On Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN host Brian Stelter played his usual role as enforcer of liberal bias, insisting the networks must create an imbalance in how they cover conventions. CNN was right to allow two hours a night of Democrat advertising, he said, but the Republicans must be interrupted incessantly because it will be a "stream of lying."
Stelter insisted "what we are going to see in the next few days is a truth imbalance. Because if we've learned anything from the Trump years, it's that there's a real likelihood, there's a real forecast of lies coming fast and furious from the president and, sadly, from many of his allies, in these speeches, in these videos, in these events that we are about to witness."
Stelter admitted the DNC video feed was "advertising," but offered no defense of CNN airing this advertising almost uninterrupted. Everything sounds like a rationale for a dramatic double standard in campaign coverage.
STELTER: There's a real difference, there's a real contrast in how much lying and deception takes place between Trumpworld and other parts of the political universe. I don't think we can paint with too broad of a brush, Democrats versus Republicans. But it's definitely Trumpworld versus other political leaders. I think it's something call asymmetric lying.
I mean, look at this, this is from the DNC. CNN's fact-checking team led by Daniel Dale, checked out the DNC speeches. Here's a review of the first two nights saying the major speakers mostly spoke in generalities but when they did make assertions of facts, they have been largely accurate. The checking of Biden's speech on Thursday found pretty much the same thing....
The first sign you know someone sounds like a DNC publicist is when they find everything the Democrats say "largely accurate." It's "accurate" to blame 175,000 deaths on Trump. It's "accurate" to claim the protesters in the street are almost entirely "peaceful." CNN didn't even locate AP's fact checks on Michelle Obama and Cory Booker.
Stelter promised CNN's fact checker would be on the air in prime time, "providing fact-checks when necessary," which didn't happen when CNN was running wall-to-wall DNC propaganda. And yet, Stelter complained that Sean Hannity didn't run full propaganda, and insists Hannity will show a lot more of the Republican convention. Hypocrisy was in full force.
“SHOULD TV NETWORKS AIR RNC IN FULL?” @BrianStelter advanced rationale for nets not to: “Television nets are going to have interesting choices to make...about whether to cut away if there’s this stream of disinformation happening live.” Promises CNN will cut in w/ “fact checks. pic.twitter.com/7GBgDSdiaI
— Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) August 23, 2020
But Stelter insists the Left really doesn't lie, so liberal bias is instructional, and necessary:
Sometimes it's called "asymmetrical polarization" where there's more extreme behavior going on on the right than on the left.
There is an asymmetry in our media as well where Fox is off there on the right in ways that other networks are not, in the middle or on the left. And what we are seeing currently in our political system in America is asymmetrical lying, where one side does it a whole lot more than the other, where one leader and his followers mislead the public a lot more than the other side.
And if we don't tell that story truthfully and honestly, then we're part of the problem. Then we end up misleading people as well.
What CNN really wants is for Fox News to fail and go out of business. They don't like the conservative media having any influence on American politics, and certainly not conservative media that warns people that CNN is a nest of partisan leftists.
This sermon for fact-checking one side was brought to you by Prevagen. Because being mentally sharper will make you like CNN less.
