If anyone had any doubt that our “objective” television news operations are deeply partisan and nearly unanimous Biden-voter caucuses, observe the revulsion and disgust spilling out into public view when one of them hires a Republican to offer the Other Party’s Viewpoint on their airwaves.
CBS News decided to hire former Republican congressman (and Trump Chief of Staff) Mick Mulvaney, and then liberal Washington Post media reporter Jeremy Barr was handed internal recordings of staff “turmoil” over this supposed outrage.
Barr “obtained” a recording of a staff meeting led by CBS News co-President Neeraj Khemlani. Surely, the staffer recording this meeting was outraged that Khemlani said, “getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms.”
Anonymous CBS News Democrats were alarmed “the network was jeopardizing its long history of journalistic excellence.” And you thought Dan Rather already did that.
“I know everyone I talked to today was embarrassed about the hiring,” said a CBS News employee who “spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.” This is the most ridiculous use of anonymous sourcing — to protect liberals while they publicly campaign against their bosses.
Some protesting CBS employees were not anonymous. Stephen Colbert — who makes $16 million a year for his late-night Democratic talk show that pretends to be “comedy” — raucously compared Mulvaney to the Nazi goon whose face melted at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Colbert and others noted that Mulvaney might not be the best pundit since he insisted Donald Trump would “concede gracefully” if he lost in 2020 and “participate in a peaceful transition of power.” That turned out to be dreadfully wrong, but many of us believed that would be true. Trump is just as embarrassing for refusing to concede as … well, Dan Rather.
Barr noted that CBS staffers were less upset when the network hired former Trump adviser H.R. McMaster — naturally, since McMaster turned on Trump, which is always seen as the first sign of sanity at CBS.
Then came Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, who hates these feints at fairness and balance. Her grumbling came under a headline about how the search for “access” takes the media to “dangerous places when one side of the aisle is turning against democracy.”
Sullivan touted radical journalism professor Jay Rosen, who proclaims, “We have a two-party system and one of the two is anti-democratic.” Rosen also painted George W. Bush as a press-“decertifying” tyrant.
Sullivan hates the liberals “fearfully reacting to bad-faith criticism from the right,” as if conservatives couldn’t possibly make a good-faith argument about media bias. She insisted the problem with CBS is, “they want to look fair, even if that performative fairness does American citizens real harm.” So, allowing Mulvaney to speak on CBS somehow causes “real harm.”
It’s ridiculous that these scolds who throw thunderbolts under the motto that “Democracy Dies in Darkness” can so shamelessly proclaim that the Republican Party is too dangerous to be granted a platform on television news networks. Jeff Bezos and the Post should march under the banner “Democracy Requires Democratic Domination of All Branches of Government.”
This cacophonous caucus of commissars don’t sound like small “d” democrats, or like liberals, as the dictionary defines it, as “willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own.” They are the illiberal media, who publicly advocate for the suppression of conservative and Republican advocacy in the public square. So, we resolve to speak out louder and call out their censorious arrogance.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
It funny the left uses the phrase “Democracy dies in darkness” when most of the Democrat Party’s machenations during the 2020 campaign were done in the dark, the candidate ensconced away from scrutiny, only to find out the destructive agenda one the first day of Joe Biden’s administration. The Republicans have been much more open, especially Donald Trump who constantly talked to the people and not the news organizations like CBS and others.
AND away from cameras! HELL iirc in one of the videos we saw OF what was going on, THEY ACTUALLY TRIED TO BLOCK ALL WINDOWS, so cameras couldn’t see inside…
I get so tired of the way the socialist so-called liberal democrats try to continually and consistently portray Conservative Republicans as a “threat to Democracy.”
They put all Conservatives, starting with Trump, under a vague umbrella as anti-American demagogues trying to end the American Dream for Our own nefarious devices and a thirst for dictatorial power without any concern for the feelings or the welfare of the the American People.
Of course, as I’ve said repeatedly, the Dems need to change professions, and get jobs in movie theaters as Professional Projectionists.
The Conservatives are no threat to Democracy just because we believe in small and more limited governing.
What we are is a threat to Democrats!
Every time they’ve been in power in the last twenty-five years that I’ve given it my full attention, it scares me what I would see if they actually had full, unaccountable range to do everything in their socialist dictatorial playbook without consequence of losing power.
And I live in California, so I know whereof what I speak.
If Our Side doesn’t blow it, by the end of the year we could be in a good position to help heal and repair the severe damage that has been inflicted upon us in less than two years by an incompetent puppet, a cackling do-nothing idiot, and two Houses bent on their slobbering desire to rule with impunity.
God give Us the strength and endurance to survive the next seven months.
IF the left had their way, THERE WOULD NO LONGER BE a democracy.. IT WOULD BE A TYRANNY OF THEM.