Remarkably, opinion pieces of journalists, passing as news, flowed off the press and refuted claims of election fraud before any evidence was formally presented, much less investigated. In the absence of the kind of reflection and insight that might serve as a caution, journalists remained oblivious to their diminishing reputation and public credibility. Ratings for public news channels have never been so low.

Journalism has become a sad reflection of an element of society that cares less about investigative reporting and more about controlling the narrative. The currant narrative is clearly that there is no election fraud. Period. Even though, prior to the election, both Democrats and Republicans repeatedly questioned the integrity of election processes.

I’ve watched several hearings that presented claims of misdemeanours in elections— sending/receiving ballots from dead voters, voters with parking lot mailing addresses, voters who don’t exist. Whether this was intentional, is virtually impossible to prove. Intention would imply fraud. This is called “rigging” the election.

Of course, we want to believe that nobody would stoop to undermine the American election process by endorsing non-existent voters, or duplicate voters, or voting in place of others, or incentivized voting, or voting of non-citizens. If it happened, and these turned out to be predominantly Democrat voters, we are assured, by the same journalists who insisted there was no voter fraud, that it was on a small scale of only a few thousand, not enough to change the election outcome.

At the close of an article that vehemently denies evidence of election fraud, a journalist concedes that the level of fraud is at best insignificant. There were not enough irregularities to change the election result.

And so, with the consolation that the fraud that happened was insignificant, because it didn’t affect the outcome, public attention is steered away from the glaring truth of a compromised electoral system. The same journalists who declared there was no fraud a few weeks earlier, have moved us to the acceptance of “irrelevant” fraud.

As the hearings progressed, with their “irrelevant” allegations, the opinions of journalists progressed as well. When testimonies came forward presenting more substantial evidence, the witnesses themselves became “irrelevant” and the story was not about the allegations but about Giuliani’s hair dye running down his face. Lawyers who shied away from participating in the hearings were touted as evidence of a sinking ship, with no hint at other possibilities, like their livelihoods being threatened.

If I were in charge of Republican allegations of election fraud I would have gone about this differently. But of course it is too late now. I would have focused only on evidence that does not require witness corroboration and only on such evidence as would change the election outcome. Too much time has been wasted on proving that the election process can be manipulated. There was never a need to be prove this at all. The real question is, was the level of manipulation able to change the outcome? In other words, did the American vote count?

There is still another equally disturbing problem with journalism surrounding the election, besides misrepresentation and manipulation. This is silence. Silence when there is a real issue to report. Like the lawsuits filed by Sidney Powell. Silence when voters rally by tens or hundreds of thousands in support of the president. Silence about the actual significance of only Republican watchers not being allowed to observe ballot counting.

One can’t help but speculate that journalists who are willing to suppress the voices of half the population of America might also be willing to cooperate to suppress the votes of these same American citizens. Meaning, of course, the loss of a democratic election process. It will require a level of fearlessness journalism, and integrity we have not seen up to this point, to uncover what actually happened in the American election.