This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a new level of intolerance at CNN for people who don’t think like Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, and the lefty gang.
On Sunday, CNN’s media-themed show Reliable Sources headlined a guest who said the late Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are guilty of tearing families apart and even brainwashing listeners and viewers.
Jen Senko, author of The Brainwashing of My Dad: How the Rise of the Right-Wing Media Changed a Father and Divided Our Nation — And How We Can Fight Back, said, “Our family kind of suffered for about 20 years when my dad discovered Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.”
While some would suggest he was enlightened by the discovery, Stelter marveled, “You rarely hear about that. You rarely hear about the impact on the viewers of the content on Fox News, but maybe that’s changing.”
From the Oct. 17 episode of Reliable Sources on CNN:
BRIAN STELTER: Tell us about the brainwashing of your dad. That’s the title of the book. It’s not just about your dad, though. What you describe is this phenomenon where families are torn apart by right-wing radio and TV. Why did you decide to address this head-on?
JEN SENKO: Well, our family, kind of, suffered for about 20 years when my dad discovered Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. His personality entirely changed. He was unrecognizable. He became a zealot, he became very critical of Democrats, and we were run-of-the-mill Democrats. And you know, it wasn’t so much that he became a Republican, it was that he was an extreme Republican, and he was always in a rage. And he was always trying to convert us, he was like a zealot. And my mother would get in these arguments with him and say, you know, “Frank, I think you’re brainwashed.”
And when I first named the movie, The Brainwashing of My Dad, I didn’t actually think that it was necessarily brainwashing, but that’s what it felt like to me and many, many people. Of course, after I did the movie and talked to neuroscientists, then I found, well, yeah, it is brainwashing. But I’ve seen this happen to so many people, and thousands and thousands of people have told me their stories. It’s always very sad.
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick:
“Conformity. That’s what Stelter and Senko demand. How dare anyone stray from liberal Democratic positions, and if they do, their sources of information must be denigrated and silenced because anyone who believes them must have been ‘brainwashed.’ How insulting. If a conservative writer cited false notions forwarded by CNN in attacking President Donald Trump and charged that the network was thus ‘brainwashing’ its viewers into becoming liberal, Stelter, far from offering a guest slot, would condemn the smearing of CNN.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
