It’s a relatively new phenomenon – journalists who are against journalism. Oh, they don’t come right out and say it, that would be stupid, they just come out against it whenever it is practiced, even if by accident. Weirdly, every act of journalism that gets condemned by journalists was something that went against the left-wing narrative; a coincidence, I’m sure.
Weirdly, when the left-wing industrial complex were getting story after story wrong (all in one direction: anti-Trump) there was no wholesale condemnation or criticism of those responsible. A couple were disciplined, but most incidences were simply ignored. Corrections were issues without noting the changes in the piece; the corrections that were noted had the explanation watered down to the point of insignificance.
If it were done in the name of the progressive agenda, any sin against what once was called journalistic ethics was forgiven. Only one anonymous source? Meh, it’s cool, it makes Trump look bad. Someone with an axe to grind? Who cares, it makes Trump look bad. Something where everyone is on record saying a story is false, even people who dislike Trump and have every incentive to remain silent? All good, agenda über alles!
Remember the NBC News reporter who told, on air, what the police body cam footage of the attack on Paul Pelosi showed? His name is Miguel Almaguer and he got suspended for reporting what was an accurate account of the understandably awkward interaction (if someone breaks into your house and threatens you or your wife with a hammer you’d be a little hesitant to upset the status quo when police showed up too). His return to air was not noted and no comment was forthcoming from NBC after.
Then there was the tale of John Fetterman. Well, not about Fetterman himself, but about the NBC News reporter who landed his first network interview. She accurately reported on how their discussion needed a computer and real time closed captioning because Fetterman can’t understand or decipher speech. Then the report, Dasha Burns, mentioned that Fetterman couldn’t understand small talk that wasn’t transcribed.
All hell broke loose, other “journalists,” even some who also worked at NBC News, slammed Burns as a fraud and a liar because they’d spoken to Fetterman and didn’t have that problem. That was, of course, a bald-faced lie. Anyone with half a brain cell could see Burns was being honest and all of her detractors were circling the wagons for Democrats. Have you seen Burns on air lately? She’s around, but she’s essentially done.
She made the mistake of reporting something that, while truthful, made a Democrat look bad. For that, she was punished. Meanwhile, Fetterman is incapable of doing his job and currently residing in a hospital dealing with depression from, among other things, that reality and the fact that his family prioritized his campaign over his health.
Then we have Dana Milbank and the gang at Al Sharpton’s weekend TV show. Sharpton is a hack and a moron, but the Washington Post’s Milbank is no slouch himself. A former MSNBC contributor (tells you something that all of these people are associated with NBC News, doesn’t it?), Milbank is upset, along with Sharpton, that Tucker Carlson was given 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from January 6, 2021. He claims it’s because that footage could put the lives of Members of Congress in danger, but they weren’t in danger on that day in the first place.
Milbank and Sharpton now support the idea of all media outlets getting the footage…after 2 years of not wanting it. But they don’t “trust” Tucker. They don’t say why they don’t trust Tucker – like everything, leftists simply declare something to be and never bother justifying it because they live in an echo chamber – and want to have a chance to craft a counter-narrative themselves from the footage. Weird how they only want information when it’s coming out anyway, and in a way they can’t control.
I’d ask what they’re afraid of but I know the answer is their audience encountering information they don’t approve of.
And that’s really the point, isn’t it? The left needs to keep people ignorant, they can’t let them decide things for themselves, period. To do that they’re willing to do anything, including the opposite of what they claim their job is.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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