In an exchange that we reported on earlier today, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki didn’t do well after Fox’s Peter Doocy hit her with a question that went to the core of the matter.

Doocy asked about Psaki’s comment the day before that there were 12 people/accounts on Facebook that were responsible for spreading “most of the misinformation” about the Wuhan coronavirus on Facebook.

Doocy: “Speaking of misinformation and the announcement from yesterday, for how long has the administration been spying on people’s Facebook profiles looking for vaccine misinformation?”
Psaki: “Well, that was quite a loaded and inaccurate question, which I would refute ..”
Doocy: “Inaccurate how?”
Psaki: “Well, Peter, first of all, as you know we’re on a regular touch with a range of media outlets [Doocy says something intelligible in the background] as we are in regular touch with social media platforms. This is publicly open information, people sharing information online. Just as you are all reporting information on your news stations.”
Doocy: “But – okay, so these 12 people who you have on a list, 12 individuals. Do they know that somebody at the Surgeon General’s office is going through their profile?”

Psaki quibbled with Doocy’s phrasing, saying they didn’t keep a secret list.

Now you might,t think that this attempt of the government to use Facebook to censor people might alarm the liberal media. But if you thought that then you haven’t been following along. CNN’s Jake Tapper came to Jen Psaki’s defense, characterizing Peter Doocy’s question “as premised on a lie” and attacked Fox for saying things that were not true. Imagine CNN thinking they have any standing at all to comment on any other network when they are such purveyors of lies and misstatements.

Tapper droned on:

At the same briefing, somebody from Fox, which also has a lot of people on who say things about the vaccine that are not true, asked a question premised on a lie, which was that the White House was going through people’s Facebook pages and private information to come up with this list. It’s not true. But, once again, we see another example of just lies making their way into the airwaves. But, again, that Fox correspondent has every right to lie or be mistaken about this.

Actually, that’s not what Doocy said. So Tapper is not telling the truth. Again. But then, that’s part of the problem with folks like Tapper. Bad journalists. Doocy didn’t say that they came up with the list by combing through the Facebook profiles; he just asked how long were they looking at profiles for misinformation? But this is spin by Tapper. Because regardless of the phrasing and however they got the list, Jen Psaki herself admitted they were looking at the 12 people and going after people. So this complaint about phrasing doesn’t change that fact. And that’s the greater issue. That should concern the media. But, it doesn’t.

Another thing that’s highly problematic is that the White House has now highlighted those 12 people/accounts and basically accused them of causing people to die. That’s putting a target on those people in a dangerously hyped-up political environment. How long until “journalists” like Tapper demand to know the identities of those 12 people/accounts?

But this just shows that CNN and Jake Tapper long since gave up being about journalism or protecting speech. And the irony is that they and the Biden team have been some of the biggest purveyors of misinformation that we’re likely to see.