Hostility towards the media was on full display on the first day of the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center just outside of Washington, D.C.
The events of the day began with a panel titled, “An Affair to Remember: How the Far Left and the Mainstream Media Got in Bed Together,” where panelists on the main stage called out members of the media, alleging unfair reporting from mainstream outlets.
At one point, a panelist instructed the audience to “wave goodbye” to the press in the back of the ballroom. “This may be the last chance you get to do that. Say goodbye to them,” she said while the room followed her instructions.
The morning panel set the stage for the topic of media bias to be a theme echoed by major speakers throughout the day, from Vice President Mike Pence to NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.
“Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it,” Loesch said. “I’m not saying that you love the tragedy, but I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media.”
Loesch’s attacks come a day after she appeared on a CNN town hall with families who were affected by the recent high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed. Loesch directly called out CNN during her speech, questioning why CNN didn’t host a town hall in Chicago, a city notorious for its high rates of crime and gun violence.
“There are thousands of grieving black mothers in Chicago every weekend and you don’t see town halls for them, do you? Where’s the CNN town hall for Chicago?” Loesch said. “If it bleeds, it leads; but it has to be the right people from the right communities at the right time.”
CNN was also at the center of criticism from Pence, who went after the network for “fawning” over the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister during the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremonies in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“For those who think I should have stood and cheered for the North Koreans, I say the U.S. doesn’t stand with murderous dictatorships, we stand up to murderous dictatorships,” Pence said to a room erupting in applause after booing the network.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also lambasted the media, specifically calling out CNN, labeling the network’s town hall last night as an “infomercial.”
“Every time you see a horrific crime, people in the media and Democratic politicians always try to leap on it to advance their agenda,” Cruz said.
Conservative firebrand Ben Shapiro spoke immediately following a panel on conservatism on college campuses and reiterated the attacks on the press.
“The media keeps trying to play their same old game,” which is to call anyone who refuses to be politically correct “racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobe person, and it’s not working,” Shapiro announced. “Conservatives are fighting back.”
Many members of the audience seemed to think the media deserved what it got, based on the crowd reactions alone.
Reagan McCarthy, the vice president of her College Republicans club at Penn State University who interned at Townhall.com last summer, said she gets her news from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Politico, and believes the attacks on the mainstream media were warranted.
“I do think that their attacks on the media were pretty warranted given how they treat the president and conservatives and censor speech a lot of times,” McCarthy said, pointing to CNN specifically.
Trust in the media among Americans reached an all-time low during the height of the 2016 campaign. Only 32 percent of Americans said they had “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the media according to Gallup in 2016.
Furthermore, most Americans believe the media is key to our democracy, but few see the media as actually supporting it. Gallup reported just last month that 84 percent of Americans believe the news media is “critical” or “very important” to our democracy, while only 28 percent say it is supporting it.
