"Riffed from the Headlines" is 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.
01.24.22
Blue-Anon – CNN
- The network that claims Fox traffics in fear has THIS special coming up?!
Continuing to push out the fear-porn, CNN will be extending their "special coverage" of the after-effects of January 6. This also means the network is continuing to ignore the general public is not buying their hype. As we covered, MSNBC and CNN dedicated an entire day to the anniversary of the Capitol riot, and they were buried in the ratings by Fox News. As Brian Stelter bemoaned the network for barely covering the events, he pretended to avoid how they managed to trounce his network as a result.
Now comes more evidence the network disregards audience apathy. CNN announced this week that Jim Acosta will be hosting "Democracy in Peril," a brief series to run in the 9 pm ET timeslot, previously occupied by Chris Cuomo's program, "Journalism In Peril." What is amusing is how the network is unbothered by the lack of interest in such content. Last week, Brianna Keilar hosted a show of this nature and was promptly destroyed in the ratings. Running opposite Tucker Carlson, who pulled in just about 3.5 million viewers, "D.I.P." could only attract 438,000. Tucker managed to draw a bigger number in just the advertiser demo. But…good luck, Jim, I'm sure you'll do fine.
Media: This week, @Acosta will anchor #DemocracyInPeril on @CNN 9pET nightly. #VotingRights pic.twitter.com/KIxD9ULyaM
— Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) January 22, 2022
Reporting on the Mirror – THE MONTREAL GAZETTE
- A journalist complains that Florida is not the hellscape from where he escaped.
"The second we landed, it felt like we'd arrived on another planet." So begins the hyperbolic melodramatic entry from Josh Freed about his harrowing visit to the state of Florida, where Ron DeSantis has turned the place into a Covid Wild West, and people operate as zombies unaware of the catastrophic death that awaits them around every corner. That is to say, everyone there lives a normal life.
Freed's screed is filled with all kinds of hysterics; he witnessed a customer and a waiter shaking hands! The local news does not report on Covid 24/7! They are legally allowed to invite people into their homes! But this asinine report that should have come with a laugh-track is completely undermined by a simple reality: Josh Freed went to Florida voluntarily to get away from Covid restrictions! He seriously opens this pearl-clutching dose of panic-porn by declaring he was in Florida to escape the lockdown conditions in Montreal.
- "I have a confession to make: I recently fled Quebec for a week, a refugee from Legault's 2.0 curfew-and-confinement rules."
So, understand what we are dealing with here. This cowardly reporter could not bear any more of the oppressive conditions, then he complains because the place he went to in order to avoid statist overreach does not have the very same oppressive lockdown conditions from which he fled.
Josh Freed: Florida feels like another planet compared with Quebec https://t.co/XoDRuYrku0
— Montreal Gazette (@mtlgazette) January 22, 2022
Pre-Written Field Reports – BLOOMBERG
Over at Bloomberg, Mark Gangloff thought he made a deeply trenchant point in quoting J. R .R. Tolkein to pimp out his latest newsletter entry. Mark tried to sell us on the concept of there being one vaccine created to handle all strains of Covid, invoking a quote from "The Fellowship Of The Ring." Except for his selected quote, comparing the vaccine to the titular jewelry forged in evil and developed by Sauron to rule the people under a malevolent plot basically undercuts the effectiveness of promoting vaccines.
One Covid shot to rule them all, one Covid shot to find them, one Covid shot to bring them all and in the darkness bind them https://t.co/ITl9ECG0Vx via @bopinion
— Bloomberg (@business) January 21, 2022
Body Checking the Fact Checkers – POLITIFACT
As a sign that the administration is still digging out from the disastrous speech Joe Biden gave in Georgia, we see PolitiFact arrive to tell us what Joe really meant to say. Clearly, Jen Psaki explaining Biden comparing opponents to the federal fair election bill to Confederate slave figures was supposedly not Joe comparing people to other people, thankfully the viscounts of vérité are here to set the warped record straight.
PolitiFact arrives to clean up Joe's mess, using their preferred tactic – Context! See, Biden did not compare those voting against his voting legislation to racists, like Bull Connor. He said their vote would be remembered like the actions of Bull Connor. It's completely different!
In context: What Joe Biden said about George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 21, 2022
https://t.co/Yr7UGzYszR pic.twitter.com/J9eMjoRIzo
Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – WASHINGTON POST
Clearly, the minds at WaPo were sitting around and realized they had gone some time without slandering Florida's governor. He recently gave a presser and, while he did not exactly say anything objectionable, the paper had to figure out a way to make the governor look bad. The solution: interpret his words and then declare what he meant was not medically sound. Perfect!
The Post took this portion from DeSantis concerning the call to mandate nurses get vaccinated – "A lot of these nurses have had covid. A lot of them are younger. Some of them are trying to have families" – and they ran it through their Play-Dough Word Fun Factory. Here is what they ended up with as a conclusion.
- "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a foe of vaccine mandates, appeared to suggest Thursday that getting a shot to protect against the coronavirus could cause infertility."
So…it is possible that he hinted at something unspoken, and this is enough to declare him an anti-vaccine zealot. That is if I am using their "appears-to-suggest" standard correctly.
DeSantis suggests vaccines hurt fertility. A study indicates otherwise — but says catching coronavirus might. https://t.co/hKNEpx6nAB
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 21, 2022
Pre-Written Field Reports – MSNBC
- Journalists are in need of a vaccine for DeSantis Derangement Syndrome.
How bad is the press when it comes to default hatred of Ron DeSantis? Take an otherwise innocuous local news item, and elevate it into a stirring issue by injecting the governor for no discernible reason. This was the thought process of MSNBC contributor Fernand Amandi when a report came out that the president of a South Florida college was abruptly quitting.
D-E-S-A-N-T-I-S https://t.co/xWdHNOFGDJ
— Fernand Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) January 21, 2022
This was based on nothing tangible, and further, it was completely blasted out of the water in less than an hour. Initially, the announcement was that family health issues were to blame.
D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-I-O-N
— Brad Slager - Incontinent On Another Continent (@MartiniShark) January 23, 2022
When knee-jerk reactionism blows up in a pundit's face within hours. https://t.co/qJGii3mEhk pic.twitter.com/gbyBS95Kq4
But then an update arrived, and it still had nothing to do with DeSantis. It turns out there was a relationship issue on campus, and the president was involved in "an emotional entanglement."
