Brian Stelter is back in his CNN comfort zone, penning those punchy sentences about "Trump's history of bullying media companies." It's as if he cannot conceive of the opposing view, as in "the legacy media's history of bullying Donald Trump." They've played rough -- seeking to destroy his political career, bankrupt his businesses and even put him in jail for years.
CNN's nightmare came true, and Trump overcame massive media bullying to win another term in the White House. Now the Stelters of the world desperately want the media to keep its bullying spirit strong. This includes fighting Trump in court instead of settling.
On Feb. 2, CNN touted Stelter's quote from an anonymous CBS correspondent who doesn't want CBS to surrender to Trump's lawyers and provide a full transcript of their softball "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris from October. The quote was "Trump's lawsuit was a joke, but if we settle, we become a laughingstock."
Just as Stelter generously awarded anonymity to all the leftists burrowed inside Fox News, he's now granting safety to leftists inside CBS who think the brass are never anti-Trump enough. The sources are persistently anonymous because CNN loves these leftist hot takes. The screen spread the message in all caps: "IF WE SETTLE, WE BECOME A LAUGHINGSTOCK."
Like Stelter, Captain Anonymous can't imagine the opposing view: CBS's puffery of Biden-Harris made them a laughingstock! But these journalists only care about the opinions of their fellow Democrats. That tunnel vision leads to losing elections.
Stelter claimed to Sunday "CNN Newsroom" host Jessica Dean that Trump's demand for a transcript is "frivolous," that "there's no evidence CBS doctored any segment. It was just doing basic editing." Dean echoed that: "They didn't really do anything here." What CBS did was play a clunky word-salad soundbite of Kamala on "Face the Nation," and then they made sure they replaced that with a firmer, shorter sound bite for "60 Minutes." The next night, on "Laura Coates Live," Stelter briefly admitted CBS made "a mess."
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But overall, Stelter lined up Trump's new press policies -- shuffling media workspaces at the Pentagon, the FCC questioning NPR and PBS, "the government deleting [Democrat] web pages full of valuable data," and "the White House deriding real news stories as hoaxes." He said it's all designed to say only Trump can be trusted.
Stelter faced no opponent on CNN to rebut him, especially on that last "hoaxes" bit. In the first Trump term, CNN aggressively promoted the Russian collusion hoax for years, and Stelter loved fervent Trump opponent Michael Avenatti so much he buttered him up as a plausible presidential candidate. That didn't turn out to be a "real news story." Avenatti went to jail.
In reality, CBS News -- going all the way back to Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite in black and white -- has been full of softball interviews for Democrats just like Kamala's, and loaded with vicious hoaxes against Republicans, like Dan Rather's phony documents about George W. Bush's military record. For all we know, the anonymous CBS reporter currently crying "laughingstock" still thinks Dan Rather is a hero. Professionalism often takes a back seat to partisanship.
CBS could improve its reputation by breaking with its tawdry traditions and trying to question both sides with the same measured and respectful attention to detail, holding government accountable no matter who is governing. No one expects that. Stelter's leftist clique thinks that would be corrupt, "normalizing" the Republicans.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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