Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage on the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.
07.23.21 (Update)
Low Octane Gas Lighting -- CNN
Brian Stelter insults his own executive to criticize his favorite target. It is going to come as a complete surprise, but Brian Stelter was watching Tucker Carlson again last night. Tucker did a segment on an email he obtained from within Brian’s network, one that shows a possible new approach they will take regarding vaccines. In the message the writer addresses the need to compel people to get inoculated and states that “the carrot is no longer going to work.” Carlson expectantly draws the conclusion this means they now need to resort to using the stick, and upon hearing this Stelter reacted. One could say he “pounced”, based on his angrily-typed retort.
Tucker Carlson's deception in 280 chars:
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 22, 2021
CNN has 4,000 staffers. One exec sends an email about vaccine hostility opining that "the carrot is no longer going to work." Carlson obtains it. And his show turns it into an outright lie: "CNN WANTS TO USE A 'STICK' ON THE UNVACCINATED"
Huh, Brian makes this sound as if this was an anonymous email that could have come from anyone at his company.
As a refresher, Brian has spent the past few weeks declaring how important executives at Fox News have been for his hot takes. He has invoked them and their lack of comments to diminish Carlson’s claim of being pied on by the NSA, and he noted that the Fox execs have pushed the on air talent to start touting vaccines more often. But today a CNN executive is just another anonymous nobody who should be ignored. Who wrote this reckless email -- a boss on the cleaning crew, a cafeteria workers supervisor, or one of the managers of the basement drones from the mailroom, maybe?! What is hilarious is that as Stelter lights a press release about CNN selling NFTs, in order to fill the room with distracting smoke, the person behind this email is actually known.
The email was written by Sam Feist, CNN’s DC Bureau Chief, and a Senior Vice President. Feist operates the largest segment of journalists, including their fact-checking team. But this will be helpful going forward to know that Feist is actually not an influential player at CNN, and therefore everyone working under him can be dismissed as inconsequential. Thanks for that tip, Brian!
Artesanal-Crafted Narratives -- CNN
It appears to be unfair that the nation that invented the vaccines has access to the vaccines.
On CNN’s new day they had on international correspondent Larry Madowo to discuss the rollout of the Covid vaccines in other nations. Madowo was detailing how he had a relative in Kenya who passed away from the virus, unable to be vaccinated in time. This is being described as “vaccine inequality”, because of course it is.
CNN’s @LarryMadowo got his vaccine in a US drugstore.
— CNN Early Start (@EarlyStart) July 22, 2021
His uncle died of Covid-19 before he could get a vaccine in Kenya.
This is what vaccine inequality looks like. pic.twitter.com/vBpahkqBq5
Both Kinds Of Standards -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
Imagine if The AP followed this same standard in January.
It would appear the country’s leading news syndicate has a news archive that only dates back 6 months. The AP responds to a possible Senate run by Herschel Walker, as he is looking to challenge Raphael Warnock in the next election. It is a little bit curious that they are willing to go so far back in Walker’s past to find instances of threatened violence towards a spouse, but they seem unconcerned with Warnock’s actual abuse less than a year ago when he ran for the special election.
Former NFL star Herschel Walker is eying a Senate run. His turbulent past could complicate matters. The @AP found Walker was accused of repeatedly threatening his ex-wife’s life, made exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates. https://t.co/o4FreFDm2X
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) July 23, 2021
News Avoidance Syndrome -- WASHINGTON POST
Jenn Rubin Dismayed DeSantis has a job considering his success on the matter. WaPo’s resident RINO Rubin has opinions on leadership in the pandemic. Those opinions are always uniformly incorrect, but that is just Rubin staying on brand. The woman who cannot praise the serial killer in the governor’s mansion enough, Andrew Cuomo, also has some sharp positions regarding another governor, Ron DeSantis. In response to a Miami Herald piece on DeSantis wanting to resist a federal school mask mandate, Jenn takes a position.
He is putting children at risk of a deadly disease. He should hold no office.
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 22, 2021
This would be the kind of hot take that is helped by supporting it with some case study data. If only we could reference a state where kids have been attending classes already, and they have been measured for incident rates of Covid-19.
Oh, well the study showing Florida schools had lower infection rates than the communities they are located within probably will not help her cause.
Pulitzer Prize Nomination -- THE DAILY MAIL
If only there was a way for Jeff Bezos to pay someone off…
Earlier today we detailed how it was shown that Jeff Bezos is not an alien, nor a lizard-man. Well we now find out there is another title he has had stripped -- he is not an astronaut!
