This is Townhall's daily VIP feature, where we will focus coverage on the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in the mainstream media.
06.18.21
Artisanal-Crafted Narratives – CNN
- All their money cannot buy Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo mirrors?
On CNN's eroding primetime lineup, Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo were talking about the idea of Critical Race Theory installed into schools being opposed by parents. The idea of these two pampered and pompous elitists telling parents what is proper for their families is the apex of obliviousness.
Said Lemon, "That's the whole thing about what privilege is. It's that you — people don't like to have their pleasure interrupted. Their peace interrupted … stop making it about you."
What Don is avoiding here is that they are not making it about them; they are making it about their children. It seems beyond being out of touch when the millionaire talking head with the opulent home in Sag Harbor is lecturing parents on the way they need to address their child's education.
CNN’s @donlemon on parents upset about Critical Race Theory creeping into curriculums: “That’s the whole thing about what privilege is. It’s that you — people don’t like to have their pleasure interrupted. Their peace interrupted … stop making it about you" pic.twitter.com/G1ioRhCuyo
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 18, 2021
Both Kinds Of Standards – MSNBC
- How DARE the rabble use our methods!
On "All In With Chris Hayes," Critical Race Theory proponent Brandy Zadrozny was also bleating about the fact that parents were up in arms over CRT being forced into schools. She addressed the concept of parents showing up at school board meetings and local groups organizing to say they are pushing what she claimed was an "America-first agenda." What Brandy is deflecting from with her gaslighting is that the agenda that is being pushed is CRT, and the parents are pushing back.
The comedy arrives when Zadrozny utters her complaint with one thing these parents are doing; she is upset that the tax-paying parents file Freedom Of Information Act requests to find out how school boards are spending those tax dollars. She struggles with this concept, as reporters adore the use of FOIA in their reporting, but when common citizens resort to this same method, it becomes translated as "onerous public records requests."
?? Freedom of Information Act requests aren’t just for media elites. It’s pretty incredible that an NBC reporter thinks parents shouldn’t use them to get transparency.
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) June 17, 2021
Especially to get information about schools pushing poisonous concepts like critical race theory on kids. pic.twitter.com/eRA29g75FU
Legalized Press-titution – CNN
It is rather astounding to read this glowing praise of Chinese vaccine responsiveness in an American news outlet. It is also impossible to read it and not think it was an unedited dispatch from the Chi-Com press office.
- "Within days, China will reach a staggering 1 billion doses in its Covid-19 vaccination drive – a scale and speed unrivaled by any other country in the world."
That is not a cherry-picked quote – it is the opening of this Beijing bathhouse dispatch.
- "China has a powerful tool in its arsenal: a top-down, one-party system that is all-encompassing in reach and forceful in action, and a sprawling bureaucracy that can be swiftly mobilized."
And, this is considered a good thing.
- "The top-down approach has been touted by officials as a strength of the Chinese system that helped curb the virus – and has again been deployed to accelerate inoculations."
So the exalted leader is praising the efforts of The Exalted Leader. This is big news. One detail we do not see explored here is how effective the Chinese vaccines are – or, more accurately, how ineffective they are. In South America, they have been dispensing vaccines from China and are still experiencing Covid outbreaks. The Vaccine is being seen to have about a 50% success rate.
DNC PR Firm – AXIOS
In the battle to curb the exposure that pandemic benefit payments have kept people from returning to the workforce, Axios comes to the rescue to explain what really is keeping people on the sofa.
"When jobs are hard to fill, a broader worker awakening over the past year is part of the reason."
You might wonder what this awakening actually means. Well, blaming a reticence to return to work "ignores the full worker experience and all the factors that make it less appealing to return to certain jobs."
"Child care, transportation, and health care were widely cited in addition to unemployment benefits as holding back potential workers." Also, if you worried race could be a factor, your anxiety was founded. One other thing they cite as adding emotional labor to employment is "being the only person of color in a workplace."
But Axios nailed down what might be the biggest stumbling block to getting people off of Netflix and onto the timeclock – it's all Trump's fault.
"Workers are burned out not just by their jobs but by the cultural drama around them — fallout from the Trump presidency, continued police shootings, and the consequences of Jan. 6."
Blue-Anon – SLATE
Many in the press pretend they are not biased while pushing to remove the filibuster, and in so doing, they need to pretend Democrats did not use the racist filibuster a record number of times last year. Now, somehow, anyone not following the Democratic Party protocol can be labeled as a racist by journalists – but there is no bias at play, we assume.
At Slate, the headline blares, "Kyrsten Sinema Has Toxic White Lady Energy" (not to be confused with RBF, by the way). As these two writers cleverly cite the racist history of the filibuster, they, of course, gloss over how the examples they mention of it used to block civil rights were employed by Democrats.
So Democrats who set the record using the filibuster were not racist, but those opposing the elimination of the same practice are racist because the non-racist filibuster they liked six months ago is racist today. That clears it all up.