Despite hosting a show that supposedly scrutinizes the media, Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter is pretty sensitive to any media criticism not aimed at Fox News. So naturally, he couldn’t understand why his guest, Bari Weiss, claimed the media self-censored stories that didn’t fit a certain political framework.
Weiss, a former opinion editor and writer for the New York Times famously left behind her career at the prestigious outlet in 2020 because of the paper’s intolerance to any view but the far left’s. She now publishes a popular newsletter on Substack called “Common Sense.” On Stelter’s Sunday show, Weiss argued the world had “gone mad” and the media was complicit:
STELTER: You write there are tens of millions of Americans who aren't on the hard left or the hard, right, who feel the world has gone mad. So, in what ways has the world gone mad?
BARI WEISS, AUTHOR AND FOUNDER, COMMON SENSE: Well, you know, when you have the chief reporter on the beat of COVID for "The New York Times" talking about how questioning or pursuing the question of the lab leak is racist, the world has gone mad.
(She was referring to New York Times’ lead COVID-19 beat reporter, Apoorva Mandavilli who last May demanded people to stop discussing the lab leak theory because it was “racist.”) Weiss continued revealing the truth the media doesn't want to admit:
When you're not able to say out loud and in public that there are differences between men and women, the world has gone mad.
When we're not allowed to acknowledge that rioting is rioting, and it is bad, and that silence is not violence, but violence is violence, the world has gone mad.
When we're not able to say that Hunter Biden's laptop is a story worth pursuing, the world has gone mad. When in the name of progress, young school children, as young as kindergarten, are being separated in public schools because of their race, and that is called progress rather than segregation, the world has gone mad.
That sure hits close to home for CNN. The "fiery, but mostly peaceful" riot defenders were too cowardly to even defend their own crew when they were attacked by left-wing mobs. And Hunter Biden's laptop? No one in the media wanted to touch that story: CNN least of all. But Stelter did rave over Hunter's memoir, along with beg the media to spend less time on President Biden's colossal failures and more time playing up his agenda. But he's not partisan, he's pro-truth.
Stelter feigned confusion. “Who’s the people stopping the conversation?” he asked, puzzled. Weiss suggested, “People let work at networks, frankly, like the one I'm speaking on right now who try and claim that you know, it was -- it was racist to investigate the lab leak theory. It was, I mean, let's just pick an example.”
The CNN host pretended he had no idea what Weiss was talking about. “[Y]ou say -- you say we're not allowed to talk about these things. But they're all over the internet.” He added, “I can Google them and I can find them everywhere. I've heard about every story you mentioned.”
Ironically, Stelter just made Weiss’s case for her. CNN knows about Hunter Biden’s laptop, for instance, they just don’t want to report on it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why. He confirmed that with his next sentence: “So, I'm just suggesting, of course, people are allowed to cover whatever they want to cover.”
But Weiss pushed back, saying that the media didn’t cover stories that have been “deemed the third rail by the mainstream institutions,” fearing retaliation from a left-wing mob. “And so what happens is a kind of internal self-censorship,” she analyzed. So they instead went along with what the rest of the MSM and left-leaning institutions deemed acceptable:
This is something that I saw over and over again when I was at the New York Times. People saying to themselves, you know what, why should I die on that hill? Why should I take the three or four weeks that it takes to smuggle through an op-ed that doesn't suit the conventional narrative?
I might, as well, commission the 5,000th op-ed saying that Donald Trump is a moral monster. What's going on is the transformation of these sense-making institutions of American life. It's the news media, it's the publishing house, it is the Hollywood studios, it's our universities, and they are narrowing in a radical way, what's acceptable to say, and what isn't.
Not wanting to dwell on the media criticism, Stelter shifted the remainder of the conversation more broadly to cancel culture at large and its effects on society.
But during her appearance on the Reliable Sources podcast this week, Weiss called out the cowardice of her former employer again, for ousting an editor for publishing an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton [R-AR] last year.
Contact Reliable Sources’ advertiser Northwestern Mutual at the Conservatives Fight Back page here.
Read the transcript below:
CNN
Reliable Sources
10/17/21
BRIAN STELTER: Writer and Editor, Bari Weiss, left her post in "The New York Times" last year saying it was an illiberal environment, a culture where journalistic curiosity could not be pursued.
Now, one year later, she has launched a publication called "Common Sense" via Substack. She says she has over 100,000 subscribers, some of them were already paying even though all the content is still free.
She says it's an escape from the madness of traditional media. And here is what she meant by that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STELTER: You write there are tens of millions of Americans who aren't on the hard left or the hard, right, who feel the world has gone mad. So, in what ways has the world gone mad?
BARI WEISS, AUTHOR AND FOUNDER, COMMON SENSE: Well, you know, when you have the chief reporter on the beat of COVID for "The New York Times" talking about how questioning or pursuing the question of the lab leak is racist, the world has gone mad.
When you're not able to say out loud and in public that there are differences between men and women, the world has gone mad.
When we're not allowed to acknowledge that rioting is rioting, and it is bad, and that silence is not violence, but violence is violence, the world has gone mad.
When we're not able to say that Hunter Biden's laptop is a story worth pursuing, the world has gone mad. When in the name of progress, young school children, as young as kindergarten, are being separated in public schools because of their race, and that is called progress rather than segregation, the world has gone mad.
There are dozens of examples that I could share with you and within your viewers --
STELTER: And you often say -- you say allowed --
WEISS: Everyone's sort of knows this and --
STELTER: -- you say we're not allowed --
WEISS: It's the cast on between --
STELTER: -- we're not able, who's the people stopping the conversation? Who are they?
WEISS: People let work at networks, frankly, like the one I'm speaking on right now who try and claim that you know, it was -- it was racist to investigate the lab leak theory. It was, I mean, let's just pick an example.
STELTER: But who said that on CNN? But I'm just saying though when you say allowed, I just think it's a provocative thing you say -- you say -- you say we're not allowed to talk about these things. But they're all over the internet --
WEISS: Brian, let's --
STELTER: I can Google them and I can find them everywhere. I've heard about every story you mentioned.
WEISS: Of course.
STELTER: So, I'm just suggesting, of course, people are allowed to cover whatever they want to cover.
WEISS: But you and I both know, and it would be delusional to claim otherwise that touching your finger to an increasing number of subjects that have been deemed the third rail by the mainstream institutions, and increasingly by some of the tech companies will lead to reputational damage, perhaps you losing your job, your children, sometimes being demonized as well. And so, what happens is a kind of internal self-censorship.
This is something that I saw over and over again when I was at the New York Times. People saying to themselves, you know what, why should I die on that hill? Why should I take the three or four weeks that it takes to smuggle through an op-ed that doesn't suit the conventional narrative?
I might, as well, commission the 5,000th op-ed saying that Donald Trump is a moral monster. What's going on is the transformation of these sense-making institutions of American life. It's the news media, it's the publishing house, it is the Hollywood studios, it's our universities, and they are narrowing in a radical way, what's acceptable to say, and what isn't.
And you and I both know, there doesn't need to be an edict from the C suite in order for people to feel that. All they need is to watch an example. Let me give you one example….
