5 Stories The Media Tried To Ignore In 2021

With the legacy media poised to begin their second year of January 6 coverage, vitally important news stories continue to slip down the memory hole. The media spent too much of the past year obsessing over such non-stories as the president’s favorite ice cream and the vice president’s favorite tennis shoes  while ignoring the truly important events affecting most Americans who are not part of the bicoastal elite. Here are a few such stories:

5) The number of U.S. police shot to death breaks an all-time record

Policemen are often tasked with doing things no one else wants to do, sometimes even after they retire. The president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Patrick Yoes, made an unwelcome announcement in early December: “We’ve already had more officers killed in the line of duty by gunfire this year than any other — and there is still one month left,” he said. As this author reported at The Daily Wire:

In another historic Biden first, the number of police shot and killed in the line of duty reached record-breaking levels in 2021. According to the 2021 tally from the Fraternal Order of Police, as of midnight on November 30:

314 police officers were shot in the line of duty;

58 officers who were shot died from their wounds, a 16% increase from 2019;

Shooters ambushed police officers 95 times, a 126% increase from 2020; and

119 officers were ambushed with gunfire, and 28 died.

Three additional officers were gunned down in December, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, including female officer Keona Holley of Baltimore, who “succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained on December 16th, 2021, when she was ambushed in the 4400 block of Pennington Avenue.”

Neither the police nor the U.S. government have any doubt that the media’s hyperpolarized, hyperracialized criticism of police officers’ actions is driving the ambushes. “Overall disrespect for law and order, for law enforcement unlike anything we’ve ever seen in this country is part of the reason, and a huge reason why the finest among us — brothers and sisters, men and women who put on that uniform — are being attacked for no reason other than simply standing for law and order,” Mark Nelson, president of the Oklahoma chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, told Fox News.

A 2017 FBI study found that 28% of shooters who ambushed police “had a hatred of law enforcement” based on “what they heard and read in the media about other incidents involving law enforcement shootings.” These cop-killers “believed attacking police officers was their way to ‘get justice’ for those who had been, in their view, unjustly killed by law enforcement.” Thus is the outcome when the media rush to judgment.

That was almost five years ago. Americans’ trust in police hit its lowest point last August and, while it has improved, a USA Today poll in July found that only 1 in 5 Americans believes police officers treat suspects equally.

“What we need … is our elected leaders, from the local level all the way up to Congress, to speak out and condemn these ambush-style attacks,” said Nelson. It seems like a modest request for politicians to forthrightly condemn the murder of policemen and for the media to “say their names.”

4) Inflation reaches the highest level in nearly 40 years

Other than unemployment, perhaps no economic principle is easier to understand than inflation. Rising prices affect everyone who buys any product — reducing families’ real wealth, eroding earnings, and silently eating away healthy saving accounts. This year, the United States saw greater inflation than in any time in almost four decades. As this author reported at The Daily Wire:

In 2021, the United States is tied for the highest level of inflation suffered by any of the world’s 35 developed economies, according to statistics released from the International Monetary Fund.

The U.S. and Iceland are for the fastest rate of rising prices among 35 advanced economies. The IMF’s “Inflation rate, average consumer prices” rated both nations’ inflation at 4.3%. …

The IMF figure is significantly lower than the 6.8% year-on-year increase in the Consumer Price Index that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported [on December 10].

Economic issues and discussions of percentages may cause people’s eyes to glaze over — but inflation hits every American in the wallet. Gasoline prices rose by $1.29 a gallon between November 2020 and November 2021 costs, a 59% rise, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The cost of the most basic necessity, groceries, rose by 6.4%. This year’s Thanksgiving meal cost more than any time since figures had been kept: $53.31 in 2021, up from $46.90 last year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that people who use natural gas to heat their homes will see a 30% increase in home heating costs compared to last winter. Even the Dollar Tree increased its prices to $1.25.

All told, “the average U.S. household [had] to spend around $3,500 more in 2021 to achieve the same

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