Fox News host Howard Kurtz opened his show MediaBuzz by tearing into the leftist media for their habit of purposefully dismissing scandals involving Democrats by falsely referring to them as conspiracy theories or “misinformation” only to quietly confirm their accuracy a year or more later when the public’s attention moved elsewhere.
Kurtz was quick to point out that the most recent and egregious example of this dishonesty from the leftist media was when The New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story and Twitter censored all mentions of the news and locked the Post’s account. It wasn’t until over a year later after the 2020 election that both The New York Times and The Washington Post verified the story.
“The idea behind such delays and deflections is to make a story look like a right-wing media obsession that, you know, is probably a fantasy,” Kurtz surmised.
He then noted that “we're going through a similar dance right now after the President's son pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges drawing a chorus of conservative criticism for a sweet settlement that includes only probation, but now we come to the IRS whistleblowers who’ve been all but ignored by the press. And, of course, we have to be cautious about unproven claims.”
Kurtz reminded viewers that earlier in the week, The New York Times confirmed one of the IRS whistleblowers revealed that U.S. Attorney David Weiss who was overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax charges “had said he was not the sole decision maker in the case and that he was constrained in the probe.”
This led Kurtz to ask: “So will the rest of the media now follow up on these accusations, or will we have to wait another year before they're deemed newsworthy?”
The transcript is below:
FNC’s MediaBuzz
7/2/2023
11:00:17 a.m. EasternHOWARD KURTZ: There's a pattern, we've seen it again and again, when the mainstream media want to marginalize a story. You all remember The New York Post breaking the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020. Not only did Twitter block it, but others peddled the lie that it was Russian disinformation. More than a year later The Washington Post and New York Times said, hey, by the way, we've now authenticated the laptop story. Thanks a lot. The idea behind such delays and deflections is to make a story look like a right-wing media obsession that, you know, is probably a fantasy. We're going through a similar dance right now after the President's son pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges drawing a chorus of conservative criticism for a sweet settlement that includes only probation, but now we come to the IRS whistleblowers who’ve been all but ignored by the press. And, of course, we have to be cautious about unproven claims.
But The New York Times, to its credit, broke with the pack by saying it had confirmed independently based on a source that a second unnamed IRS official contends that David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, asked DOJ for special powers to pursue the Hunter case outside the state and was turned down. IRS whistleblower David Shapley in an interview with Bret Baier also said that Weiss, appointed by President Trump, had said he was not the sole decision maker in the case and that he was constrained in the probe.
[cuts to video]
BRET BAIER: Are you convinced looking back at this now that this was an effort to protect President Biden and his family?
DAVID SHAPLEY: There were definitely hindrances that I've never seen before in my 14 years concerning this investigation that didn't allow us to follow through an investigation of any other individual to include President Biden.
[cuts back to live]
KURTZ: So will the rest of the media now follow up on these accusations, or will we have to wait another year before they're deemed newsworthy?
