I & I Editorial BoardI&I Editorial
Anyone who is still clinging to the notion that the mainstream press isn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party needs to watch the exchange between premier journalist Christiane Amanpour and Republican National Committee spokeswoman Liz Harrington.
As the troubling Hunter Biden story has developed, the press’ reasons for not covering it shifted. At first, the media said they wouldn’t cover it because the veracity of the laptop and the smoking gun emails hadn’t been “verified” and speculated that it was all part of another Russian effort to get Trump elected.
After the authenticity of the laptop and at least some of the most damaging emails and texts were shown to be legitimate, and after the attempt to portray it as a Russian hoax was demolished, the press decided that it wasn’t a big enough scandal to warrant coverage, that it was just “a distraction.”
Asked about NPR’s lack of coverage of the scandal, for example, NPR Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel, said that “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions. And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
(Websters should add this definition to “distraction” – n: in media parlance, a scandal that involves a Democratic politician.)
National Review had it almost right when it said in an editorial that “Too many journalists seem to live in terror of being blamed for reporting stories that might influence voters to reelect Donald Trump.”
Seem to live in terror? Why qualify it? There is no question that the press, which has done anything and everything to ruin Trump’s presidency, will do anything and everything it can to get him out of office, including burying a big scandal involving his opponent. Nor should there be any doubt that a mainstream journalist perceived to have helped Trump would see his or her career immediately canceled.
It was Amanpour, however, who revealed the deeper reason behind the media blackout of the Biden scandal, which goes beyond hatred of Trump.
Talking with Harrington, Amanpour, at her sneering best, tries to dismiss the laptop story by once again suggesting that it’s some sort of Russian ploy. The two go back and forth about that for a while.
Then, Amanpour says this: “As you know perfectly well, I’m a journalist and a reporter and I follow the facts. And there has never been any issues in terms of corruption,” referring to the Bidens. Here is what follows:
HARRINGTON: Wait, wait, wait!
AMANPOUR: The FBI —
HARRINGTON: How do you know that?
AMANPOUR: I’m talking about reporting and any evidence. I’m talking to you now —
HARRINGTON: I would love if you guys would start doing that digging and start doing that verification.
AMANPOUR: Now, we’re not going to do your work for you. I want to ask you a question —
HARRINGTON: That’s a journalist’s job!
AMANPOUR: —contrary to what —
HARRINGTON: It’s a journalist’s job to find out if this is verified!
Play close attention to Amanpour’s statement: “We’re not going to do your work for you.”
Whether she intended to or not, she managed to perfectly encapsulate the corrupt state of the Fourth Estate.
According to Amanpour, for the mainstream media to spend time investigating a Democrat for wrongdoing amounts to a violation of journalistic standards. It is “doing Republicans’ work for them.” She just admitted that she believes a journalist’s job is to do the Democrats’ bidding.
The fact that Amanpour felt comfortable saying this on the air — and that no journalist or news outlet has criticized her for doing so — shows just how deeply embedded this sentiment is among journalists.
Once you understand that, you will understand everything about how the press covers the news these days.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
“Spiro” Biden and his son Uncle Daddy need to hold an open press conference and clear up this nefarious business.
Amanpour says this: “As you know perfectly well, I’m a journalist and a reporter and I follow the facts.
IMO the press is entitled to First Amendment protection iff it serves as a witness to the court of public opinion “to report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Anything less is perjury and should be punished.
The first step for any tyranny to take over a country is to own the press. The next step is to remove all guns. Step number one: Check. Stand by for step number two.
Blah blah blah. I’ve been hearing literally for 50 years that the government was going to take our guns away. You guys need to get over it. They’re not taking our guns away. As for the press, yes, they can do better, and people should keep reminding them that they’re biased. BUT, just because they’re biased doen’t mean they’re wrong. It just means you’re probably not getting the full story.
