After years of running cover for a deeply flawed and declining president, the media is finally pulling back the curtain, albeit in small doses. ABC News among other outlets is revealing that at least two radio hosts have admitted to receiving questions to ask President Biden before their interviews. The same network’s George Stephanopoulos conducted an interview with Biden on Friday that while it was not hard hitting certainly did little to dispel the spreading sense that the president’s mental faculties are deteriorating But why? If media organizations are taking directions from political operatives, they have only themselves to blame for the low confidence the public has in them. I know some will think I’m beating a dead horse, but it’s a topic I take seriously. One of the events that spurred me to star writing was Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus” hoax, which occurred in 2014 and centered around false accusations against University of Virginia fraternity brothers. But that disgraceful episode didn’t cause journalists to correct this type of behaviour, rather they have only embraced it.
During the Donald Trump presidency journalists began to portray themselves as a guardian class for the rest of society against the excesses of a mad man in the highest seat of power when in reality they threw away every rule of ethics in the pursuit of saving the world from him. I don’t doubt that Biden is not unique on having this arrangement with certain interviewers. Is Sean Hannity really going to throw curveballs at Donald Trump? I’m sure they chat when they’re off the air. So one might ask what the problem is if Biden’s staff was feeding questions to journalists. The answer is that Biden’s current raft of appearances are meant to showcase whether he has the mental acuity to deal with the rigours of a full-fledged campaign and being the president. Feeding the questions to the interviewer without the audience’s knowledge can deceive the listener into thinking he can do something that he isn’t doing: Express an original thought. Furthermore, we should question how often Biden’s staff set up these interviews in the past. I found a sympathetic September 2023 interview with John Harwood of ProPublica, where Biden sounded and looked better than he did at the debate and the Stephanopoulos interview. Were those questions fed to Harwood ahead of time? WURD radio in Philadelphia parted ways with host Andrea Lawful-Sanders after she admitted to arrangement, but do we trust that her manager’s were unaware? Those that accept in 2024 that a sitting president should be able to have prior knowledge of what journalists are asking him would not be out of place in 1980s Romania, but instead they say that it is their job to “protect democracy”. Instead democracy needs to be protected from them.
Share this post
Democracy dies to the sound of scripted dialogue.
Share this post
Share
Share JAFFAWire
After years of running cover for a deeply flawed and declining president, the media is finally pulling back the curtain, albeit in small doses. ABC News among other outlets is revealing that at least two radio hosts have admitted to receiving questions to ask President Biden before their interviews. The same network’s George Stephanopoulos conducted an interview with Biden on Friday that while it was not hard hitting certainly did little to dispel the spreading sense that the president’s mental faculties are deteriorating But why? If media organizations are taking directions from political operatives, they have only themselves to blame for the low confidence the public has in them. I know some will think I’m beating a dead horse, but it’s a topic I take seriously. One of the events that spurred me to star writing was Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus” hoax, which occurred in 2014 and centered around false accusations against University of Virginia fraternity brothers. But that disgraceful episode didn’t cause journalists to correct this type of behaviour, rather they have only embraced it.
During the Donald Trump presidency journalists began to portray themselves as a guardian class for the rest of society against the excesses of a mad man in the highest seat of power when in reality they threw away every rule of ethics in the pursuit of saving the world from him. I don’t doubt that Biden is not unique on having this arrangement with certain interviewers. Is Sean Hannity really going to throw curveballs at Donald Trump? I’m sure they chat when they’re off the air. So one might ask what the problem is if Biden’s staff was feeding questions to journalists. The answer is that Biden’s current raft of appearances are meant to showcase whether he has the mental acuity to deal with the rigours of a full-fledged campaign and being the president. Feeding the questions to the interviewer without the audience’s knowledge can deceive the listener into thinking he can do something that he isn’t doing: Express an original thought. Furthermore, we should question how often Biden’s staff set up these interviews in the past. I found a sympathetic September 2023 interview with John Harwood of ProPublica, where Biden sounded and looked better than he did at the debate and the Stephanopoulos interview. Were those questions fed to Harwood ahead of time? WURD radio in Philadelphia parted ways with host Andrea Lawful-Sanders after she admitted to arrangement, but do we trust that her manager’s were unaware? Those that accept in 2024 that a sitting president should be able to have prior knowledge of what journalists are asking him would not be out of place in 1980s Romania, but instead they say that it is their job to “protect democracy”. Instead democracy needs to be protected from them.
Share
Leave a comment