Ted Koppel: Trump's 'Not Mistaken' That Liberal Media Are Blatantly 'Out to Get Him'

March 18th, 2019 8:38 PM

Wow! This somehow slipped beneath the radar but it is highly significant considering who said it. In fact if you read just what the person said, you might even think that most of it was spoken by someone at NewsBusters. However, what is significant, is the words were uttered by former ABC News star Ted Koppel on March 7 during a discussion with Marvin Kalb at the Carnegie Endowment for  International Peace which was excerpted by Nicholas Ballasy who attended the event.

 


I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days, when you talk about the Washington Post these days, we’re not talking about the New York Times of 50 years ago. We are not talking about the Washington Post of 50 years ago. We’re talking about organizations that I believe have, in fact, decided as organizations that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.

Correct, Ted. Both newspapers were very liberal 50 years ago but they weren't the flat out advocates that they are now. Back then they at least made an attempt to present an image of journalistic integrity. Nowadays, they have have dropped any pretense of neutrality and placed their opinions square into the news stories.

We have things appearing on the front page of the New York Times right now that never would have appeared 50 years ago. Analysis, commentary on the front page. I remember sitting at the breakfast table with my wife during the campaign after the Access Hollywood tape came out and the New York Times, and I will not offend any of you here by using the language but you know exactly what words were used and they were spelled out on the front page of the New York Times.

For more on this, see NicholasBallasy.com.

When it came to the task of keeping Donald Trump out of the White House all rules as well as journalism ethics were eagerly discarded, not just by the New York Times but also much of the rest of the mainstream media as well.

I turned to my wife and I said the Times is absolutely committed to making sure that this guy does not get elected. So his perception that the establishment press is out to get him doesn’t mean that great journalism is not being done. It is. But the notion that most of us look upon Donald Trump as being an absolute fiasco, he’s not mistaken in that perception and he’s not mistaken when so many of the liberal media, for example, described themselves as belonging to the Resistance.

Correct.  Much of the liberal media turned into unhinged Keith Olbermann type members of the "Resistance" upon the election of Trump. Think Jim Acosta as just one example.

What does that mean? That’s not said by people who consider themselves reporters, objective reporters of facts. That’s the kind of language that’s used by people who genuinely believe, and I rather suspect with some justification, that Donald Trump is bad for the United States and they’re betting that the sooner he’s out of office the better they will like it. Whether that happens by virtue of indictment, impeachment or election, we’ll see. But I disagree with you, Marvin. We are not the the reservoir of objectivity that I think we were.

Okay, a bit of a liberal relapse there by Koppel with his caveat that " people who genuinely believe, and I rather suspect with some justification, that Donald Trump is bad for the United States" but he mostly redeems himself by asserting correctly that "we are not the the reservoir of objectivity that I think we were." Coming on the heels of Koppel unloading on CNN back in October, he now has become something of an iconoclastic critic of the MSM, albeit with a bit of a liberal tinge.