It turns out that despite dropping a large fortune to pilot his own spacecraft into almost space, that is not enough to qualify him as a spaceman. The FAA has a standard it adheres to with regards to the designation, and since Bezos did not actually pilot the craft he does not get his plastic wings for his sport coat, despite the hundreds of millions spent on his venture.
Jeff Bezos is NOT an astronaut! FAA changes rules for how it awards astronaut wings https://t.co/IgGjmNGwBx
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) July 23, 2021
DNC PR Firm -- CNN
Maybe they should have broadcast it on HBO+
The ratings came in for the town hall with President Joe Biden, held on CNN Wednesday evening, and they did not cause audience inflation. The event failed to make a dent in the cable news competition as the broadcast was easily bested by Fox News and MSNBC. Joe Biden drew less than 1.5 million viewers, while Tucker Carlson and the first half of Sean Hannity’s program almost doubled the audience.
For the duration the Biden special saw 1.46 million watching, while Fox had 2.76 million, and the President was even edged out by MSNBC’s team of Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, as they had 1.47 million viewers.
News Avoidance Syndrome -- VARIOUS OUTLETS
The press corps seems to be accepting “The fog of the Covid war.”
Recall when Biden was set to take office the press was in full praise mode that his arrival would usher in professionalism, respect for the press, and a return of full transparency from the administration? Well, that did not last long.
There seems to be a distinct amount of outrage -- or even commentary -- from the media complex regarding the recent announcement by Jen Psaki about the White House staff and Covid infections. As a response to the fact the Texas Democrats hiding in D.C. have become a superspreader event there is increased discussions about breakthrough infections, those who are contracting Covid after they have been vaccinated.
Despite a push by the administration for clarity on all things pandemic and looking to take down social media accounts, Psaki declared that while they have had breakthrough cases taking place in the White House they will not be revealing how many of those cases have taken place.
Psaki clarifies to @edokeefe there have been other breakthrough COVID-19 cases in the White House that have not been publicly disclosed.
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) July 20, 2021
Low Octane Gas Lighting -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
On the always pragmatic and intuitive Morning Joe there was a discussion over Nancy Pelosi making the decision to remove select Republican members from the Capitol riot commission. They brought on White House reporter for The AP, Jonathan Lemire to discuss the maneuvering, including the GOP making the follow-up announcement that they will conduct a separate commission, in response to Pelosi’s move.
To say Lemire is rather slanted in his assessment of things is to undersell his bias.
-“We've just hit upon the deeply cynical play that this is. Now Republicans are going to emerge from this with their own report, which they will put up as a co-equal as to what the Pelosi's Democrat-plus-Liz-Cheney committee is going to do.”
Then, just to cement where his devotion lies, Lemire draws up this explanation of Pelosi removing those Republicans she does not want sullying her “investigation”.
-“Despite Democrats going into it seemingly with a good-faith effort, a bipartisan attempt to get to the bottom of what happened, to try to prevent something like this from happening again, Republicans not going to play ball.”
Nancy kicking off select members is good faith, removing only opponents makes this a bi-partisan attempt, and her removing Republicans somehow means it is the Republicans who are not playing ball?!?!
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection “will do the job it set out to do” despite Republicans’ vow to boycott the probe. https://t.co/SjvH9YQbYi
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) July 22, 2021
Reporting On The Mirror -- THE ATLANTIC
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has said he is considering a run for the office of Governor for the state of Oregon. Over at The Atlantic they took a measure of the situation and spotted something potentially dire. Citing past examples in Britain of journalists who rose in the political ranks this led to a dark conclusion, by writer Helen Lewis.
Any mention she makes of Kristof is, unsurprisingly, positive (“Nick Kristof seems like a decent, thoughtful man”) yet she sees a real danger down the road.
-Kristof is already on leave from the Times, in line with the paper’s ethics policies, but you’d have to be a more trusting person than me to expect a Fox News star to bow out of the TV spotlight before formally declaring a run for political office.
The assessment we get is that it may be swell if Kristof runs, and even wins his race, but the real danger is what it could lead to.
-If American voters start rewarding journalists who switch to politics, don’t come crying to me on Inauguration Day for President Tucker Carlson.
Body Checking The Fact Checkers -- USA TODAY
Take relief -- Jeff Bezos is NOT an intergalactic amphibian!
It is never clear who exactly they think they are convincing with this type of exposure. Those who might follow these storylines are not very likely to be perusing the fact-check sites, looking to debunk their pet theories.
Then again, Bezos DID just scratch the stratosphere, so maybe there is something to this after all…
I'm dubious of this fact-check. We need @USAToday to reconfirm this, considering Bezos just returned from space!!! pic.twitter.com/q1rbnNVdDP
— Brad Slager - In Trouble More Than Pres. Biden (@MartiniShark) July 23, 2021
