This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN media critic Brian Stelter’s “interview” of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, a display of how the liberal cable channel has whipsawed from ripping the Trump administration to fawning over the Biden team.
Just consider his first question during his Sunday show.
“What do you think we get wrong?” Stelter asked.
That was followed up with wondering, “what’s your advice” for journalists “to stay close to the truth in this world of lies?”
Then, after noting that he and Psaki have young children, he asked, “What kind of country is this going to be when they are our age? Do you fear that, given the craziness we’re seeing from the GOP? Do you fear that for our kids, your kids and mine?”
Stelter sympathetically set up the segment, recorded on Friday and aired on Sunday’s Reliable Sources: “In this era of media bunkers and alternative realities, the White House press secretary faces some unique challenges. So let’s hear from Jen Psaki to get her perspective nearly five months into the job and about what might lie ahead.”
Some of his “questions” to Psaki:
- “Busy summer ahead, infrastructure, election reform. What does the press get wrong when covering Biden’s agenda? When you watch the news, when you read the news, what do you think we get wrong?”
- “For other P.R. professionals who watch what you do, for journalists who watch what you do, what’s your advice for them about trying to stay as close to the truth in this world of lies?”
- “I know this is often adversarial, but it also has to be functional. Is the relationship between the White House and the press corps now at least functional in ways that it wasn’t in the Trump years?” (Psaki: “I think so.”)
- “This is what I really wanted to ask you. You mentioned your kids, you have a daughter going into kindergarten, I have a daughter going into pre-K. And I think to myself, what kind of country is this going to be when they are our age? Do you fear that, given the craziness we’re seeing from the GOP? Do you fear that for our kids, your kids and mine?”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “My how the world has changed from the Trump years when CNN treated White House officials as enemies who must be discredited. Now, White House staff are their friends and allies. Stelter should be embarrassed by such a performance after years of disdain for Trump’s politics and press secretaries. But he won’t be. In this interview he acted more like a groveling student yearning for his professor’s approval (‘Tell me what I’m doing wrong,’ ‘How can we be a truthful as you?’), followed by trying to show his shared disdain for her political opponents, than any kind of journalist holding those in power to account.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
