Dasha Burns may have forgotten the David Burge/Jim Treacher First Rule of Journalism. Rather than cover for John Fetterman, as so many of those in her industry have done over the past few months, Burns actually covered Fetterman’s health issues directly. In an interview yesterday that aired on MSNBC, the NBC reporter described how Fetterman had difficulty engaging in “small talk” and struggled despite the adaptive technology NBC provided for the exclusive interview:

MSNBC: John Fetterman "has a hard time understanding what he's hearing…he still has some problems, some challenges with speech…he had a hard time understanding our conversations." pic.twitter.com/EYLNVxb0Cy

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 11, 2022

BURNS: We had a monitor set up so that he could read my questions, because he still has lingering auditory processing issues as a result of the stroke, which means he has a hard time understanding what he’s hearing. Now once he reads the question, he’s able to understand. You’ll hear he also still has some problems, some challenges, with speech. And I’ll say, Katie, that just in some of the small talk prior to the interview before the closed captioning was up and running, it did seem that he had a hard time understanding our conversations.

That reporting apparently touched off enough recriminations that Today host Savannah Guthrie had Burns address the criticisms. Twitchy has collated some of those from other journalists, including those who claim to have communicated with Fetterman without any issue. Those other journalists didn’t do in-person interviews, Burns tells Guthrie, and even the campaign acknowledged that Burns was the first in-person television interview the Senate candidate has had since his stroke five months ago:

NBC's Dasha Burns hits back at liberal reporters attacking her for pointing out Fetterman can't engage in "small talk."

"Our team was the first to be in the room with Fetterman for an interview rather than via remote video conference."pic.twitter.com/x3nWEujqLF

— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) October 12, 2022

Other reporters have used remote connections for their interviews, including occasional televised interviews in the past few weeks. That allows Team Fetterman to control access and limit reporters’ ability to judge Fetterman’s cognitive skills. They couldn’t do that with Burns, which is why her perspective on this issue is far superior to that of her critics.

And this clip underscores her point — even when Fetterman used the adaptive technology in the formal interview:

"Are you committed to showing up on October 25 to debate your opponent no matter what happens?”

Fetterman: “No”

“To clarify, are you committed to showing up on October 25?"

Fetterman: “Well, yeah. Of course I’m going to show up on the 25th.” pic.twitter.com/2U8AYWQ5S4

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 12, 2022

Two points are particularly notable from this. One, why is this Fetterman’s first in-person interview for television? There are only four weeks left until Election Day, and Pennsylvania began early voting a couple of weeks ago. Normally Senate candidates go out of their way to get on TV as a means of getting their message pushed out as broadly (and cheaply) as possible.

That brings us to the second point, which is the thunderous silence from media outlets over the first point until now. That was bad enough, but now the reporters who should have spent the last several weeks reporting on Team Fetterman’s months-long attempts to dodge reporters and to refuse any transparency on his condition now are complaining about a reporter’s actual reporting. Shouldn’t they be complaining about their own lack of access and Fetterman’s attempts to hide from them? Wouldn’t they do that if the candidate involved was anything but a Democrat?

Instead of asking questions about Fetterman, these ‘journalists’ appear much more concerned about protecting him in the final weeks of the campaign. They clearly abide by the Burge/Treacher First Rule. And we should keep that in mind with each and every one of them, along with the outlets that employ them. Kudos to both Guthrie and Burns for exposing it.

Update: I should have included this, so thanks to the Milton Friedman Stan Account for the nudge.

For reference: pic.twitter.com/M3Qka5xKFe

— Milton Friedman Stan Account (@AndIllWhisperNo) October 12, 2022