University of Chicago students asked legacy media figures about their lack of coverage relating to Hunter Biden’s laptop during the “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference being held this week.
CNN’s Brian Stelter and The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum had their feet held to the fire regarding the laptop, which was verified by the New York Times in March and originally reported by the New York Post seven months ago.
Freshman student Christopher Phillips asked Stelter to answer for “[dismissing] the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation” on Thursday.
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“All the mistakes of the mainstream media, and CNN in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction,” Phillips said. “Are we expected to believe that this is all just some sort of random coincidence, or is there something else behind it?”
“It’s too bad — it’s time for lunch,” Stelter said, dismissing the question. A moderator reminded Stelter he had 30 seconds. “I think you’re describing a different channel than the one that I watch. But I understand that that is a popular right-wing narrative about CNN.”
“When you talk about shared reality and democracy, all these networks — all these outlets have to defend democracy. And when they screw up, admit it,” Stelter continued.
Stelter did not mention the laptop but promised to talk to the student more about it over lunch. The CNN anchor has yet to address publicly his previous reporting of the story he once called “disinformation.” He recently left the New York Times story out of his newsletter after it broke.
On Wednesday, Daniel Schmidt, senior editor of the Chicago Thinker, posed a similar question to Applebaum.
“So in 2020, you wrote, ‘Those who live outside the Fox News bubble do not, of course, need to learn any of the stuff about Hunter Biden,’ referring to his laptop, of course,” Schmidt said. “A poll later, after that, found that if voters knew about the content of the laptop, 16% of Joe Biden voters would have acted differently.”
“Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation, and what can we learn from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation and not reality?” Schmidt asked.
“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is I think it’s totally irrelevant,” Applebaum responded. “I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation or — I mean, I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States. So I don’t find it to be interesting.”
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Among the conference headliners was former President Barack Obama. His former two-time campaign strategist, David Axelrod, is the head of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, which hosted the event.
