During a discussion on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” Wednesday morning, a liberal TV host let slip her view of what the media’s “job” is, and it isn’t “to report the news.”
In a discussion about fears that President Donald Trump is “trying to control the media,” co-host Mika Brzezinski complained that Trump is trying to do her job. Namely, to “actually control exactly what people think.”
“Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts,” Brzezinski said. “And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much so that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.” (emphasis added)
To be fair, Brzezinski later tried to clarify her remarks: “Today I said it’s the media’s job to keep President Trump from making up his own facts, NOT that it’s our job to control what people think.”
Today I said it's the media's job to keep President Trump from making up his own facts, NOT that it's our job to control what people think.
— Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) February 22, 2017
I accept her clarification, that she was trying to say that but accidentally uttered something else. The problem is, she did actually say it.
Many media outlets are right to call out President Trump for insisting on things that frankly aren’t true, but the kind of elitism Brzezinski seemed to be endorsing — that it is the job of the liberal media establishment to “control exactly what people think” — is itself a major reason Trump made it to the White House in the first place. Even though that’s not what the MSNBC co-host was trying to say, that’s what came out, and millions of Americans would likely believe her original comment was a Freudian slip, admitting what she really sees as the truth.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member