It’s not an op-ed or a commentary piece. It’s not even packaged as “analysis,” the favorite term far-left “news” company CNN uses for opinion pieces. It’s a straight up news piece on CBSnews.com, and the headline openly takes sides, offering suggestions to companies on “3 ways [they] can help fight Georgia’s restrictive new voting law.”
The body of the piece, predictably, begins from the premise that the law is bad and should be opposed by all companies. The piece notes that “Critics charge that such changes amount to the 2021 version of Jim Crow rules and other historical efforts to suppress the vote to gain a political advantage.” Nary a word of the piece offers any suggestion that anyone thinks differently. No suggestion was offered whatsoever in defense of the bill, which makes Georgia’s voting law less restrictive than many other states and did not put into place a single restriction that is not already the law in numerous other states. None of the law’s features that made it easier to vote in Georgia, such as expanded early voting and permanent ballot drop box locations, were mentioned. Nay, only the contention that “Critics charge that such changes amount to the 2021 version of Jim Crow rules,” which was left to stand unchallenged, even though such a contention is transparent hyperbole at best and willfully false at worst.
Having thus begged the question, the article proceeds to helpfully offer all responsible corporations some advice on how to fight Georgia’s law, leaning heavily on the “activists” who have actively mischaracterized the law for help.
Suggestion one: “Do not donate.” Acting as a megaphone for these activists, CBS encourages companies in the article not to donate to two specific politicians, “Barry Fleming and Michael Dugan, the Georgia Republicans who co-sponsored the voting changes.” The article then shames corporations like Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, and UPS who have done so in the past. Suggestion two calls upon corporations to “spread awareness” so that similar bills are not passed in states like Texas and Arizona. Suggestion three asks corporations to “fight for federal law,” in which the article expressly takes sides in favor of the infamous H.R. 1, which critics charge will be used to cement a lifetime Democratic majority.
Zero words in the story were offered to suggest that any of these measures might be unwarranted or unwise, or that huge, vast majorities of Americans have consistently supported laws that would require voters to display a photo ID before voting, which is the most contentious portion of the bill.