Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Conservative Review commentary by Dr. Tom Borelli
In their zeal to damage President Trump, news organizations are abandoning objectivity. They are now an advocacy institution where a political agenda supersedes the truth.
As political advocates, media organizations are manipulating news coverage and siding with left-wing organizations such as Media Matters to silence conservative voices, like Sean Hannity.
Ironically, the effort by the media to harm President Trump is generating sloppy reporting, proving the president’s point about the mainstream media and fake news. The push to get President Trump is backfiring because fake-news stories are damaging the reputation of the media.
A recent Quinnipiac Poll reported 58 percent of voters disapprove of media coverage of President Trump and 53 percent feel the media concentrates too much on negative news about the president.
Unsurprisingly, supporters of the president hold a more negative view of the media. According to a new YouGov poll of adults, greater than 60 percent of self-identified Trump supporters feel the media are the enemy of the people.
ABC News was the latest news organization to get caught in fake-news reporting. Last week, ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross reported President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was going to testify that then-candidate Trump directed him to speak to Russians about foreign policy matters.
Ross had the timing wrong. The truth was, Flynn was told to contact the Russians after the election and during the transition period. ABC News said Ross did not follow standard procedures.
It appears Ross was so eager to report on what he thought was the long sought-after “collusion” smoking gun, he circumvented the news organization’s “editorial standard process.”
Ross got suspended for four weeks without pay and is banned from reporting on President Trump in the future.
CNN’s anti-Trump agenda is also revealing the left-wing political advocacy of its reporters. Jim Acosta, the senior White House correspondent for the network, has openly clashed with the Trump administration over policy and fake news.
Acosta is not holding back regarding his negative feelings about the president.
At the Poynter Journalism Ethics Summit Monday, Acosta defended an advocacy role of the media when they are “attacked.”
Meanwhile, CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter is taking political advocacy to a new level. During one show, the CNN host charged President Trump limits his interviews to “Fox News and a couple of Christian broadcasters” so that he doesn’t have to answer tough questions.
Stelter is not only a critic of President Trump but, in an unprecedented action, he is aiding an effort to get Sean Hannity fired from Fox News.
Media Matters, the left-wing media advocacy organization, is leading an effort to get advertisers to abandon sponsorship of Hannity’s program on Fox News. Bill O’Reilly lost his job at Fox News because of the success of a similar effort targeting his show’s advertisers.
Following the decision of a number of advertisers to jump from Hannity’s program, Stelter had the president of Media Matters on his CNN program “Reliable Sources.” Essentially, Stelter gave Media Matters a free national ad to promote their advocacy against Hannity.
Think about that for a minute. The anti-Trump advocacy is so extreme that a CNN host eagerly partners with an organization in an effort to silence a political and media competitor who supports the president.
President Trump is destroying the credibility of the media by exposing the “end justifies the means” mentality of politically motivated advocacy journalism.
Dr. Tom Borelli is a contributor to Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @tomborelli.
