As we demonstrated in our column this week, the networks have next to zero interest in even mentioning Louis Farrakhan, even as he calls Jewish people "termites" and just days ago led chants of "Death to America" on a trip to Iran. If Farrakhan fervently backed Trump, like an Islamic version of Kanye West, it's easy to imagine that would be different. But here's just how little the networks have done in the last 12 months, according to a Nexis search. Fox News and CNN were exceptions.
PBS NewsHour: "No documents found."
ABC News. Zero...although Whoopi Goldberg ranting in defense of Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin's funeral counts if you think The View is a "news" program.
CBS. The only item was an 85-word brief no one else would utter, on January 26:
JOHN DICKERSON: New York's Daily News reports on how a 2005 photo of then- senator Barack Obama and the nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was, quote, "suppressed." The photo taken by journalist Askia Muhammad at the meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, rather surfaced this week. The caucus raised concern the photo could impact Mr. Obama`s chances of being President. Muhammad says he handed it over to Farrakhan staff shortly afterward. The paper makes clear Mr. Obama repeatedly condemns Farrakhan`s controversial views.
NBC. One brief mention after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on the October 28 Meet the Press. Jonathan Greenblatt, the left-wing Obama-boosting head of the Anti-Defamation League, said "the attacks on George Soros are appalling, and the continued invocation of classic anti-Semitic themes," and then balanced it a tiny bit by vaguely referring to associating with "a religious leader who calls Jews termites." Chuck Todd took the note.
CHUCK TODD: -- I was going to ask you about Louis Farrakhan and what -- and the tolerance that some people on the left still have for him.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: No. Yes. This isn't an issue of left, right, it's about right and wrong....
And he went back to generic talk. Zero heat for Democrats.
MSNBC. Nexis only carries evening shows. All it had was one mention on March 9, 2018.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: We're back with the HARDBALL roundtable. Clarence, tell me something I don`t know.
PAGE: Well, watch for Louis Farrakhan to be the litmus test in this midterm election.
MATTHEWS: A Chicago man.
PAGE: A Chicago man. I`ve been covering him since the early '80s when he was disrupting Jesse Jackson`s campaign and then later became a litmus test around Barack Obama`s campaign. And now, we`re seeing on the right to pick out Congressman Danny Davis and various other folks. Where we shook hands with Louis Farrakhan in the past now. So, it`s like this is going to be something we`re going to see.
MATTHEWS: That`s not going to defeat him, is it?
PAGE: Depends on the district, because certainly Danny Davis' district won`t make a difference. But those swing districts out there, you never know.
Actually, we do know. The networks preferred to focus on the neo-Nazi Republican in Chicago, and ignore Farrakhan.
NPR. Nothing. Unless you count the "Code Switch" podcast transcripts which NPR sends to Nexis. There was this vaguely positive mention from TV critic Eric Deggans on October 14 reviewing Chris Rock's career:
ERIC DEGGANS: Prowling the stage with his trademark intensity, Rock took the stage for Bring The Pain in Washington D.C. before a mostly black crowd. He kicked things off by making fun of the city's popular mayor, Marion Barry, who had been caught on a videotape smoking crack. Marveling at how Barry showed up at Louis Farrakhan's massive event to uplift black men, The Million Man March, Rock said, "even in our finest hour...we had a crackhead onstage."
The crowd went wild, with half the audience laughing and half pushing back. "Boo if you want," Rock added a second later. "You know I'm right." Yup. It was going to be that kind of evening.
But this item is amazing. On the January 24 "Code Switch" podcast, NPR editor of standards and practices Mark Memmott gets grilled about how Donald Trump is treated so much better on NPR than Louis Farrakhan:
SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI: You talked about consistency. And I don't know if you were the standards and practices editor in 2015. Were you in October of 2015?
MARK MEMMOTT: Yes, I was.
MERAJI: You were? OK, so Robert Siegel has an intro, and this is about Louis Farrakhan. And I'm going to read you this intro. (Reading) A rally in Washington tomorrow will focus on the challenges facing people of color...
(NPR audio)
ROBERT SIEGEL: It's a commemoration of one of the largest gatherings in the nation's history - The Million Man March. Twenty years ago, Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, urged African-American men to travel to the nation's capital. Farrakhan was divisive then and continues to be, still making anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic comments in his speeches. NPR's Cheryl Corley...
MERAJI: So it's OK to label Louis Farrakhan's statements and speeches homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist. But it's not OK to label President Trump's various statements racist.
MEMMOTT: We shouldn't have done it that way. We get things wrong every day. And we don't follow our own guidelines every day because we're putting out an enormous amount of information.
MERAJI: Right.
MEMMOTT: And to expect every journalist in this organization to get it right all the time is just - I've found - impossible. I would have suggested that they, again, go back to the action words - that perhaps Mr. Farrakhan's views and words and statements had been seen as, you know, had been - you know, that over the years he had been called these sort of things - and then use the piece to explain that - which I imagine is what the piece did. But, yeah, it's not right that we labeled his comments. We should have treated them the same way we would the president's, the senator's, mine, yours, Gene's, whomever.
That segment underlines how the Left keeps a lid on critical reporting of Farrakhan. The Left actually shames liberal outlets for saying critical things about Farrakhan...and they apologize and confess.
