Editor's Note: The following has been adapted with the author's permission from its original publication on Carolina Culture Warrior.
The ABC program Quantico is run by a far-left man named Joshua Safran, who has used the program to promote his progressive agenda. A recent episode tackled the fake news problem that has been talked about since the election ended:
ALEX: Who are you, and why do these private contractors want to kill you?
MALORY: My name is Malory Haynes. I worked for Senator Lewis Baynard. Until a few days ago, I was on his payroll as a media guru, but that’s not what I did.
RYAN: What did you do?
MALORY: I created stories that weren’t always based in facts. You know that bakery in Richmond? Well, we said that the owners wouldn’t make a cake for a veteran’s return home because they thought that U.S. Troops were murderers. But it was — it was just to shore up military support for the senator’s re-election.
RYAN: Somebody thought the story was real and shot the bakery up. 11 people died.
MALORY: And ever since then, Senator Baynard’s people have been trying to get rid of any connection between him and the fake news, including me.
ALEX: So, what are you doing here, hiding in Brookwell?
MALORY: My parents live here, just down the block. It’s ironic, isn’t it? They use fake news to get the girl who created fake news for them.
RYAN: They clear out the town and grab you. No one would know. It’d just look like she left during the evacuation and disappeared.
ALEX: Shh, shh.
In the show, ‘Senator Baynard’ is basically a Republican. Painting fake news as the fault of Republicans is incomplete and pathetic. A recent story on CBS’s 60 Minutes unintentionally debunked the narrative of only conservatives purveying and/or falling for fake stories:
JEFF GREEN, INTERNET ENTREPRENEUR: So the first thing that we found out is that it is definitely a phenomenon that affects both sides.
SCOTT PELLEY, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: Liberals and conservatives?
GREEN: Yes. There is no question they’re both affected.
PELLEY: One fake story green examined claimed that the Congress was plotting to overthrow President Trump. He was surprised to learn that right-leaning fake news overwhelmingly attracted readers in their 40s and 50s. And he found that fake news readers on the left were more likely to be affluent and college educated.
GREEN: That shocked me.
PELLEY: Why?
GREEN: I think I thought the same way that many Americans perhaps think is that fake news was a phenomenon that only tricked the uneducated. Not true. Just not — the data shows it’s just not true.
As you may know, the Media Research Center has done a fantastic job documenting Mr. Green’s point in that CBS story. Joshua Safran – the executive producer of Quantico – has done a huge disservice by exploiting and distorting this controversial topic.
Enough is enough with these broadcast networks who push propaganda down our throats masquerading as entertainment. Both sides of the political spectrum can debate fake news respectfully and try to find common ground.
Put simply, this Quantico case is disheartening. It’s no accident that it aired on ABC, which is propaganda central in the USA. It is also parent company Disney’s least successful brand. Now that Disney has extended Bob Iger’s contract as CEO to 2019, maybe he should use this opportunity to address Safran’s propaganda.