A free-wheeling and rambunctious America with different opinions on every possible subject, from whether Ted Williams was better than Joe DiMaggio to whether Donald Trump is better than Joe Biden, should provide a neutral forum and level playing field for all who wish to participate. But elite opinion makers, from media talking heads to entertainment empty heads to athletes with concussed heads to government officials with swelled heads, tilt the field of dreams so that their ego-driven opinions are front-and-center. We are all as engaged as the elite and as bureaucrats nurtured on the federal teat, only they don’t know it. We recoil from their attempts to educate us, the attempt itself serving as another arrogant look down their noses, as if we can’t possibly decide anything for ourselves without their input. Tilt alarms sound when life is contaminated with elitist opinion and when swamp-dwellers fashion America in their own image.
Inveighing against the majority of America’s media for acting like handmaidens to the liberal zeitgeist will not slow the onslaught, however, for those media, while often wrong are rarely in doubt. Interestingly, President Trump, like his media critics, cannot be shamed, and like them, he proclaims false equivalencies, attempting to deceive by sleight-of-tongue. The idea that either side will pupate in a chrysalis of veracity and emerge as wholly truthful is folly, notwithstanding the Potemkin edifice of concern for the republic and norms of journalistic ethics emanating from some of the reeling media.
The Bidens haven’t said the emails are genuine or fake, and why hasn’t the MSM asked them or bothered to mention the impact a president beholden to the Chinese, and/or Russians, who likely have compromising material on the Bidens, could have to the USA. I’d like to also know what the $3.5 million to Hunter was for, from the former mayor of Moscow’s wife sent it.
Why don’t you ask the Republic Senators, its their manufactured claim, if they have the evidence, why don’t they show it? Next who cares? If there was real evidence that Hunter Biden received money from Russia, or China (and there isn’t) is it a crime? Nope, and what does it have to with Joe Biden? Nothing, so why again should the mainstream media chase a story that has nothing to do with the 2020 election? Because you are trying to make it so? Again if you really wanted to know about this alleged 3.5 parent, call your Senator, or have your Senator send the evidence to the mainstream media, they havn’t, hmmm I wonder why? lol
Seems the liberal MSM’s job is to repeat Democrat disinformation, and ignore information about Democrats and what they actually do. They repeated disinformation about Trump and Russia for years, never bothering to check the validity of the material. But they won’t even cover Hunter’s emails. Then when the RNC or Guiliani (former prosecutor, former NYC mayor) provide documentation, the liberal MSM calls it “disinformation” and “propaganda”.
Yeah, most of the MSM is an arm of the DNC, and Wikipedia showed it in 2016.
Her 115 viewers were elated.
The MSM and The Democrat Party of Death 💀 and Degradation Believe Free Press means they can say anything truth or lie with no consequences! The American People are not stupid and know when we are being Played!
China paid Google a fortune to develop a system through which it could censor non-government approved messages. Now, Google is employing that same technology to censor messages it disapproves of.
For an ironic twist, please Google “oligarchy.”
Power to the people & not the Garchs!
In so far as the framers could deduce, this constitutional, democratic Republic required a free press to courageously report on the government to the less informed. They felt so strongly they codified it in the first amendment.
John Adams added that the Republic’s success required citizens who were also educated and religious because a free society would require integrity and rigor. Now that we’ve nearly eviscerated the free press, religion and education in the nation our founders risked their lives to found, perhaps we can try to get the free press thing right.
With the explosion of tech reporters, tech censure and BOTS, the journalism industry should establish minimum standards required of professional journalists and require an annual exam of license. Professional certification will not rectify human bias, but it may create an institution that is required to explain it’s professional value to the nation when bias occurs.
While they’re at it they could also require an annual financial disclosure to ensure the relative honesty of the journalist wearing the august Press Credentials like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson of the Daily Planet.
Seems that the blackout generated even more interests in the Biden scandal. Enough consumers had complained that Congress now invited the Social Media to Congress to explain their censorship of information that is not the basis for their license.