Donald Trump faces on Thursday what Andre the Giant experienced most nights of his professional wrestling career: A handicap match.
Lacking the decency of so many (including the Grand Wizard, Captain Lou Albano, and Classy Freddie Blassie) in the old WWF, CNN does not acknowledge the debate as a three-on-one match or even a two-and-a-half-on-one affair. Instead, they depict the tag team of Tapper and Bash as essentially referees when even their names indicate aggressive designs. It all recalls when a heel Andre the Giant defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWF championship via a quick count from referee Dave Hebner’s evil twin Earl. (READ MORE: Is Biden On The Way Out? I’m Not So Sure.)
Tapper and Bash act as the Evil Twins here.
Earlier this week CNN anchor Kasie Hunt killed the conversation when Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavett recounted some of what Tapper has said about Trump. Hunt mischaracterized this as an “attack” on her colleague to justify the CNNsorship. The attack came earlier, and often, from CNN against Trump.
Tapper repeatedly called Trump a liar, compared him to Adolf Hitler, and for several years pushed propaganda paid for by the Democratic Party that claimed that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the presidency in 2016. The misnamed “moderator” of Thursday’s debate shared a post diagnosing Trump as “100 percent insane,” oversaw a televised segment on Trump’s penis, and refused to cover a Trump speech live because of “potentially dangerous” words therein.
To CNN, that interested observer strikes as an anchor, a moderator, i.e., not a talking head offering opinions but an even-handed journalist delivering it straight. If this were the penchant of CNN alone, then one could laugh it — and them — off. Most news networks regularly find partisans so extreme that they make their living at it and repackage them as dispassionate newsmen. This explains why so few trust them — and why their biased coverage no longer influences public opinion the way it once did.
George Stephanopoulos worked as a top aide to Michael Dukakis, Dick Gephardt, and other Democratic officeholders before becoming an advisor and spin doctor for Bill Clinton. He specialized in containing what the campaign called “bimbo eruptions.” After leaving the White House following Clinton’s reelection, Stephanopoulos strangely found an enthusiastic employer in ABC News, for whom he now anchors Good Morning America and hosts its Sunday morning political program.
Chuck Todd, long host of Meet the Press and NBC’s go-to guy on politics, got his start in journalism by working on the 1992 presidential campaign of Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). His predecessor, Tim Russert, came straight to NBC News from the staff of New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. Some may object to the idea that one’s career in the press started by serving as a lackey to politicians but is that not precisely what members of the press now do? Remarkably, Todd objects vociferously to politicos staining the purity of his adopted profession even in commentary roles. (READ MORE: Trump Shouldn’t Cozy Up To Wall Street)
“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” he told Kristen Welker regarding her March interview with Ronna Romney McDaniel. “She is now a paid contributor by NBC News. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract. She wants us to believe that she was speaking for the RNC when the RNC was paying for her. So, she has credibility issues that she still has to deal with. Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who’s paying her?”
NBC fired McDaniel. Todd, the former flunkey for liberal politicians, somehow remains under contract.
Of course, the most biased members of the media do not necessarily come straight from politics. Journalism schools provide even greater insulation and incubation for left-wing ideas than do campaigns. So, whether Jake Tapper or Christiane Amanpour or Anderson Cooper or Jim Acosta moderates this presidential debate, it probably does not make a difference — the CNN representative would push issues (abortion, “democracy,” Trump’s legal issues) favorable to Joe Biden and suppress issues (inflation, illegal immigration, international disorder) favorable to Donald Trump.
The media and consumers of media see things differently.
Only about a third of the public agreed that the media covers the most important stories and reports accurately. About two-thirds of journalists, according to the Pew Research Center, believed these two separate statements about them. Three-quarters of the public think journalists should give equal coverage to all sides. Less than half of journalists agree with this. The vast majority still agree that media members should strive to leave their personal views out of their coverage but split 55 percent to 43 percent on whether they largely can do so or are often unable to do so. (READ MORE: Could a Biden Debate Disaster Propel Newsom to the Nomination?)
Remarkably, Pew neglected to ask the journalists they polled about their partisan and ideological leanings. When sociologist John Johnstone surveyed journalists in 1971, he found about a 10 percent gap separating the number of Republicans from the greater number of Democrats working in the field. In the most recent decadal iteration of this study, which came out in 2022, the researchers conducting it report 10 times the number of Democrats in the media as Republicans.
Knowing this, the question becomes not why do citizens allow partisans masquerading as journalists to moderate presidential debates but instead why do we give monopoly power over the polity’s most important and watched discussions to the very people most likely to abuse it. Even the WWF did not allow Mr. Fuji to referee Don Muraco’s matches with Ricky Steamboat.
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