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A Sharp Journalist Loses Her Job While a Propagandist Gets Promoted

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Feb 14, 2024
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

02.14.24

Reporting on the Mirror – CBS NEWS

  • Your solution is to get rid of one of the few who was actually committing journalism?!

At CBS-Paramount, the company is laying off 800 employees. This mass firing is also affecting about two dozen in the news division, including one of their dogged intelligence reporters, Catherine Herridge. She is embroiled in a First Amendment lawsuit case with the government where she is being compelled to divulge a source for some of her reporting, and the plaintiffs are seeking to destroy her financially. As her former employer, Fox News, is covering the costs of any legal responsibility, the plaintiffs have argued against this and want Catherine to be fully responsible herself.

Herridge has also had some conflict with the news division head, and it is believed that her dismissal has been one of convenience rather than need.

Reporting on the Mirror – CNN

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Meanwhile, at the ever-struggling CNN, the network came out with the announcement it was promoting one of its infamous intel operatives. Natasha Bertrand has been moved up to the position within the network of National Security Correspondent. This is her reward for serving as a useful tool in the press for the intel community.

Bertrand has become infamous for being an unquestioning mouthpiece. She was a source to enthusiastically push the Steele Dossier validity. She eagerly pushed that fraudulent intelligence community letter that tried to invalidate the Hunter Biden laptop as mere Russian opposition propaganda. We even saw her PR skills at work regarding the Chinese spy balloon. She claimed there had been similar balloon missions under Trump's term. Then, she embarrassingly tried to explain away the details of the fiasco, suggesting no sensitive intelligence had been gathered by the Chi-Comms while, at the same time, stating there was no way of knowing what it was the Chinese had collected.

Matching Media Memorandum – VARIOUS OUTLETS

  • When your family members become secondary to your affection for politicians.

The issue of Joe Biden's mental state has been a remarkably revealing episode in the way the media has collectively reacted with outrage at the news. In one of the more fringe reactions, we are seeing figures willing to throw their own mothers under the bus in order to defend President Silveralert.

Joe Scarborough has used his mother as a means to insultingly protect the man we have come to learn is a dear friend of his and his morning show. Scar-Joe shamelessly uses the death of his mother to shield the Roomba in the White House.

Of course, this defies Biden invoking the death of his son on a regular basis, and Scar-Joe needs to skip over the detail that Biden was not asked about Beau's death, it was a factoid that Biden himself introduced. (As reported by Scarborough's own network.)

In this same fashion, actress Drew Barrymore displayed this odd maternal fealty to political names. While former First Lady Michelle Obama was out hawking a new book, she came on Drew's talk show, and in the course of the interview, the actress actually said she wanted to be in the Obama family and wanted Michelle to be her mother. The cringe was heavy this week.

Pre-Written Field Reports – CNN

  • Remember back when interviews were in question/answer format, and not one-upmanship debates?

In what was staged as an interview with a Texas representative regarding the border issues, CNN's Brianna Keilar instead was intent on getting her version of events broadcast instead of listening and probing the details with a vested local knowledge. Rep. Beth Van Duyne and Keilar had a contentious discussion that was less about fact-finding than it was arguing over who was correct in their talking points.

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"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation, where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.