No one can compete with CNN in its complete lack of self-awareness of what it is: a talking-points network for Democrats, and the media’s loudest voice for removing Fox News from your cable TV. At 10:55 pm, Brian Stelter e-mailed out their latest "Reliable Sources" propaganda sheet under the headline “Have you no shame?” It was a quote of their hero President Biden.
Stelter began:
"Make no mistake," President Biden said Tuesday, "bullies and merchants of fear, peddlers of lies, are threatening the very foundation of our country."
Biden's dire warning -- part of his address about an ongoing assault on voting rights across the country -- aired live on CNN, MSNBC, and across the web. Fox News didn't carry the speech live. Neither did Newsmax. Nor did One America News. Arguably the faction that needed to hear it the most, the Donald-Trump-won crowd, didn't hear it at all.
The most self-unaware part is that CNN routinely refused to air President Trump’s speeches, or they ran the video live and heckled over the sound all the way through. But the lecture continued:
The same question could be asked to the anchors and producers who went out of their way to ignore Biden as he delivered one of the most important speeches of his presidency thus far. Every network and news outlet was well aware it was happening. And Fox was in what it considers "news," not talk, programming at the time.
The headline on their email began with "Biden condemns 'peddlers of lies;' far-right TV ignores his speech."
Left out of this hot take: The Biden speech also didn’t air live on ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, or PBS. Are they all horrible, un-American networks that "ignored" his speech?
It’s extremely questionable that this was “one of the most important speeches” of Biden’s short presidency. The “For the People Act” is a dead letter. The Texas Democrat junket to DC is just as pointless. But the raging leftist base demands more rage about voting rights supposedly being crushed.
What CNN is really complaining about here is that every network is supposed to be Biden’s megaphone. If you’re not, you’re no longer a “news” network. Stelter then posted several additional Oliver Darcy hot takes on this point.
>> Oliver Darcy writes: "So what prevented Fox from covering the pivotal speech? Nothing that was pressing. While Biden spoke, Fox hosted a discussion on Bill Gates' divorce, previewed a Fox Nation show, and talked about the 'woke' military. It's hard to see how any news exec would view those topics as carrying more importance than Biden's speech on voting rights. But Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace did..."
Oliver Darcy writes: "As I said, no news executive could actually believe that previewing a Fox Nation infotainment show holds more editorial weight than carrying a major presidential speech. That leads to the natural Q that has been debated for years: Is Fox a news network? I'd argue it is primarily not. Fox's decisions only make sense when it's viewed as a right-wing talk channel, not a news outlet. It's truly just talk radio on TV: Constant right-wing commentary with an occasional dry reading of the headlines from a conservative POV. Yet too many media reporters still lump Fox in with major news brands. Why is that?"
This is the most shameless part, because even as he denied CNN was a "keep your audience pissed" channel, Stelter admitted in a 2019 podcast "These days, cable news is primarily a 24/7 talk show about politics and other stories."
