The leftist media cabal constantly imagine themselves as the grand embodiment of Democracy and Freedom of Speech, even as they seek to put Republicans in jail and hope to censor them out of speaking on social media. They don't live up to their First Amendment boasting.
For example, there's "CNN International" host Christiane Amanpour, whose leftist ravings are also broadcast on PBS stations. On Jan. 23, Amanpour led off her show with this attack on President Donald Trump: "He says he's bringing free speech back to America, but one year into Trump 2.0, few presidents have done as much to degrade civil liberties and muzzle the free press. Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron joins me to discuss how American journalism can survive."
Oh, the overwrought ardor! How will journalism survive as they seek to destroy Trump 24/7? Any pushback on their destruction campaign will be painted as an attack on freedom of the press.
Amanpour mischaracterized Trump's remarks at Davos when he said, "I only get negative press. That means that it has no credibility. And if they're going to get credibility, they're going to have to be fair."
It's true that the media have been almost entirely negative on Trump for 10 years. It's also true that they'd have more credibility with more Americans if they weren't so relentlessly unfair.
But Amanpour claimed Trump was saying that "he needed a good press, implying that it has to be positive about him, otherwise it lacks (has) no credibility." Baron agreed: "(W)hat he means by good press is good for him. What he means by a free press is free to say what he – only what he wants it to say."
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In all this moralizing, as Amanpour celebrated Baron for being legendary in "holding the powerful to account," they could not imagine anyone would find them guilty of refusing to hold Democrats to account and suppressing stories Democrats don't like. Exhibit A is the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the 2020 election.
This is where the hypocrisy really kicked in, that their actual belief is "free speech for me, not for thee."
Amanpour argued, "This administration and others like it around the world, populists, nationalists, have used the word 'free' simply for their own side. And anything that criticizes their side, whether it's the extreme right, as JD Vance talked about a year ago in Munich, accusing, you know, Western governments of removing the freedom of their people by trying to, you know, stop their hate speech." Baron agreed, arguing that Vance and others distorted "the real meaning of words."
Is it distorting the word "free" for Vance to complain that European governments are jailing people for tweets? Vance added Britain was punishing silent prayer in front of abortion clinics. In Scotland, they warned against private prayer inside your own home if it's near an abortion clinic. In Germany, a man faced a dawn raid with six cops because he called a politician a "pimmel" (slang for penis).
But as we know, the American media likes European censorship. CBS's 60 Minutes even did a whole segment lauding the German censors. If you want to brag you're for freedom of speech and for journalists holding the government accountable, you would advocate it for both sides.
But journalists like Amanpour and Baron live by the slogan "truthful, not neutral," which translates into my leftist beliefs are "truth," and the opposing view is "misinformation" and "hate speech." Seeking neutrality or fairness equals bowing down to Trump. They believe that the "right side of history" gets to punish and censor the "wrong side."
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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