America would benefit from a journalist class more intent on doing their job reporting the news and letting citizens determine how to respond. Pictured: Former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. Photo Credit: Ronna McDaniel/X.
On the evening of the Iowa caucus in January, a triumphant Donald Trump delivered a speech celebrating his victory, congratulating his opponents, and proposing an agenda moving forward. The cable news networks covering the event decided that Trump’s words could misinform the listening public. The gullibility of the American electorate, in the minds of these journalists, rests alone in the millions of people who support the Republican Party in general and Trump specifically. It never crosses the minds of these geniuses that many people have become mistrustful of what they hear after several decades of listening to lies and being told they (Trump supporters) are the problem. The talking heads on these national programs censored the former president, interrupted his speech to correct him, and went to great lengths explaining the need to do so.
MSNBC, the overlords who employ the likes of Joy Reid, Al Sharpton, Jenn Psaki, and Rachel Maddow, decided to Maddow inform her listeners that the channel could not air “lies.” She reported, “At this point in the evening, the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech. We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important.”
Thanks, MSNBC. Your devotion to the truth matches your world-class hypocrisy. Here is a network that promotes the tropes of Reid taking a stand against a public official running for office in the “world’s greatest democracy.” Reid has a list of worst moments to rival any local news reporter, never mind one on a network fed into millions of homes. Her reference to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as “Uncle Clarence” serves as one of many times she has disparaged black conservatives.
In another beauty, Reid explained the data website FiveThirtyEight as a tribute to George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore in 2000. Unfortunately, Reid, who hails from Florida, messed up this tweet further, saying, “Republican SCOTUS reversed the 2000 election.” Wrong again, Reid. FiveThirtyEight refers to the number of seats in the Bicameral Federal Legislature, and SCOTUS merely stopped the endless recounts Gore’s team requested that always ended up with Bush ahead. Why let facts get in the way? If I had space, I could write for some time chronicling the many misadventures with the truth that Ms. Reid supplies daily.
The importance of Trump speaking after Iowa bears little impact right now. As the election proceeds into the summer and the fall campaign, the efforts of the legacy media to shape the election demand vigilance. My suspicions of Trump’s claims about the 2020 election aside, the media’s efforts to ensure an election outcome they like look undeniable in retrospect. In the previous election, they chose to ignore most of the news surrounding Hunter Biden’s corruption and focus on Trump’s COVID missteps, erratic staff changes, and thoughtless Tweets. Trump owns the poor messaging of his campaign, but the media’s efforts to slant the information provided, withhold the facts they know, and cover up for lawless actions leave voters uninformed and lacking the details required to determine the truth. Moving to 2024, as Reagan might say, “Here (they) go again.”
The network’s latest misstep concerns hiring former Republican National Committee (RNC) Head Ronna McDaniel. McDaniel’s hiring quickly led to her firing. Why was McDaniel’s tenure at the Peacock subsidiary so short? The on-air talent, including Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow, could not bear the tarnishing of their journalistic reputations. According to them, McDaniel overstepped news reporting ethics because she perpetuated the Trump election lies of 2020. Given their current roster of talent, the question begs itself how McDaniel somehow crosses the line of journalistic integrity when a quick review of those reporting for the network reveals a dumping ground of political hacks with multiple skeletons rattling in their closets. Perhaps we can start with Al Sharpton, who incited an antisemitic riot in 1995 at Freddy’s Fashion Mart.
How about Brian Williams? He used to anchor NBC Nightly News but now plies his trade for the junior partners after being demoted for fabricating a story about being engaged in combat while covering the war in Iraq. Reid, again, claims that homophobic slurs appeared on her webpage because a time traveller went back in time and altered the commentary. Maddow, again, a leading proponent of RussiaGate, a story that proved to be a media fantasy about Russian machinations installing Donald Trump into the presidency. Every single night, Maddow promoted that lie on her MSNBC show. Jen Psaki, the former spokesperson for President Joe Biden, whose nightly propaganda show repeats the White House talking points for the day. Simone Sanders, a former communications director for Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice-President Kamala Harris, Lawrence O’Donnell, who describes himself as a “European Socialist.” None of these people trip the alarm at MSBNC, but Ronna McDaniel sets off the sirens.
The legacy media has a long track record of rising in chorus when their employers give voice to someone from the right side of the political spectrum. In 2020, a Tom Cotton editorial in the New York Times provoked a staff uproar. Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, urged Trump to send in the military to restore calm in many American cities. Recently Politico, the digital newspaper based in Washington, DC, dared to run a Ben Shapiro column only to face relentless criticism. The Left has driven themselves mad over Trump. They have abandoned any sense of fair play, objective reporting, or honest assessment of information.
Sharpton formally secured a timeslot on MSNBC in 2011 and has held court since. Regardless of his uneasy relationship with the truth, the network has had no trouble allowing him to repeat his lies, give his version of the truth, and continue the same kind of weird reporting that allowed him to lock up a position in the first place. Along with Joe Scarborough, Psaki, O’Donnell, and Chris Hayes, the network, known primarily for its distaste for Trump, believes that taking principled stands against the former president increases their ratings. Sadly, they have forsaken respectable reporting standards to ensure their bottom line pays the freight. In their eagerness to point out the many whoppers, Trump has told, posted, and alleged, they assert that protecting democracy justifies their exaggeration of stories, fabrication of information, withholding of facts, and twisting of details to worsen the effect of what Trump has said or done. This latest tempest provides further proof.
Moving forward, the likelihood of things changing is remote. Still, for a network to get on its high horse and decide that one particular candidate or the hire of someone who worked for him must be singled out and impeded from speaking to a watching audience confirms the notion that we live in a dystopian and repressive age when those who deliver the news lie as readily as the ones they report about. The mandate of MSNBC rests in communicating the story and letting the people decide what to believe. Somewhere between facts and events, the truth loiters. MSNBC has proven itself incapable and unwilling to admit the truth unless it pays tribute to its entrenched and procured viewpoint. The American public does not require more moralizing from top-shelf hypocrites. America would benefit from a journalist class more intent on doing their job reporting the news and letting citizens determine how to respond. Sadly, once again, MSNBC has proven itself first in hypocrisy and last in honesty.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
