OPINION
Premium

Proof Is Seen That CNN Pundits Do Not Watch CNN

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Oct 16, 2024
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Get access to Brad Slager's "Riffed From the Headlines," a daily VIP feature where he looks to bring accountability to the mainstream media. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.

Race To The Bottom – CNN

  • If this claim is a lie, then it speaks to CNN as a news source.

It almost seems inevitable this primetime segment was going to go off the rails. Abby Phillip hosted, it was a panel of six excitable figures, and they were discussing race – all of that on CNN. Oh, yeah, this was going to jump the trestle in no time at all.

The topic had been about Donald Trump and how he addresses racial groups or some such, and conservative guest Ryan Girdusky dared to suggest there had been some lasting negative impacts from the racial protests following the deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd. He raised the ire of the panelists and Abby Phillip by suggesting this was due to The Ferguson Effect, where police were hesitant to respond to calls or take actions for fear of racial blowback in the community.

For this, Girdusky was accused of conjecture, of making this up, and there would be a need to fact-check his claims, but they said he "invented" this connection. Except for the fact that the FBI had been looking into this very action, and it was referred to as The Ferguson Effect.

Recommended

Someone Should Tell That Bucks County Dem Where She Can Shove Her Shoddy Apology Matt Vespa
Jon Stewart Rips Into Dems for Their Obnoxious Sugar-Coating of the 2024 Election Matt Vespa

Oh – and it was reported on at the time. By CNN.

News Avoidance Syndrome – VARIOUS OUTLETS

  • It was a favored talking point, until the facts arrived.

It has been a steady drumbeat for years in the press: Crime is down during the Biden administration! This had even been a contentious exchange during the ABC presidential debate between Donald Trump and David Muir. Yet all the while there has been one thing missing from these boasts, namely what Biden policy led to this downturn?

We covered some time back that this narrative has been rooted in the FBI employing a new data collection system that leads to a significantly high number of LEOs unable to report their crime stats – many from huge cities like New York and Los Angeles. Well, now we have the FBI coming out with a report that it has revised its statistics and – what do we learn – 2022's crime rates actually increased, as the claims that there was a 2.1% drop have been revised to show a 4.5% increase. Huh.

Low-Octane Gaslighting – MSNBC

  • Okay, so the daily bleating about this inherent danger is not working – the solution is MORE!

Watch MSNBC for any duration, on any given day, and you will be hammered by incessant claims of how Donald Trump will dismantle this country on numerous levels and transform America into a fascist regime. It has become white noise by this point. But there are clear signs this drumbeat of doom is not working. (Sidenote: It is the GOP supposedly running campaigns on fear, remember.) One such sign was delivered by Chris Hayes.

He has looked things over and is, frankly, chilled by the internal polling showing Kamala Harris is doomed. But fear not, true believers, for he also offers up a solution for this slide: The answer to this narrative not working is to simply deliver MORE of that failed messaging!

He’s running neck-and-neck in the polls with the sitting vice president. Why is that? The critical advantage Fascism has in America today is the press by and large still doesn't know how to fully communicate the perilousness of our situation.

Making this explanation all the more tortured is that Hayes declares Trump "the world's most famous liar," who cannot be believed about anything he says, and then goes on to try selling his audience that we need to believe Trump's supposed claims of a fascist dream for America. 

Pre-Written Field Reports – MSNBC

  • This seems to be the word of the week at the network.

Yet another sign that the Harris campaign is performing as well as a hydrogen-fill dirigible catching fire, Joy Reid pops up to deliver her special brand of dysfunction and hysterics. Joy wants to address the issue of black male voters not endorsing Harris to appreciable levels, so Reid has to do what she does best – lash out intemperately at those angering her.

But…she has a problem. Joy is unable to go to her favored club in the golf bag when looking to club her opponent – the "Racist" accusation – because in this case it is black men. So she goes to Club #2: Those who are black and unacceptably crossing party lines are now fascists!

There – this level of aggression and intolerance will surely draw those men back to the fold.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – THE NEW YORK TIMES

In a story so obtuse that The New York Times probably figured no one would notice, the paper has been accused of taking in propaganda in order to publish slanted coverage of (we are not kidding) salmon farming in Patagonia. In a piece at NewsBusters, Nick Fondacaro lays out how The Times report slammed the salmon farming project, but it appears this was all a targeted effort made by an environmental group, the Earth Journalism Network.

The freelancers who wrote it are affiliated with EJN, the environmentalists they used for expert coverage have ties to the group, and many of the other contacts cited are all interrelated and share many common benefactors and connections with EJN or the groups it partners with in this effort.

The Times is involved in an internal investigation into this development.