Wow: The Biden White House felt perfectly comfortable in publicly telling the media to go on all-out attack against the House GOP impeachment inquiry.
More telling still: The press by and large failed to even complain at the impropriety of presidential orders on what to cover and how.
What a contrast to the pearl-clutching when the last president (more rudely, we’ll grant) shared his thoughts on what the Fourth Estate should be doing.
“It’s Time For The Media To Do More To Scrutinize House Republicans’ Demonstrably False Claims That They’re Basing Impeachment On,” demanded Wednesday’s White House memo to a group of media organizations.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to launch an inquiry into President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s influence-peddling needs to “set off alarm bells for news organizations,” it insisted; the press must “ramp up scrutiny” of it.
Some media are already complying: “Parade Of CNN Anchors/Analysts/Reporters Tell Viewers ‘No Evidence’ Against Biden After Impeachment News,” reported Mediaite.
CNN actually justified the White House command in its report on it: News groups have “often failed to robustly call out the mis- and disinformation peddled by Republicans in their coverage” of Biden-family corruption, the network claimed, with a notable lack of examples.
Kudos to the impeccably left-leaning Boston Globe for at least huffing about the “constitutionally suspect” memo.
Still, it’s a long way from the response to President Donald Trump’s gripes about blatantly false negative reports on him: Trump’s attacks on the press “dangerously undermined truth and consensus,” read a USA Today headline, echoing a Committee to Protect Journalists “study” — penned by (natch!) a former top Washington Post editor.
By contrast, the left-leaning press and social media — CNN, The New York Times, Facebook, Twitter — have long covered for this White House, especially when it comes to Biden corruption.
That’s why they suppressed The Post’s 100% accurate reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, which exposed that corruption.
They also followed Team Biden orders on other issues, notably COVID, smacking down dissent and even censoring posts.
It certainly takes chutzpah for Team Biden to expect supposedly independent journalists (whose job, after all, is to hold the president accountable, not carry water for him) to follow White House editorial diktats.
Alas, its expectation is not unfounded — and that’s the worst outrage.
NEWS CREDIT
