On Saturday, CNN’s The Lead and State of the Union host Jake Tapper offered a timely Twitter thread on the importance of holding media organizations accountable for what they cover and don’t cover, specifically as it related to the Harvey Weinstein scandal taking years to be published.
Tapper began by giving credit where credit is due to The New York Times and The New Yorker for publishing the Weinstein stories that broke the floodgates on the almost countless allegations of rape and sexual assault:
With that said, Tapper turned his attention to indirectly calling out “members of the media helped cover up his alleged crimes” by “[p]ublishing dirt on victims” and “killing excellent and solid journalism that would have exposed his crimes earlier thus stopping his victimizing new women.”
The CNN anchor didn’t name names, but some of the chief offenders in the media have proven to be The New York Post in the former case with NBC News and The Times itself in the latter, facing another mountain of journalistic malpractice allegations.
Based on reports from CNN and the Huffington Post, NBC News and its executives reportedly told contributor Ronan Farrow on numerous occasions to stop investigating Weinstein despite having accumulated audio recordings and on-the-record interviews.
As an example of such a blackout by NBC, the Huffington Post story explained that Weinstein was intentionally censored from the October 5 NBC Nightly News under direct orders by NBC News president Noah Oppenheim.
Shifting back to Tapper, he correctly observed that there isn’t a “functioning body that oversees journalism that can demand an accounting for how this happened” with stories smearing Weinstein’s alleged victims and/or covering up his behavior.
Therefore, Tapper argued:
He closed by directing attention to outside media reporters (perhaps like the one you’re reading):
Despite what some partisans may try to argue, Tapper has mostly been a consistent shooter when it comes to asking questions other journalists refuse to, demanding media accountability, and simply covering stories his other colleagues in establishment media ignore. Saturday’s thread only bolstered that reputation.
(h/t: TVNewser)
