in the state are being forced to take vocal positions against it and are since being blamed by “civil rights activists” for “not helping spike the new law.”

• Tim Cook, CEO of Apple (based in California) condemned the law, saying that “it ought to be easier than ever for every eligible citizen to exercise their right to vote.”
• Axios has a list of corporations and/or CEOs who have taken public stances.
• Reuters notes the law has attracted attention around provisions that “strengthen absentee ballot identification requirements, curtail ballot drop box use and penalize members of the public who offer food and water to voters in line.”
• Former McConnell staffer and public affairs executive Josh Holmes went to war with Politifact over their irresponsible misrepresentation and moving the goal posts of their argument regarding the provision of what can be provided to voters waiting in line.
• Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams wrote an op-ed in USA Today saying now is not the time to boycott Georgia-based corporations over the law, yet.

• CNN ran a Vox-style “explainer” to provide details and context to the more controversial provisions of the bill but still says Republican defense of the bill is “highly misleading at best” while separate reporting reveled in the extortion of major corporations over their stances on the bill.
• The New York Times zeroed in on Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, both headquarter in Georgia, for having “remained silent last week” about the bill and reported on the public and private pressure campaigns towards Delta’s Ed Bastian to condemn the bill (which provides more early voting opportunity than many blue states, a point completely absent from any coverage of the Georgia law).
• Huffington Post highlighted President Biden’s approval of Major League Baseball’s consideration of moving the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta as a means to boycott the law, referencing Biden’s comments to ESPN that “[the law] is Jim Crow on steroids.”
• The Washington Post ran a piece by their columnist Henry Olsen, a conservative, pushing back on the characterizations of the Georgia law as reminiscent of “Jim Crow” era laws, providing polling data showing the wide approval for voter ID laws and other provisions in the bill.

• Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp wrote an op-ed on FoxNews.com detailing the falsehoods and mischaracterizations of the law, pushing back on Biden’s bogus claims of “Jim Crow”, while Newsmax reported on Kemp’s interview on CNBC in which he told CEOs speaking out against it to “look at other states they’re doing business in and compare what the real facts are to Georgia.”
• The Federalist collected the instances of corporations, sports leagues, and voices in Hollywood boycotting or considering a boycott of Georgia over the law, while arguing the corporations who are caving to leftist pressure have no objections operating in places like Hong Kong, who has actually literally seen their voting power disintegrated by Communist China.
• The Daily Wire reported on famous Georgian and movie producer Tyler Perry’s call to have the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Georgia for “voter suppression” that “harkens to the Jim Crow era.”
• The Republican National Committee’s efforts to join the fight dominated Townhall.com’s coverage, which criticized Democrats for having “grossly mischaracterized” the law in Georgia and a similar voter reform law in Iowa.

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© Dallas Gerber, 2021