If you haven’t heard much about Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his trial on charges of corruption, the first trial of a Senator on charges of corruption in 36 years, you are definitely getting your news from the wrong source. While his trial on bribery and corruption charges began on Wednesday, ABC, CBS and NBC refused to cover it in their evening news.
The charges stretch all the way back to 2007 and involve Democratic Senator Bob Menendez’s relationship with Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen. Melgen was convicted on August 25th of this year on a whopping 67 counts in his Medicare fraud trial. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is accused of accepting bribes in exchange for the Senator’s help in trying to quash charges against Dr. Melgen that were part of a scheme to overbill the government $100 million for services that were never rendered.
In addition, the government contends that Democratic Senator Bob Menendez intervened with the State Department in 2012 to settle a dispute involving shipping contracts at Dominican ports for Dr. Melgen as well as getting the eye doctor visas for his various girlfriends.
This important story that has been unfolding every day is, however, causing the Mainstream Media serious consternation. The American people, already highly distrustful of the legacy news outlets by a whopping 68%, want to be told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Instead, the media is being downright deceitful all the while attempting to cast those that cry “FAKE NEWS” in a disparaging light.
Within the reporting of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his corruption trial are clues to how the media itself is its own worst enemy in consumer’s growing hunt for honesty and fairness.
ABC, CBS, and NBC refused to cover the story on the very first day of the trial. NBC published an article falsely claiming that Senator Menendez was a Republican. Though they corrected the article after leaving it untouched for several hours, here’s the rub: the original piece appeared to be an AP wire story in which there was no error. This means that NBC added the error into their reporting. The New York Times, the now apparently doddering “old grey lady” published a piece with NO mention of Senator Menendez’s political affiliation (again, corrected after a public backlash) because apparently unless the criminal is a Republican, it just isn’t worth the public knowing about. And the truth’s favorite punching bag, CNN, continues to publish pieces like this one in which no mention of Senator Menendez being a Democrat is made.
So yes, Mainstream Media. There is a Senator on trial for corruption. In case there is any confusion … he’s a Democrat.