We have reached that time to compile our list of the journalists who distinguished themselves over the past year with their departure from journalism ethics, repugnant reportorial displays, soporific punditry, and just plain bad performances throughout the year.
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See the Townhall 50 entries of #31-#50 here.
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First, we had to compile examples. Then, measure things based on performance, influence, bias, reach, and work other factors into a complex formula to rank accordingly. It was laborious, but – unlike many on this list – we took the time to research and explore the topics. So, to continue with things – here is the secondary list as we make our way through the chart of 50 notable names from 2023.
30. Jake Tapper – Probably one of the more frustrating individuals because there was a time he was seen as being close to even-handed, but Trump damaged the ethos. Still today, he has flashes of that professionalism; he was firm on the Israeli attack and was appropriately direct about the White House cocaine incident. But then he lapses into that familiar CNN partisanship. A prime example of this conflict was in his reporting on Claudine Gay; he acknowledged her plagiarism was a problem, but he ridiculed the "right-wing" sources and suggested they were in the wrong – as he was there reporting on the story they broke. Despite his pledge against hosting election deniers, Jake hosted Stacey Abrams. While interviewing a Facebook whistleblower, he was pushing social media to censor people. He opposed the SCOTUS decision on a business turning down a gay wedding job. With the late Senator Diane Feinstein in poor health, Jake was pushing hard on Senator Dick Durbin to replace her.
29. John Avlon – His smarmy delivery is bad enough, but his pomposity while delivering his trademarked flawed "Reality Check" segments compounds the errors. He tried to dispel the charge Democrats back abortion up to birth by saying the procedure is extremely rare. (Okay, John, but they still support it.) Following a report on the surge in crime in Oakland, he fretted the GOP could benefit – "you are breeding reactionary forces politically." The best example of how his "Reality" is skewed, he claimed Fox News was obsessed with Hunter Biden, with 2,200 reports on him over a three-year period. The gang at NewsBusters found CNN reported on Donald Trump Jr. hundreds of times more in that same period, while not being charged with multiple federal crimes.
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28. Daniel Dale – CNN's fact-checker is almost more noted for not doing his job. While sporting a bio claiming he fact-checks the president, Dale went a stretch of four months with no corrections made on the prevaricating president. Republicans, and especially Trump, were under his microscope on the regular. He haggled over the Florida slavery curriculum regarding one sentence. He defended Mahattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's bad crime stats with the explanation "it's complicated."
27. Luke Broadwater – As proof came out that the president had met with Hunter Biden's associates, he reported this as if it were old news, ignoring Joe's long history of denials. When Hunter Biden gave a speech declaring he was spurning the congressional subpoena, Luke clipped his quote to soften his comment. The announcement of an impeachment inquiry had the reporter declaring repeatedly it was simply to appease "far-right" interests. He said criticisms of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg were Republican attacks. In the congressional hearing on the Twitter Files, he focused mostly on content involving Chrissy Teigen while saying the NY Post articles on Hunter Biden's laptop were "unsubstantiated."
26. Jennifer Rubin – Normally the higher ranked of pundits, Jennifer has become such a parody of herself that her dysfunctional journalism is diminished in impact. Her regular statements of contradicting her prior stances are such that she is now a standard in that field. Jennifer was on MSNBC complaining that the GOP debate had candidates talking about policies and not Donald Trump. She suggested Hamas attacked Israel as a result of our House of Representatives ousting its Speaker. WaPo editors had to step in and fix Jenny's claim more people were fleeing Florida when, in fact, the state is the fastest grower in the country.
25. Kaitlan Collins – She hosted the Donald Trump town hall that had many of the left upset, leading to many viewers just leaving…the network. When a hurricane hit Florida, she suggested it was caused by Republicans not going along with climate legislation. (Why not just outlaw hurricanes, Kaitlan?) After taking over the 9:00 pm time slot, her show is a distant third in the ratings, with less than half of the audience of MSNBC's Alex Wagner while Fox News' Sean Hannity has over three times the amount of viewers.
