Media Bias Debate
During a contentious interview with Florida Senator Marco Rubio on Friday morning, MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle grilled the Republican lawmaker on his criticism of media outlets pushing Chinese propaganda about the coronavirus pandemic. Rubio pushed back hard and doubled down on his condemnation of journalists parroting talking points from China’s authoritarian communist regime.
I confess to a certain self-interest in today's column. The media, especially newspapers, are in trouble. Conservatives like myself have been relentless in attacking their collective bias over the years, but as more of them fold or reduce staff, it is crucial the institution be saved. Margaret Sullivan, a columnist for The Washington Post, has suggested that federal bailout money should be allocated to newspapers. That is an amusing suggestion since the world's richest man, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, owns the Post. He could infuse some of his own money to prop up that reliably liberal paper.
On Morning Joe, Axios.com CEO Jim VandeHei denounced the "news pollution" of President Trump, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh. He says we have a societal problem of "information inequality," and that the governors of Florida and Georgia delayed issuing lockdown orders because they were living inside an "information bubble."
It’s unfortunate that CNN Prime Time host Chris Cuomo had contracted the coronavirus and had to be quarantined in his basement. But it was only a matter of time before he and the network exploited it to bash President Trump. They made their move on Wednesday when they used Cuomo’s diagnosis to dredge up the long-debunked claim that the President had called the virus a “hoax.” He even went to a disgustingly dark place and suggested that we might not survive with Trump leading the country.
Liberal media talking heads on Twitter continue to spew garbage at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for being invited by President Donald Trump to speak at a coronavirus task force briefing. Conservative Fox News host Greg Gutfeld went nuclear and unleashed on the liberal media on Twitter. “[W]hen people do great things to help others, the media mocks their religion,” Gutfeld tweeted March 30. “[I]magine, if it were the reverse: [S]omeone did EVIL things, and then you mentioned their religious extremism. The media would be calling you a bigot. [S]crew these hypocritical assholes.”
On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough says, regarding the coronavirus, that "everybody saw this coming in early January." Yet on Scarborough's own Morning Joe, on March 10th, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus. On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, criticizing President Trump, said:
Along with Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze), there’s perhaps no one more capable of eviscerating the liberal media’s partisan dishonesty with a sense of humor than Fox News Channel host Greg Gutfeld. Between monologues on his eponymous Saturday night show and Tuesday’s The Five, Gutfeld derided the media firefighters as “dumbbells….who [view] themselves as the protagonist in every issue, and you always the bad guy” and have “framed this [coronavirus] pandemic as their divisive playground.”
The liberal media seem to be ignoring coverage of communist China’s role in mishandling the coronavirus pandemic. But the media will sometimes praise China as a “global leader.” Prominent Twitter conservative personality, SpectatorUSA contributor, former Fox News contributor and podcast host Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) was having none of it.
Appearing on Washington D.C.-area radio station WMAL’s Morning on the Mall on Tuesday, White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci condemned the media for trying to “pit” him against President Trump in the midst of the pandemic.
Silver linings accompany most catastrophic events, and one major one with the coronavirus is the remarkable way Americans (and people throughout the world) have come together to fight this outbreak. Though the stock market has reflected a nation in panic, in other respects Americans, for the most part, have reacted responsibly, unselfishly and cooperatively, and I pray we are making substantial progress toward flattening the growth curve of this virus.
Not long after President Trump and the coronavirus task force concluded the heated press conference in the White House briefing room on Friday, CNN host John King kicked off the network’s likely obsession over one moment: Trump’s argument with NBC White House correspondent Peter Alexander. King’s first reaction was to curse out the President, uncensored, and on live TV by calling it a “bullshit attack.”
During Friday’s coronavirus press conference at the White House, NBC correspondent Peter Alexander decided that it was more important to get into an argument with President Trump than actually keep the American people informed about the global pandemic. The reporter began his nasty line of questioning by accusing the President of spreading “false hope” – until Trump shut him down.