XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.media
XPost: alt.politics.usa
Since 9:00 am ET Sunday morning, CNN and MSNBC have spent nearly four
hours of airtime peddling dubious new charges of misconduct against
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that allegedly took place when he
was in college. The claims were first published by The New York Times
late Saturday night.
The liberal cable networks' appetite for a fresh Kavanaugh scandal was
so great that even after the authors were forced to issue a major
correction to their initial story, their coverage was barely adjusted to reflect this new information.
MRC analysts found that from the first report at 9:42 am Sunday through
4:00 pm ET on Monday, CNN and MSNBC have spent a combined 233 minutes (excluding teases) peddling these dubious allegations since the Times
first published them on Saturday.
MSNBC offered the lion’s share of the coverage, with a total of 166
minutes spent on the allegations themselves, but only six minutes on its pitfalls, including the alleged victim’s professed ignorance of the
incident. CNN gave the story 67 minutes, with a mere three minutes on
the confounding detail.
https://www.newsbusters.org/s3/files/styles/blog_body- 100/s3/images/screen_shot_2019-09-16_at_5.32.09_pm.png?itok=U2jJaXlV
The Sunday Review piece in question, titled, “Brett Kavanaugh Fit In
With The Privileged Kids. She Did Not.” was an excerpt from a book by
New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly.
Within hours after the article was published, it became clear that a key
piece of information in the book was missing from the excerpt —
specifically, the alleged victim’s inability to corroborate the
allegations against Kavanaugh:
https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1173203831397801984
Yet throughout the weekend, no talking head on CNN or MSNBC acknowledged
that the authors had consciously excluded this major piece of evidence. Instead, both networks continued to hammer away at the story even after
the Times article was updated. Between 4:00 am and 4:00 pm ET on Monday
alone, they spent a combined 95 minutes on the story.
Most hosts relegated the new, exculpatory information to a single
sentence at the end of their news reports, before continuing on as
though the update had never occurred. Additionally, neither network
managed to spend even a second on the recent admission by lawyers for
Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey-Ford that their efforts to prevent Kavanaugh’s confirmation last year were, in part, politically motivated.
Panel discussions on these networks were heavy on the rhetoric, but
light on the details. For example, Sunday’s AM Joy panelist Jason
Johnson smeared Kavanaugh as “the fifth guy in a gang rape” serving on
the Court with “that same despicable misogynist attitude he has gotten
away with his entire cowardly life.”
Hours earlier on Up, Business Insider’s Linette Lopez dubbed the 2018
FBI probe into Kavanaugh a “dog and pony show” that laid bare “the nasty reality” about “what white male privilege is in this country.”
The following day on MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson, former Obama aide Christopher Kang offered this spin to help The Times save face after
their embarrassing update: “The fact that the woman may have been drunk
and not remembered the incident in particular doesn't mean it didn't
happen.”
That same day on CNN, Inside Politics host Jon King lamely argued that
those criticizing The Times for their misleading reporting were trying
to “steer” viewers away from “the substance” of the piece: “The addition
of the editor's note opened up to those, the President included, on
Kavanaugh's side, and on the right, who think The New York Times is
biased here. That's what they did: they just came right out of the box,
‘Why wasn't that in the original piece?’ to try to steer you away from
the substance.”
Since Sunday morning, liberal cable reporters have routinely downplayed
or ignored any piece of evidence that does not fit the narrative of
Kavanaugh as a prolific sexual abuser. Regardless of whether this
incomplete reporting was motivated by bias or the result of abject
ineptitude, the result was an incredibly skewed recounting of events for millions of cable viewers.
Were The Times to publish a piece leveling equally serious accusations
against a liberal Supreme Court Justice — regardless of their veracity —
it’s unlikely that CNN or MSNBC would permit the story to dominate
multiple days of programming.
#WhatLiberalMedia
--
Watching Democrats come up with schemes to "catch Trump" is like
watching Wile E. Coyote trying to catch Road Runner.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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