We reported last night on Rep. Liz Cheney publicizing some of the texts that were sent to then-President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on the day of the Capitol riot urging him to get Trump to issue a statement in an effort to stop the breach that was taking place.
Popular Fox News media figures Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and Sean Hannity were among those who sent texts, which others in the mainstream media are using to suggest/hint at a number of things that are false, among them that the texts are supposedly at odds with what they’ve said on Fox News about the Capitol riot (not true).
Not surprisingly, CNN is running wild over the texts. I mean Brian Stelter’s Twitter feed is literally nothing but his hot takes and retweets of other opportunistic “reporters” regarding the Fox News texts, because he and his colleagues apparently believe this is the media “gotcha” of the century (it isn’t) and that it proves everything they’ve said about Fox News over the last several years (it doesn’t).
As “evidence,” check out this segment from Don Lemon’s program last night where he had Stelter and S.E. Cupp on to discuss the texts. After laughably using Cupp as representative of the “conservative” voice, Lemon then turned to Stelter and wondered why Fox News was even allowed a seat in the White House press briefing room considering they are supposedly “not a real news organization.” It went downhill from there, with the chutzpah of this duncetastic duo being off the charts:
LEMON: Same question, Brian, even though [Cupp] makes a very good point, even though they have vaccine rules, and mask rules, and mandates at their own places of business. But why, the question about why did they even allow Fox to pretend in the briefing room like they are real news organization.
STELTER: Well, I think we’d say historically, you’ve got to keep his [sic] broad and opening in the press corps as possible, let as many voices as possible, you know, even letting cranks, and there’s been a lot of cranks in the briefing room in the past, not Fox, but ran those that are able to come into the briefing.
I think historically that’s been the approach. Let as many people as you can possibly fit in the room. But today at the briefing, what did Fox ask about? The Christmas tree being set ablaze? Which was awful last week. And I was really disturbed to see it. But no one takes us [sic] the top 10 story in America today, except the Fox News.
So, what we have to do I think, is recognized for what it is. And you’ve been documenting it, Don, we’ve been trying to document it. Fox has change dramatically. And these text messages tonight are more evidence that this media has changed dramatically.
And we can’t view it the way we did 10 years ago, where there’s a bunch of channels, and one leans left and one leans right.
No. One now leans so far from reality that it’s imperil of the country.
LEMON: It’s obvious they don’t care about the truth. Anytime you see something on their air or you read something, like it’s Fox, well, you know, you got to take it with a grain of salt.
Like I said — chutzpah on an epic scale. Watch:
CNN’s @donlemon: “Why does Jen Psaki continue to call on Fox in the briefing room?”
“Why should they be able to take part in a legitimate press briefing and legitimate journalism?”
“Why did they even allow Fox to pretend in the briefing room they’re a real news organization?” pic.twitter.com/HEf06pesIT
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 14, 2021
For starters and because it’s really annoying, let the record show that Stelter is of course being wildly dishonest about the context of Doocy’s Christmas tree question, which was asked during the Monday briefing. The context revolved around bail reform and offenders being let off the hook almost immediately after being arrested only to commit crimes again.
More importantly, however, let’s consider the messengers here when talking about alleged media misdeeds. Some of Fox News’s most popular voices were trying to discourage the rioting that took place on Jan. 6th. On the other hand, CNN has actively encouraged Antifa/BLM rioting over the years, and among the loudest voices were Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo.
The examples are too numerous to list here, but as recently as October 2021, Lemon and his colleagues were trying to justify last year’s Antifa/BLM-led riots in comparison to the Capitol riot.
Further, let’s also remember that convicted hate crimes hoaxster Jussie Smollett testified that Don Lemon was tipping him off about the Chicago police, this at the same time Lemon was “reporting” on the Smollett story at CNN:
Don Lemon was texting a criminal hate crime hoaxer to tip him off about police. Fox News hosts tried to stop rioting. https://t.co/wER04ankrt
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) December 14, 2021
Thirdly, let’s also not forget that CNN is in the midst of multiple scandals at the moment, with the most embarrassing one from a media credibility perspective being that they knew disgraced former “Prime Time” anchor Chris Cuomo was playing a very active role in trying to smear his brother the then-Gov. of New York Andrew Cuomo’s accusers, and in a highly unethical decision did nothing until they were left with no choice.
There is also the issue of Chris Cuomo’s former CNN senior producer being indicted on charges that he sexually assaulted a child well as the fact that Don Lemon is still facing a lawsuit brought on by a man who says he sexually assaulted him in an NYC bar in 2019.
So, no, no media outlet – not Fox News, nor any other – needs a lecture on media integrity from the likes of anybody at CNN. Not now, not ever. Because when it comes to media standards, CNN has proven over and over and over again that they only operate from one standard: Not having any.
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