24. Jim Acosta – Ensconsed on the weekend shows now, the newsman" is not nearly as histrionic as he had been as a correspondent, but he is just as biased. He brought on Hunter Biden's legal reps to still claim his laptop is not legitimate. Abilio was notably bothered by the owners of the Orlando Magic donating to Ron DeSantis. When discussing the border crisis, he was given hard facts and resorted to base denials.
23. John Karl – The ABC Newsman and weekend host uses his calm and professional delivery to deliver very partisan reports. Karl was offended when Senator Tim Scott said Joe Biden had "blood on his hands" regarding Israel. After hailing Joe Biden's lie-filled State of the Union address, Jon called the rebuttal by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders "harshly negative, almost a bit of American carnage." He tried denying his Trump obsession while routinely grilling Nikki Haley – about Trump. Karl recently released his second anti-Trump book, one basically instructing against voting for the man.
22. Michael Beschloss – MSNBC's resident presidential historian is trotted out on the regular, not for his balance of events against history, but for his predictions on what Donald Trump and/or the Republicans are going to do. While overly fond of likening Trump to Nazis, he declared a September speech by Biden placed him in league with Preisdents Lincoln and Roosevelt preparing for war. He told "Morning Joe" that Trump will institute "presidential dictatorship" and remove democracy. When Trump grand jury foreman Emil Kohrs embarrassed herself and MSNBC for putting her on the air, Mike suggested she was planted by the Trump team.
21. Taylor Lorenz – Once a lock for the top five on this list, Lorenz has both been corralled somewhat by her paper, as she was placed under strict editorial oversight since her spate of problematic reports last year, and she has descended into a more nonsensical realm. Lorenz was spending the better part of the year mewling about COVID-19 and people not masking and distancing. Yes, she is still at this. Meanwhile, she was also posting shots of herself in mixed company with celebrated names. Taylor claimed Elon Musk paying out to subscribers who generate traffic just like YouTube and other platforms do was his attempt to bribe people to stay on Xitter. She was among those criticizing the influencer Mr. Beast as he paid for wells to be dug in water-desperate areas in Africa, saying that he had "monetized kindness content."
#1 Taylor Lorenz declares she cannot spend Christmas with her maskless family.
— Lie-Able Sources (@LieAbleSources) December 24, 2023
#2 Lorenz partying with celebs in March
#3 Accepting an influencer award this summer
#4 Looking comfortable with 10 others for a publicity shot in August pic.twitter.com/foCWBPSt4u
20. Aymen Mohyeldin – Mohyeldin managed to faceplant onscreen with an attempt to debunk the GOP claims against Joe Biden as he posted graphics proving the GOP correct. He was part of the MSNBC tag team – along with Mehdi Hasan – that was openly critical of Israel and delivering at least sympathetic coverage, if not outright support, of Hamas following the initial attack on Israel on October 7. As all the cable news nets saw huge ratings covering the outbreak of the conflict, his coverage helped MSNBC experience a 33% loss of audience share.
19. Andrea Mitchell – The daytime veteran of MSNBC should consider retirement. Her partisan approach to things is not so much problematic as it is leading to laziness in her reporting. After blatantly lying that Florida schools forbid the teaching of slavery, the DeSantis team refused to speak with NBC News. Andrea selectively edited a video of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to protect, of all people, Adam Schiff, removing the portion where McCarthy listed off the series of lies from Schiff. She scolded reporter Garrett Haake for using the term "pro-life" instead of saying "anti-abortion." In an interview with an Israeli mother whose children were kidnapped by Hamas, Mitchell asked the woman to be sympathetic toward Palestinian families.
18. Brian Stelter – Despite being put out to pasture, the former media maven at CNN managed to make himself a presence. Speaking with Dan Abrams, he said he was not sure why he had been fired, but was sure Fox News was responsible – as the man obsessed with Fox dared to say it was focused on him. He still claims he and the press did not deny the validity of Hunter's laptop. Despite his going on a media blitz, his book release all about Fox News sold so poorly that the former New York Times staffer did not even make it onto the subjective NY Times Best Seller List.
