Adam Housley Schooled Brian Stelter on What Journalism Is and Isn't During Rudy Presser, and It Was Glorious

Earlier today the Trump campaign’s legal team held a presser in which they provided new details on the lawsuits they’ve filed that allege election fraud and voting irregularities in key states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani even went so far as to say he believed a “centralized” voter fraud plan had been put in place in battleground states where the election was expected to be close.

As one might imagine, it was quite a dramatic affair, with the legal team at times accusing the reporters who covered the presser of not taking the campaign’s claims seriously. While we’re still waiting to see how the remaining legal challenges play out in the courts, what we don’t have wait for is proof that the mainstream media is indeed not treating the allegations being made by the Trump campaign with the seriousness they deserve.

Case in point, CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter, who basically proved Giuliani’s point in several tweets earlier today, by criticizing the other news networks like Fox News and Newsmax who aired the press conference.

Stelter began by, of course, cheerleading for the only Democrat on the Fox News panel he was watching, who called out “people who are stoking lies about fraud”:

Harf, the sole liberal panelist, began to call out people who are stoking lies about fraud — "it's really harmful to democracy" — when the host cut her off to go live to… Rudy's presser. https://t.co/QagTGGJtxe

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 19, 2020

Stelter then whined that the “full of bull” presser was being carried by news networks like Fox News, who he claimed without evidence did so in order to appease viewers who were turning away from the network:

Remember all the concerns about whether the networks would air Trump’s “I won” speech live? Fox News, Newsmax and OANN are all airing Rudy’s “Dems cheated” presser live right now. Full of bull.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 19, 2020

In the next tweet, Stelter proclaimed that the carrying of the press conference amounted to nothing more than “conspiracy TV”, a laughable claim considering some of CNN’s fake news “bombshell” coverage over the last 4 years about Russia collusion, etc:

The Trump legal team’s presser is conspiracy TV. And it’s been airing on Fox for more than an hour. Hard not to conclude that Fox is feeling intense pressure from the right — from Newsmax and OANN — and making programming choices accordingly.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 19, 2020

Unfortunately for Stelter, Adam Housley – a former Fox News reporter who is now an independent journalist and media critic – challenged his rationale for advocating media outlets not cover the presser in what turned out to be a Journalism 101 clinic:

Brian rather than dismissing it, why not encourage reporters to investigate what he is presenting? He is an attorney and represents the President. If he's lying and evidence is not true, then rip him. Dismissing it outright from the beginning without looking at any of it is bias. https://t.co/IiAN9v934I

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) November 19, 2020

Stelter then tried to defend his position by falsely claiming all allegations had been investigated by the media, and that it was time to move on. Oh, and something something about how “Rudy threw away his credibility a long time ago”:

I get this stuff all the time. "Just investigate!" It sounds reasonable, and that's the point. But it ignores that 1) lots of reporters HAVE probed fraud claims 2) they've found nothing of the scale the Trump team imagines 3) Rudy threw away his credibility a long time ago https://t.co/BK92cP9SSr

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 19, 2020

This did not sit well with Housley, who fired back by pointing out that so many in the MSM had also thrown their credibility out the window long ago. Housley also correctly noted that the information presented today was new info that deserved a closer examination (which Stelter would have known had he watched the presser instead of virtue signaling on Twitter):

Many in the press also threw away their credibility long ago. You cannot avoid new info because you have looked at old info. Imagine a detective using that logic. https://t.co/rYCj6B84OR

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) November 19, 2020

Stelter in turn then lied and claimed reporters had already investigated claims that were literally just made during the very presser CNN chose not to cover (which Housley alerted him to in the the tweet after this one):

Reporters already have investigated it. For weeks.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 19, 2020

Brian…this is categorically untrue. This evidence has just been presented. I agree that some of the outlandish claims that always come from the losing side after an election…can easily can be investigated and dismissed. What he and Sidney are presenting today is largely new https://t.co/MXH33wh0R3

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) November 19, 2020

It was at that point that Stelter played what he must have thought was his ace card, which in reality was more like the joker card considering the New York Times article he cited “reported” that election officials had investigated themselves and found no evidence of fraud LOL:

pic.twitter.com/MOvoorgY4k

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 19, 2020

At that point, Housley was done playing nicey nice with a self-described defender of the media who nevertheless makes it a point to routinely attack a rival news outlet for having the audacity to cover stories inconvenient to CNN’s left-wing agenda:

So you are once again just dismissing sworn affidavits. Dismissing the digital allegations just made…that are not addressed in this article? I'm not saying what they are alleging is true, I am saying it's serious enough to be investigated. https://t.co/FsM6v31R0l

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) November 19, 2020

“WTF has happened to my profession?” Housley wondered:

I am still in shock that national reporters are attacking me for just reporting that these are new serious allegations with sworn affidavits and that it should be looked into before December 14th. WTF has happened to my profession?

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) November 19, 2020

Then he took it even further, wondering who and what Stelter and Co. would advocate be censored next:

What's next spying on reporters? Censorship online of reporters? Oh wait….that's already happened. Or are you going to deny that too?

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) November 19, 2020

Yours truly got in a couple of digs at Stelter as well:

Michael Avenatti "threw away his credibility a long time ago" but that didn't keep you from gushing and plumping his pillow. Just admit you're performing a disservice to journalism and the public by suppressing news and deciding what the people should and should not see, Brian. https://t.co/FHpULJg8er

— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) November 19, 2020

Great job, @adamhousley, in schooling "chief media correspondent" @brianstelter on what journalism actually is. Unfortunately, he's admitted he believes the media's role is to "protect" public from news the media doesn't think they should hear about: https://t.co/sfTwK5vLcW

— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) November 19, 2020

As I reported at the time:

In his newsletter, he bolded the “protecting the public from the American president’s dangerous, democracy-eroding lies” part – because apparently he really believes it’s the MSM’s (and Twitter’s and Facebook’s) role to actually keep readers from being able to read about what dishonest “fact-checkers” like himself, Oliver Darcy, and Daniel Dale view as a “democracy-eroding lie.”

[…]

To say this is a dangerously stupid position for Stelter to take would be quite the understatement. Reporters are not supposed to be in the business of “protecting the public” from what politicians, candidates for higher office, and the like say. Period.

If they want to do fact checks, fine. If they want to include a note about putting something in context, fine. Let readers and viewers see the original comments and read/watch the fact checks and contextual links if necessary in order to decide for themselves.

Unfortunately, Stelter and his ilk believe the media’s role is to sanitize the news to include only the things they think you should hear. On top of that, they believe it’s the media’s responsibility to draw your conclusions for you, instead of you having to listen to the information and think for yourself.

This is a very dangerous line of thinking. Sadly, it will get much worse no matter who gets sworn into the White House next year.

To reiterate: Media outlets like CNN are openly calling for the suppression of legitimate political stories they think the public shouldn’t see – simply because those stories do not jive with the political narratives they’re trying to push. That’s the equivalent of state-run TV, not journalism. That’s not freedom of the press; that’s subjugation by the press.

This is why supporting non-traditional and independent news media sources is so vitally important right now. It’s simply the only way left for real reporting to have a chance at prevailing.