David Folkenflik
MSNBC’s self-crowned political referee, Chuck Todd, appeared to throw in the towel on enforcing D.C.’s political rules, or at least the journalistic ones. During the first segment of Monday’s MTP Daily, Todd and his panelists whined about how the media was expected to be impartial with President Trump attacking them. “But look, two generations of us as reporters. We're trained and conditioned to don't show emotion, we're the umpires and the referees.” Todd claimed. “When somebody is insisting on making you the story, what do you do?…I struggle with it.”
The sneering reaction to the death of Roger Ailes continued on CBS, Friday. NPR’s David Folkenflik attacked the Fox News founder for “fostering and exploiting divisions.” He also insisted that it was FNC that encouraged the “emphasis on opinion rather than reporting.” As though liberal journalists on ABC, CBS and NBC haven’t been doing that for decades.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik appeared on the NPR-produced midday show Here and Now on Wednesday to discuss Megyn Kelly’s move from Fox News to NBC. He twice praised her for “cannily” negotiating herself across the media spectrum -- strange new respect which might make a conservative think she’s headed straight to the left. Then came the jaw-dropper: He said she was "desperately hoping to get away from ideology" like....Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters.
NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik loves to report negative stories about Fox News, over and over again. Since July 6, he’s filed 16 negative reports on Fox News and the sexual-harassment lawsuits, leading to the departure of longtime boss Roger Ailes.
The least surprising story on Wednesday night’s All Things Considered was Folkenflik enjoying the Tuesday night Fox News fight between Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich. Like the other leftists, Folkenflik took the side of Kelly, scorning Gingrich as a finger-wagging old man losing voters for Trump.
Friday's Morning Edition on NPR spotlighted Hillary Clinton's "very few and far between" press conferences during her presidential campaign so far. David Folkenflik pointed out how it's been "more than two months" since Mrs. Clinton was confronted about her lack of pressers, and how she "suggested there are other, better ways to hear from a candidate." Folkenflik contended, "Clinton may have a point." He also speculated that "why that's the case may have something to do with [her] debacle" during a March 2015 press conference where she stumbled over her e-mail scandal.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik slammed Donald Trump as a crybaby who can't handle rude press coverage in a Tuesday interview on Morning Edition dedicated to Trump denying press credentials to The Washington Post.
Midway through the interview, when asked if Trump had a point about the tone or quality or the Post’s coverage, Folkenflik snidely said “Well, boo hoo” to the presumptive Republican nominee:
On Monday’s Morning Edition, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik traveled to an old and faithful geyser of Donald Trump mockery: the late Spy magazine, the lefty satire rag run by Graydon Carter (now running Vanity Fair magazine) and Kurt Andersen (now hosting the pretentious arts program Studio 60 on NPR stations on the weekends). The magazine debuted in 1986 and died in 1998.
It is true that Spy had a special appetite for mocking Trump to the hilt….but it’s also true that Spy did some rather unforgettable mocking of the other frontrunner in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton. NPR never went there in a seven-minute Trump-bashing segment.
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It's not every day that your hear a leader of the liberal media declare that they oppose "loaded language" in news stories, especially in The New York Times. On Wednesday's All Things Considered, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik explored how lefty sites like Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post openly declare Donald Trump is a liar, racist, and xenophobe. Former Times executive editor Jill Abramson claimed: "I am not one, especially in news stories, to advocate using loaded language."
When it came to assessing Rupert Murdoch’s decision to cede more control of his empire to his sons James and Lachlan, PBS and NPR turned to David Folkenflik, who as NPR’s media reporter is a Murdoch obsessive and author of the book Murdoch’s World.
On Thursday’s PBS NewsHour, Folkenflik floated the idea that eventually Fox News would move to the center and be “a little more measured” in its point of view. He also suggested Fox News made Murdoch look “pugilistic and mean-spirited."
On Sunday, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos discussed the fallout from the Brian Williams controversy with two prominent media critics, both of whom agreed that NBC News had badly handled Williams’ false claim that his helicopter came under enemy fire while he was reporting from Iraq in 2003. Liz Spayd, editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, insisted that NBC’s internal investigation won’t provide “enough credibility that gets attached to that kind of an investigation when the people doing it no doubt have personal connections, personal relationships with Brian Williams.”
On Wednesday night, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams apologized on air for falsely claiming that while reporting from Iraq in 2003, the helicopter he was on was hit by enemy fire. Despite Williams’ attempt to walk back his past statements, numerous media critics have called out the NBC News anchor for failing to uphold the standards expected of a network news anchor. Howard Kurtz, Fox News media analyst and host of Media Buzz, condemned Williams during an appearance on the Fox News program America’s Newsroom, and argued that “it’s very hard to fathom how a anchor of Brian Williams's stature and experience could tell the false story. And it’s created a credibility crisis for NBC News.”
It seems as though National Public Radio has joined the ranks of the liberal media championing illegal immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas following his arrest on Tuesday, July 15 for attempting to board a plane without proper documentation.
That evening, NPR’s All Things Considered did its best to promote Vargas, with co-host Audie Cornish and media correspondent David Folkenflik engaging in a cheerleading session for the illegal immigrant. Cornish began the segment by lamenting how Vargas is “a Filipino without legal status in the U.S., though he has lived in this country for more than 20 years.” [Click here to listen to the MP3 audio.]