When someone in the elitist media is accused of a pro-Trump bias, PBS News Hour won’t consider having on any conservative media critics (like NewsBusters) to discuss it. Instead, they routinely turn to CNN’s Brian Stelter to echo their thoughts on how the media should maintain a fierce anti-Trump bias.
On Monday night, PBS host William Brangham asked this unintentionally funny question: "In your view, as a media analyst and critic, does it feel like a lopsided piece of journalism or does it feel like it lives up to 60 Minutes' normal standards?"
Lopsided liberalism is their normal standard! Stelter implied it, that being fiercely anti-Trump is normal:
STELTER: I think, if this segment had aired one or two or three years ago, people would have said it's a normal 60 Minutes segment. It is in line with CBS standards. There's nothing particularly unusual about the segment.
However, we now live in this very politically heated time, where Paramount is under tremendous pressure from the Trump administration and Paramount is trying to cozy up to the Trump administration because of various deals that are in the works.
Bari Weiss has been an opinion editor at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, but Brangham implied to PBS viewers that she's not a journalist! Where are the fact checkers?
BRANGHAM: Someone who was privy to some of these internal conversations at CBS spoke to one of my colleagues and said this, that: "Bari Weiss is not a journalist, and she has just confirmed that for all the world to see."
She herself has, again, defended this decision and said the piece will run when it feels appropriate. This is -- she is the editor in chief. What have you been hearing from within CBS about the fallout from this move?
STELTER: Many CBS staffers say this is the moment they have feared all year long, with corporate meddling and political pressure tainting the journalism at CBS. They fear it's a blow to the network's credibility…. The broader concern among CBS staffers will remain. And that is that the company is vulnerable to political pressure.
Every few days, President Trump complains about 60 Minutes. He did it again on Friday night. He complains about the owners of Paramount. Is there a firewall in place between the corporation and the newsroom? That remains the giant question.
Notice how they complain about "political pressure tainting the journalism," as if the least political journalism is the most aggressively biased journalism. They don't mind political pressure from the left, that doesn't "taint" anything. But conservative pressure? It's....a cancer?
BRANGHAM: Where do you think this ends? Does this continue to be a cancer inside CBS, or will this too blow over?
STELTER: The journalism will continue to speak for itself, and the reporting will continue to get out, as we have seen today, in spite of some attempts to stop it or to pause it.
And this is something that is part of a broader free speech and First Amendment test that we're living through in the U.S. We're at the end of the first year of Trump 2.0. And I would say the media is largely winning, largely succeeding, largely passing that stress test. But the test is real, and we see that test under way right now at CBS.
