Opinion
By Steve Nicklas, 4-21-25
The factual movie “Spotlight” illuminated the child sex-abuse scandal inside the Roman Catholic Church. It also cast light on the usefulness of a responsible and diligent media.
The same media now shirks its fourth-estate role almost daily – creating a vacuum of uselessness. Its credibility is shot dead; instead of reporting news, today’s media spins and washes it with a liberal bias. Or ignores anything outside its liberal narrative.
In the 2015 movie, The Boston Globe heroically took on the powerful Catholic church with its “Spotlight” investigative team, publishing some 600 stories about the vile incidents. It was in the early 2000s.
Even the once-proud Globe is an improper fraction of what it used to be. It was purchased by The New York Times and now shares a liberal-rag status. The Globe today would never pursue a controversial topic like the sensitive church scandal.
For instance, today’s media ignores illegal alien crime, celebrating the criminals instead of the victims. Look at the media’s handling of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Democrat senators and congressmen are traveling to El Salvador to retrieve/visit Garcia, who is not a U.S. citizen – and who has suspected ties to nefarious gangs.
The media widely refers to Garcia as a “Maryland man” and makes him out to be a father-of-the-year candidate. This is simply distorting the news.
“They are putting those who are illegally in the country before U.S. citizens,” says Sen. Marsha Blackburn about Democrats and their mouthpiece, the media.
A case in point, the three networks gave 64 minutes of coverage to the recent Garcia deportation. However, they ignored the trial of the illegal-alien murderer of a real Maryland resident, Rachel Morin. The gruesome trial was held last week.
Let’s not forget the breathless media reporting on the “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax about Donald Trump in the 2016 election. The nearly three-year investigation turned up nothing. This is reckless sensationalism.
In an act of omission, the media ignored the cognitive decline of Joe Biden, instead boasting how lucid he was. It’s labeled as the greatest coverup in U.S. history by everyone but the culprits, the national media.
And it’s amazing how synchronized the media outlets are with the Democrat leadership. They must release daily spin-cycle talking points and everyone falls in line.
Then there’s the unadulterated censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Just prior to the 2020 election, reports surfaced about sensitive material contained on a laptop that the younger Biden took to a repair shop.
But the fix was in. Not only did 51 defense officials assert the laptop story was “Russian disinformation,” the social media outlets complied like obedient soldiers. Looking back, the so-called “laptop from hell” could have shot a bazooka-size hole in Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, since it contained damning information about the former president also.
Come to think of it, it would have put a spotlight on scandalous activities involving the former president and his family. An objective media would have been all over it, in pursuit of the truth.
But the spotlight never shined.
Steve Nicklas, CRPC, CLTC, is a decorated financial advisor and an award-winning columnist. His columns have appeared in the New York Times newspaper group and in local weeklies within Community Newspaper, Inc. He has published a book, “All About Money,” containing some of his favorite columns. He has also reported for area radio stations including National Public Radio in Jacksonville. He can be reached at 904-753-0236 or at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
