Leftist publication The New Republic hit a new low for lack of journalistic integrity by spotlighting political donations made by the CEO of the missing Titanic submersible, Titan.
On Thursday, experts believe the sub ran out of oxygen, dooming the five persons on board. OceanGate head Stockton Rush was among the five who are believed to have perished, but that didn’t stop one outlet from ranting about his political donations.
Just the day before, as the frantic search for the submersible raced against time, The New Republic ran an article titled “OceanGate CEO Missing in Titanic Sub Had History of Donating to GOP Candidates.”
What this had to do with a human being likely clinging to life two miles below the ocean’s surface was missing to most, but that did not stop senior political correspondent Daniel Strauss. He noted that Rush “has been a consistent Republican donor over the years.”
He was not, according to Strauss, a “megadonor,” but his donations leaned toward the GOP.
I couldn't find a single article on the New Republic about the drowned migrants except for this one. Meanwhile they have written three stories on the missing submersible. Stones and glass homes and whatnot. https://t.co/GM2lS5sb3D
— Noah Goldberg (@Noah__Goldberg) June 21, 2023
The article went into specifics, noting that Rush gave $1,500 to former Rep. John Culberson (R-TX). For reasons unknown, it reported that Culberson had a 100% rating from the Family Research Council and a 92% rating from the American Conservative Union.
Understandably, the blowback was so fierce that The New Republic removed its accompanying Twitter post of the article.
Matt Taibbi, the investigative reporter at the center of the Twitter Files, expressed what many felt. “Welp, I guess we should hope they all die slowly and gasping in terror then. Congrats @newrepublic you found a new low on Twitter!”
Janice Dean of Fox News asked, “What if the missing CEO had donated to the other party? How disgusting and pathetic.”
Newsbusters associate editor Nicholas Fondacaro tweeted, “The New Republic thinks the CEO of OceanGate deserves to suffocate on the bottom of the ocean because he supported Republicans.”
T. Becket Adams of the National Journalism Center observed that the piece was written by a team at The New Republic. Despite this, “not one person thought to say, ‘this is extremely gross.’”
The fact that the headline used the past tense “had” did not escape Adams.
