This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features two of the media’s self-appointed fact police who feel their role is to call out President Trump.
Says Dan Rather, “if journalists cower, then how long can we sing we’re ‘The home of the brave’?”
And CNN’s Brian Stelter added, “this ridiculous rhetoric has to stop.”
It all went down on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday when the talk turned to arming teachers, as is done to some degree in eight states already.
Brian Stelter: “He’s promoting this idea of arming more and more teachers. Let’s look at how he framed this discussion at CPAC.”
President Trump at CPAC: “The teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened.”
Stelter: “This ridiculous rhetoric has to stop. This is part of Trump’s fantasyland….We’ve got to provide the proper context for these ridiculous quotes that are out there. Even if President Trump prefers to live in a fantasyland, journalists have to at least try to help him see the reality. Joining me now is Dan Rather, former anchor of the CBS Evening News. He currently anchors The News with Dan Rather on The Young Turks streaming network….”
Stelter, given that Trump’s false claims are so well established: “Do you think there’s less use then in journalists trying to check the false claims?”
Dan Rather: “Not only do I think it’s useful, I think it’s imperative now more than ever is when the press needs to be a kind of truth squad for this and every other president. It’s perhaps more important with President Trump because there are more untruths to set record straight. But if journalists cower, as many in Congress – both some Republicans and some Democrats in Congress – are cowering with the NRA, if journalists cower, then how long can we sing we’re ‘the home of the brave’?”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Not sure which is more ridiculous: CNN putting up Dan Rather as an expert on truth or Rather presuming that, after his ‘memogate’ hit job on former President George W. Bush, anyone would take him seriously as a barometer of truth. But I guess Stelter and Rather live in their own ‘fantasyland,’ where attacking those already much-demonized by the media, represents some sort of bravery.”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
