The perpetually outraged Brian Stelter is outraged yet again. After Donald Trump lambasted CNN and the “fake news media” at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Friday, Stelter fumed, “The demagoguery continues. This was all about us versus them. I think we heard it in almost every sentence. Us versus them.”
The CNN journalist complained, “He tried to divide the real media from the fake news media, suggesting CNN is fake news and unspecified others are real news.” In the speech, Trump promised to “do something” about fake news. Stelter saw this as a threat, wondering, “A lot of journalists got a chill up their spine hearing that sentence. Is that just normal bluster from the President?”
Stelter speculated:
Is that just normal bluster from the President? It could be just normal bluster. He's just complaining. But to say 'we're going to do something about it,' it's curious. Because so far all he's really done is complained about the coverage. He hasn't taken actions against news organizations. So, that sentence stood out to me from this speech.
Stelter also laughably insisted, “But let's just, for the record, let’s make clear: He said that journalists make up stories and make up sources. There's no evidence of that.”
Really? Like when the New York Times used a fake Michael Flynn Twitter account in a recent story and then the journalist involved repeated it on CBS This Morning? For more on fake news, go here.
A partial transcript is below:
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At this Hour With Kate Bolduan
2/24/17
11:13KATE BOLDUAN: And speaking of the media, Brian Stelter, to you, he railed on the media. He doubled down on that the media is the enemy of the people line. And yet this also comes at a time when we look at the latest Quinnipiac University poll which came out yesterday, more people trust the media than trust Donald Trump. Now, obviously there is a big break along party lines here. But what do you make of him doing that? It seems to certainly work well for him, at least with his base.
BRIAN STELTER: The demagoguery continues. This was all about us versus them. I think we heard it in almost every sentence. Us versus them. And that's true with the media. He tried to divide the real media from the fake news media, suggesting CNN is fake news and unspecified others are real news. So, what he's trying to do even there is divide, create a division between the sources he like and the sources he doesn’t like. But let's just, for the record, let’s make clear: He said that journalists make up stories and make up sources. There's no evidence of that. When we have anonymous sources, our bosses know who they are and there's very careful research and vetting that goes on. Journalists do not make up stories and sources. Once in a while, there are bad apples in a news organization, I can count them on one hand of the cases we know about and when that happens there are penalties. But journalists don't make up sources. One more point about polls, he said journalists make up polls.
That is completely untrue. People work really hard using scientific methods to conduct these polls. And finally, one sentence I think we're going to need to probe in more detail, he said the media doesn't represent the people. It never will represent the people, and we're going to do something about it. A lot of journalists got a chill up their spine hearing that sentence. Is that just normal bluster from the President? It could be just normal bluster. He's just complaining. But to say we're going to do something about it. It's curious, because so far all he's really done is complained about the coverage. He hasn't taken actions against news organizations. So, that sentence stood out to me from this speech.