17. Don Lemon – He certainly could have been higher placed, except for the truncated year he had. His position on the ill-fated CNN morning show led to tensions with the on-air figures, and he was routinely belligerent on camera and controversial and even wore a hoodie on set in one episode. After calling Nikki Haley "past her prime" (leading to Michelle Yeoh mentioning the comment in her Oscar speech, which CNN edited out), he was called to the carpet, and eventually, he found himself fired from the network.
16. Joy Reid – Another former high-ranking figure who has descended due to her diminished stature. Reid populates every episode of her show with racial grievances, many of which involve Ron DeSantis. Her need to fill an hour with outrage becomes just a tiresome exercise in viewing. She resorts to selectively edited videos, felt the need to announce she was scared to go outside on July 4, and admitted she had made it into college due to Affirmative Action. The less said about her position on Claudine Gay and Harvard – where Joy attended – the better.
15. Steve Peoples – He is the Associated Press reporter assigned to the Ron DeSantis campaign, and he routinely embarrasses himself in doing so – only he does not seem to recognize this. He claimed the governor refused to engage with voters at one event, and had to recant that claim when – imagine – people on site had video of DeSantis glad-handing people. After the Jacksonville shooting, Peoples went on a racial rant, pretending DeSantis did not condemn the shooter, and after the press team responded to questions he claimed they remained "defiant."t Steve confronted DeSantis at a book signing and he posed a question – which led to the two men just staring at each other.
14. Chuck Todd – The pundit of diminishing returns continued the erosion of his career. He had a contentious talk with Vivek Ramaswamy about gender and was ultimately arguing biology with a man who has a degree in that field from Harvard. On another episode, he said, "Every day, DeSantis or Trump tries to use Hunter to beat up Biden….It's really kinda ugly the way it's been done." Try to imagine him saying anything similar about, say, Donald Trump Jr. But, after years of ushering the once-vaunted program into a Sunday morning also-ran and finding his daily version halted on MSNBC and then becoming an outcast to the NBC News NOW streaming side, Chuck came out in summer to announce he was stepping away from the desk. A few people reacted, and some even noticed!
13. Mara Gay – At The New York Times, the columnist is rather straightforward in her coverage of New York City, but during her regular appearances on MSNBC, she turns into a baffling hysteric, as if trying to compete with the others on air at that channel. She declares her 6-year-old goddaughter has fewer rights than herself. In a case of two shootings, the one with a black victim was blamed on race, while one with a white victim was blamed on guns. She announced anyone critical of the Colorado Supreme Court removing Trump from the ballot is supporting the Confederacy. In elitist fashion, she told "Morning Joe" that the internet may have made the First Amendment "out of date," but she is still entitled to use it because as a journalist, it is a wonderful thing. Then, months later, she defied logic by stating a Ron DeSantis move to protect political speech somehow violates the First Amendment.
12. Dana Bash – She joined the chorus of those denying late-term abortion proponents exist, saying she never spoke to a Democrat supporting it – as she had previously spoken with Senator John Fetterman supporting it. She challenged Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over his being responsible for the attack in October and suggested he wanted to prolong the war to stay in power. Previously, she apologized to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for suggesting there was an intel failure over the October 7 attack. Dana made a deep exploration over a very brief exchange Ron DeSantis had with a child drinking an Icee. Bash was part of the SEVEN member panel that was all swooning over the message sent to Donald Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith when he…silently bought a Subway sandwich.
An entire CNN segment on Jack Smith going to Subway. https://t.co/diFRuGbbSg
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 18, 2023
11. Rachel Maddow – While cutting down to doing only a Monday show on MSNBC, she managed to still distinguish herself. She wrote a book on the rise of fascism in the 1930s as a warning about Trump today. On "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," she declared that it was wrong for Trump to call others "fascists" because that derails the likes of herself calling him a fascist. Maddow delivered a comically inept exposé on a weapons manufacturer marketing a rifle for babies.
Seriously – she said this: "A gun specifically designed to be wielded by babies. Specifically, an assault rifle-style semiautomatic long gun made to look kind of like the civilian version of a U.S. military-issue M-4 rifle but sized down so like toddlers can use them."
It is a .22 caliber training rifle to be used by older children. Safe to say, a baby would likely fall over if holding such a weapon, but do go on, Rachel…
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