When a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, last year, the Media Research Center initially ignored it for 11 days — but when it realized that a tragedy could be exploited for political purposes, the MRC then went nuts, nonsensically blaming the derailment on Biden administration racial policies, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for being gay and even ESG policies. What the MRC didn’t do, of course, is blame the railroad itself.
When the first anniversary of the incident came around, the MRC was once again eager to score political points on someone else’s tragedy. Nicholas Fondacaro played the ghoul in a Feb. 2 post:
Saturday will mark one year since a toxic Norfolk Southern train derailment, and the subsequent “controlled” release and burn-off overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, poisoned the town of East Palestine, Ohio. But in the run-up to the anniversary of the man-made ecological disaster, ABC’s flagship morning and evening newscasts (Good Morning Americaand World News Tonight) completely ignored it. Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News ignored the fact that President Biden still had not visited the site nor met with residents there.
ABC’s apparent reluctance to mark the first anniversary was another data point in the network’s poor pattern of behavior with the story. As NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck reported last year, ABC was the first broadcast network to distance itself from the East Palestine story just two weeks after the disaster.
Fondacaro didn’t mention that his employer ignored the disaster for almost two weeks and only cares about it as a political cudgel. He then complained that news reports lacked right-wing narratives:
Thursday’s edition of NBC Nightly News had an entire report dedicated to the anniversary featuring correspondent Steven Romo speaking with resident Christine Dilworth, whose life had been turned upside down by the derailment:
[…]“An October EPA report did not show any concerning levels of contaminants, and state regulators say the tap water is safe. But many here worry about the long-term health impacts. After the derailment, Dilworth says she developed a rash and headaches,” Romo reported.
Unfortunately, Romo’s report failed to mention that President Biden had yet to actually visit East Palestine. Biden was supposedly planning to finally survey East Palestine on Saturday, but perhaps NBC realized that showing up a year late still wasn’t good optics in an election year.
During CBS Mornings, on Thursday, correspondent Roxana Saberi highlighted Biden’s visit, noting that it came “at the invitation of the mayor and some residents.” Co-anchor Jericka Duncan seemed to worry about how Biden would “be received” given how “he didn’t go and face criticism early on when this happened.”
Fondacaro offered no evidence of how Biden or anyone else that isn’t Norfolk Southern Railroad is directly responsible for the “man-made ecological disaster” and, thus, must face “criticism” for a derailment they didn’t cause. He also didn’t explain why he won’t hold Norfolk Southern responsible at all.