A CNN anchor asked why reports that Russia may have influenced the US election aren’t being labeled a “national emergency” by the mainstream press.
Responding to former RT reporter Liz Wahl’s comments that Trump was matching Russian propaganda talking points to undermine the election, CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter took it a step further and asked why no journalists were declaring the situation a “national emergency.”
“Here’s something that I’ve been asking myself,” Stelter says.
“Julia, we’re talking about a candidate who’s lost in a historic way, in terms of the popular vote, but clearly won in the electoral college. Is this something of a national emergency, and are journalists afraid to say so because they’re gonna sound partisan?”
Politico writer Julia Ioffe responded we may be “on the verge of something potentially awful,” and lamented everything from Trump’s outspoken oppositional attitude to “fake news” to the corporate media’s dwindling readership:
“I’ve been thinking about this because it does feel like we’re on the verge of something potentially awful and Trump seems to be taking us there daily with some of his cabinet picks, with his statements,” Ioffe said.
“You know, talk about sowing chaos, we have elected the ‘Chaos-sower-in-Chief,’ you know undermining the validity of intelligence reports, undermining the work of the press, of various government institutions, of democratic institutions.
“But on the other hand, I feel like we’ve been reporting this all along, but A) people don’t read us, because I remember going out into the country talking to voters and people would tell me their main sources of news were Youtube, Facebook and word of mouth. You saw BuzzFeed did an excellent story on fake news and how much traffic they get and how much more traffic each of these false news stories gets than New York Times stories, than Washington Post stories.
“So, we’re writing about it, but A) people aren’t listening, or B) they don’t believe us.”
Gee, wonder why…
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