Axios Pulls the 'Pounce and Seize' Card on Ron DeSantis

CBS News’ already tattered reputation is continuing to take a bruising in the aftermath of the deceptive report they ran on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis where they edited out a chunk of his response to a question from a “60 Minutes” reporter and declined to include information a key Democrat in the state offered that would have busted their DeSantis/Publix “pay to play” narrative.

Unfortunately, CBS News is not the only media outlet that has come out looking bad in this. There have been the numerous, other news organizations that have yet to weigh in on a stunningly bad hit piece that made the entire industry look bad and which went a long way towards confirming conservative claims that they are biased against Republicans.

And then there is Axios, which yesterday published a piece about the controversy that was widely (and deservedly) mocked and ridiculed. The piece was not about what “60 Minutes” did but rather DeSantis “seizing” on the story as a way of making further inroads with voters who already have a high level of distrust for the MSM:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally with his eyes on the White House, is dialing up a dispute with “60 Minutes” — seizing on a chance to ingratiate himself with the GOP base by bashing the media. https://t.co/8uEs7qKflb

— Axios (@axios) April 6, 2021

Yeah … no. I’m fairly certain that the big story here is not DeSantis rightly pushing back on the smears “60 Minutes” tried to pass off as fact. The big story is actually that this fake news “story” that failed to pass basic journalism standards was allowed to air in the first place:

Axios ran with the ‘60 Minutes’ report pretty much at face value without acknowledging the deceptive editing and buried the pushback towards the bottom of its article, so of course they frame this as DeSantis ‘seizing’ on the report. https://t.co/WxGebGoEQm

— Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) April 6, 2021

RedState senior editor Joe Cunningham helpfully pointed out that at least Axios was following the AP’s style guidelines on Republicans pouncing and seizing:

Axios following the guidelines today! pic.twitter.com/oP49TdLN7p

— Joe Cunningham (@JoePCunningham) April 6, 2021

That said, Joe will need to add “milks” to the “pounce and seize” guidelines at some point in the future, it would seem:

Broke: Republicans *pounce*

Woke: Republicans *milk* pic.twitter.com/XhwnUO2g6T

— Nathan Brand (@NathanBrandWA) April 6, 2021

The media could simply report that 60 Minutes lied, misrepresented and omitted to help keep Democrat narrative on track, but just can’t bring themselves to do it. https://t.co/9FfWzvFTaA

— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) April 6, 2021

@jonathanvswan https://t.co/pKoJYLffPB pic.twitter.com/z9qtFIuvwS

— Alex (@Ajsoti) April 6, 2021

In comments made Tuesday, DeSantis hammered the deceptive tactics of what he called the “corporate media”:

“It shows how dishonest they are — smear merchants. That’s why nobody trusts corporate media. They are a disaster in what they are doing.”

[…]

“I know corporate media thinks that they can just run over people. You ain’t runnin’ over this governor. I’m punchin’ back, and I’m gonna continue to do it until these smear merchants are held accountable.”

Ironically, it would appear that by focusing on DeSantis’ reaction to the hit piece rather than the hit piece itself, Axios has inadvertently proved the governor’s point about the dishonesty of the “smear merchants” in “corporate media” yet again.

They really do make it too darned easy sometimes.