In the media industry, White House credentials are the gold standard. The press briefing room only holds 49 people seated and another dozen or so are allowed to stand. Being in the White House press briefing represents one of a news reporters greatest honors. But, not everyone in that room exudes the diligence, professionalism or journalistic integrity the American public would expect. Enter CNN — the “fake news” network.
It might be easy for adoring liberals to excuse the repeated factual errors, appearance of bias and blatant disregard for professionalism if this were a new phenomenon. After the drubbing the GOP and now-Pres. Donald J. Trump gave the Democrats in 2016, many retreated to safe spaces or formed street gangs such as Antifa to throw bricks at police officers. It was devastating for liberals to find out the majority of Americans disagree with sanctuary cities, open borders, giving Iran $150 billion in taxpayer money, etc, etc.
But, the long-standing bias and complete disregard for the truth are not a recent phenomenon. CNN has been at the fake news game for quite some time. Consider these reasons why it’s time to pull the plug on their White House access.
1: CNN Turned Bias Into Fake News
The ultra-left-wing media outlet came under rigorous scrutiny during the first Obama campaign in 2007 for extreme party bias. The far left appeared to still feel the sting of liberal darling and Global Warming theorist Al Gore losing to Texan George W. Bush based on some Florida hanging chads. After four years of on-air fury, Pres. Bush handily won re-election much to the chagrin of CNN. That marked the beginning of the end of even appearing impartial. Negative spins on true facts didn’t work. CNN went all-in and fake news was born. It’s now a daily distortion of the truth.
2: CNN Is Political Propaganda, Not News Reporting
During the 2007 presidential primaries, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and the Project for Excellence determined that CNN programming portrayed Republicans in a negative light by a three-to-one margin. Sen. John McCain saw most of the negative attacks.
On the Democrat side, then-Sen. Barack Obama received the most positive stories at 46 percent, with many others considered neutral reporting. Obama won the White House after a sustained effort by CNN and other left-leaning media outlets to portray rival John McCain as out of touch, and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as incompetent. In the 2012 presidential campaign, Gov. Mitt Romney was routinely cited as homophobic, misogynistic and portrayed as an elitist who favored the 1-percent wealthiest Americans by CNN.
3: CNN Got Caught In A Political Corruption Scheme
In the run-up to the 2017 election, CNN began picking winners and losers far in advance of votes being cast. Favoring Hillary Clinton to former Independent Bernie Sanders, DNC leaders conspired with CNN to give Hillary debate questions in advance. WikiLeaks published the John Podesta emails that detailed Donna Brazile passing the questions to the Clinton campaign, and CNN moderator Roland Martin never denied his own participation. CNN has long stopped being a media outlet and has emerged as a wing of the Democratic Party. They take sides.
4: CNN Openly Hates Pres. Trump
As CNN contributors broadcast that candidate Trump had no pathway to win the electoral college, other team members were hard at work trying to ensure he did not. In the run-up to the 2016 election, CNN’s negative coverage of Trump topped 93 percent, with the other 7 percent being neutral reports. No news reports showed him in a positive light, according a Harvard University study.
5: CNN Correspondents Crave Celebrity Status
White House correspondents have been re-labeled “stars” by news media outlets. That’s because they are fully engaged in political optics, and have abandoned all journalistic integrity. For example, Jim Acosta was recently the focus of a glowing editorial published by The Hill that advocates for the CNN personality to be promoted to a full-time TV host.
“Jim Acosta is passionate,” it says. “He cares deeply about social justice issues and particularly immigration. He isn’t afraid of debate and seems to revel in mixing it up and sharing the blow-by-blow afterward. Ascetically pleasing. He has the pipes. Measured in the way he speaks.”
Not exactly the description of hard-nosed reporter. The headline, “Jim Acosta’s bias makes him great for CNN primetime, not chief White House reporter.” Many would agree with the latter.
6: CNN “Correspondents” Go Low
During his time in the Trump Administration’s press briefings, Acosta routinely talks over reporters, attempts to engage in televised debates to get his ratings up and yelled inappropriate questions when the president was taking time for children during an Easter egg hunt. Acosta has had to be physically removed from briefings. As unprofessional as Acosta acts in one of the world’s greatest news forums, his counterpart April Ryan recently topped him.
Ryan officially works for American Urban Radio, but double dips as a CNN political analyst. Her recent controversies include pretending White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called her out for a street fight (fake news) and she re-tweeted a fake news headline that the Trump Administration was involved in child sex trafficking. Despicable.
CNN garners its 17 White House correspondence credentials — April Ryan excluded — based on its network ratings. Although plummeting, it’s unlikely falling out of favor with American viewers will result in the credentials being taken away. However, given the leader in fake news has abandoned all appearances of being a news outlet, the Cartoon Network has better ratings. At least they’d be funny.
~ Patriotic Freedom Fighter