There was a bit of a dustup over on the Left side of the American political spectrum last week that I found somewhat amusing.
As most of you know, I have been writing professionally about liberal bias in the mainstream media for most of the 21st century. It had bothered me for my first 15 or so years as a conservative activist (I started during the Reagan administration), so I finally started venting about it online when even getting online was an adventure.
It was a rather fortunate area of focus for me to choose, as I will never run out of material.
Back to the Dems' family squabble. During one of his many unfortunate off-leash appearances last week, Joe Biden bristled at a reporter's question, and slurred something about wishing that the reporters would "play by the rules a little bit."
Oh-oh, Grandpa just let out a secret.
The brave members of our faux journalist class couldn't let the rubes in the hinterlands believe that those who cover the president were bound by some sort of pinky swear and or blood oath with the Democratic National Committee. A strongly worded press release was issued, which Chris wrote about last Friday:
The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) begs to differ with the president on the “rules” that he insists are there for reporters to follow. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, the WHCA president, issued a statement saying as much.
“The White House Correspondents’ Association believes it is in the public interest to make clear that at a presidential press conference, at home or abroad, there are no preconditions regarding question topics,” the statement began.
“While the White House does determine the number of reporters the president will recognize, it is up to professional journalists to decide what to ask,” O’Donnell continued. “Any leader may prefer that reporters ask only one question or ask only about a topic that is of most interest to the president or another world leader, but a free press functions independently.”
She concluded the statement with what sounds like a barb at Biden: “WHCA would welcome more opportunities to pose a range of questions to the president in a press conference setting.”
Whatevs, Toots.
Also, you can see that I was kidding about it being strongly worded. The press kiddies know that Gramps gets angry easily this days.
Having anyone who is employed by NBC News championing objectivity and a lack of an agenda is akin to partying for a week with Keith Richards in 1977 and hearing him extoling the virtues of teetotaling. There's bias, there's egregious bias, then there is the news organization that sticks Joy Reid in front of a camera five nights a week.
Ms. O'Donnell and her colleagues can pretend that there aren't rules from the Biden camp or the DNC all they want, but the truth is that anyone in the White House press pool not named Peter Doocy (or that one foreign dude they never call on) is totally in the bag for President LOLEightyonemillion.
Watch any of the press conferences that are presided over by White House Spokesditz Karine Jean-Pierre. It's like she's facing a pitching machine loaded with nothing but softballs. When Peter Doocy does get a chance to play hardball with a serious question, KJP either channels her boss and throws a fit, or she suddenly remembers that she has to wrap things up.
One only has to pay attention to the Dem-friendly talking points that are repeated in chorus by the major mainstream media outlets to see that somebody got a memo. The NBC, CBS, and ABC evening news broadcasts essentially parrot the front page of The New York Times, which I have been calling "The official publication of the Democratic National Committee" for years now.
I've written many times that the Dems' flying monkeys in the mainstream media used to be more crafty and coy with their bias. That went out the window in 2016; they don't even try to hide it anymore. That's why I had tidal waves of incredulity washing over me when I read O'Donnell's statement.
What makes the MSM bias so insidious is that nobody admits it. I work for a biased media company, and it's a lot of fun to be truthful about that. The MSMers are still pretending that they're journalists when in reality they are barely competent script readers.
And we know who's writing the script.
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