"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of 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.
03.30.22
News Avoidance Syndrome – CNN
- "If I don't look for evidence, then I can honestly say I have no evidence."
As the story of Hunter Biden's laptop contents being deeply problematic moves from being a rumor desired to be ignored to an actual evolving scandal, it is fun to watch the pain in the press as they must now report on it. Well, not all of the press.
CNN's Josh Harwood is intent on being the last holdout on the matter, such is his devotion to Joe Biden. As the Justice Department looks deeper into the matter, The New York Times confirmed the contents are legitimate, and the Washington Post also grudgingly began to look into things 18 months down the road, Harwood is boldly taking a stand on the story – by refusing to acknowledge the story.
Despite "10 percent to The Big Guy" becoming a verified exchange phrase, Harwood pretends there is no "nexus" to Joe Biden in the emails.
W.H. spox — pardon, I mean CNN “reporter" @JohnJHarwood on Hunter’s laptop: "There is zero evidence that Vice President Biden, or President Biden, has done anything wrong in connection with what Hunter Biden has done." pic.twitter.com/bpfjsqHuhT
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 30, 2022
Both Kinds of Standards – CNN
- If frequently bringing up a subject during the past year is obsession, then what is a daily fixation labeled as being?
Chris Cillizza really thinks he got Trump on a subject. In his latest video entry, Chris finds Trump on tape introducing the topic of windmills during a talk about the Ukraine invasion on a podcast. Cillizza declares this to be one of Trump's fixations.
- "It's not an uncharacteristic riff for Trump. He's been consistent on very few things in his life, but his hatred of windmills is definitely one of them. All I know is that Trump thinks windmills are bad – like, really bad."
To make his point, Chris brings up a number of video clips of this common Trump theme, coming up with a handful from the past few years. This, according to the heading in Cillizza's newsletter, shows that "Trump is obsessed with windmills." This is a deluded observation, given that Chris has a Trump entry at the top of his letter nearly every day, along with frequent video hits and social media notices – practically daily.
Just a quick scroll through Cillizza's Twitter feed, I counted his mentioning Trump directly seven times, and there were at least 12 topics brought up in the course of various mentions and retweets 20 times.
All of that was delivered since – just this Monday. But Trump is the obsessed party, you understand.
“These great tour players noticed it before I did because their eyes are slightly better, but on that one hole only, their swings weren’t.”https://t.co/KrTAOvWNeg
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) March 29, 2022
Low Octane Gas Lighting – THE ATLANTIC
Tim Alberta comes out with a curious profile on former congressional member Will Hurd. While the reaction from most people would be, "Hold on…who?" Alberta is here with a bold proclamation in his bio on Hurd – he could become the darkhorse Republican nominee for president in 2024.
I think it is fair to say there are numerous challenges in front of Hurd, namely his lack of name recognition. There is the small metric that after he retired, his GOP replacement won the seat by a greater margin, and Hurd hails from the CIA, which – considering how many agents signed the now-debunked Hunter Biden laptop letter claiming Russian involvement – has to be a detraction.
Then there is the small issue of Hurd looking to gain traction with the Republican voters by turning to The Atlantic.
That's right: the savants who never saw Obama coming, who gave Trump no shot, who used Ron Paul & Bernie Sanders & Andrew Yang as punch lines, who missed Brexit & Macron & AMLO, who thought Zelensky was just a pretty face... know for sure who can and can't catch fire in 2024. https://t.co/d08EUPKde7
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) March 28, 2022
DNC PR Firm – CNN
In their report on Governor Ron DeSantis signing the controversial Parental Rights in Education bill into law, CNN went out of their way to present the opposing side of the issue. Note, this in no way means they presented both sides of the issue.
In their coverage, writers Devan Cole and Tina Burnside dutifully detail how this was opposed by LGBTQ+ advocates, Florida Democrats, President Biden, The Disney Corporation, The Trevor Project, Equality Florida, and many students staging walkouts. It certainly looks as if nobody approves of the law.
Well, with the exception of voters, who in numerous state, national, and even Democrat-targeted polls, have lent their backing for the legislation. These repeated shows of support never managed to find a way into the CNN report.
JUST IN: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a controversial measure, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by critics, that bans certain LGBTQ topics in classrooms https://t.co/dkHGC5b8h0
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 28, 2022
Anti-Social Media – NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
NPR has a breaking story where it has been discovered that numerous accounts found on LinkedIn are not only fake but also feature artificial facial profiles. These computer-generated mugs are made to appear completely lifelike, but through intrepid reporting, they discovered these are false faces.
The reason for this is to be the start of fishing scams, sales pitches, and other marketing trickery. The question that goes unanswered; what makes these fake faces any worse than if these same huckster accounts actually had genuine faces used?
My story just scratches the surface of a new evolution in fake accounts. If you work at a company that’s used AI-gen faces for sales (or anything else!), or a company that sells LinkedIn marketing services, I’d love to hear from you. DMs are open.https://t.co/TyoBp2qxIP
— Shannon Bond (@shannonpareil) March 27, 2022
Pre-Written Field Reports – CNN
A new Pew survey came out with a look at the upcoming midterm election, and the data is disastrous for Democrats. The divide between Republicans voting against Biden and Democrats voting for him is wider than ever, with the opposition being the highest seen. CNN's editor of The Point, Adam Wollner, only sees this as being a problem created by the GOP.
- "The President's numbers may say less about him personally than the increasingly polarizing nature of the country's politics. Rather than landing on a single line of attack, Republicans have just attacked Biden on, well, everything, ranging from the Afghanistan withdrawal to the pandemic, to inflation, to his Supreme Court pick. And they've done so relentlessly in ads, congressional floor speeches, and appearances on Fox."
It is amusing to see Wollner provide this shopping list of major problems generated by Biden and see that the problem is Republicans have noticed them.
