Jim Acosta has a new book to peddle (I won’t link to it here but I’m sure you can find it on a quick search if you’re interested), and he’s been using his platform at CNN to promote it. He recently sat down with Don Lemon to discuss the “dangerous” nature of covering the President, particularly if you have anything critical to say about him. The two-person choir was singing in unison, assuring everyone that CNN has no inherent bias, does not “hate” President Trump and certainly doesn’t support Democrats over Republicans. (Perish the thought.) It’s a rather brief exchange, but the tone-deaf nature of these denials was really something to see. (Free Beacon)
CNN host Don Lemon on Tuesday attempted to bat down the notion that CNN has bias against President Donald Trump, adding they do not favor Democrats…
Acosta agreed with Lemon’s comments and claimed that just because CNN is “pro-truth” doesn’t mean they are “anti-Trump.” He went on to talk about the theme of his book and how the media is “not the enemy of the people.”
“We are defenders of the people, and we want to defend the people because we are devoted to the people,” Acosta said. “We are not here to spin things or color things a certain way. We’re here to get the way people reliable, accurate information on a daily basis. That’s why we all come into work everyday. We get a high out of it, and I just want to make sure we keep this going as a country.”
Let’s go to the video. It’s less than two minutes long.
Do these baffling claims really merit any fact checking? I suppose so, because large portions of the country only catch up on the news sporadically and likely don’t have much experience in ferreting out media bias. Unfortunately, there are any number of people who might see an article in any given newspaper or catch a segment on a cable news network (whether they are of the left or right leaning variety) and simply assume it’s the unvarnished truth.
The Free Beacon has been covering this beat for a while now and they have no trouble summoning up stories where both Lemon and Acosta have basically been fifth column warriors for the Democratic Party and exhibited a rancid disdain for the President. One stellar set of examples includes the time that Lemon said he wouldn’t be able to shake Trump’s hand at the funeral of George H. W. Bush. Acosta’s record of shouting out highly unprofessional remarks toward or about the President during press conferences is equally well documented.
But it’s not just these two residents of the State of Denial that should be in the spotlight. While I won’t say that every journalist at CNN is steeped in bias, the majority of the network follows the same patterns. As you probably know, they rely heavily on the reporting of both the New York Times and the Washington Post, frequently having reporters from both papers on the air. And it’s not just that they don’t wind up covering Republicans and Democrats the same way. They don’t even try.
Do you recall when we looked at the number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sent to Trump’s EPA under Scott Pruitt during the first two years of this administration? There were more than 150 FOIA requests during that 24-month period, covering everything up to and including which cafeteria Pruitt had lunch in and how much he spent. Compare that to the final four years of the Obama administration when his EPA received a whopping one request from the WaPo and a dozen from the Gray Lady.
CNN happily follows the lead of those newspapers on a wide variety of topics and the results are obvious. Of course they don’t deliver the same sort of grilling to Democrats when they are in power. They don’t even bother looking or asking questions. Why upset the apple cart when things are going your way, right?
And yet Lemon and Acosta will sit there in front of the cameras, promoting a new book about how horrible Donald Trump is and congratulating themselves on what a fine job they’re doing. And they don’t even break out laughing when they do it. (Unless, of course, they’re waiting until the cameras are off.)
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