Free Republic

In May 2017, CNN boss Jeff Zucker gave an interview to the "New Yorker Radio Hour" and made waves by proclaiming, "Fox is state-run TV and is extolling the line out of the White House. MSNBC has become the opposition, and I think CNN is seeking the truth." There wasn't a laugh track. In 2022, it's quite obvious that CNN can now be accused of sounding like state-run TV. On Feb. 27, CNN anchor Pamela Brown (whose father, John Brown, served as the Democrat governor of Kentucky) robotically read a Twitter thread from Jill Biden. She introduced it like this:...

Donald Trump-obsessed journalists can't help but notice some "cracks" in his "cult." Sen. Mitch McConnell declared the Jan. 6 riot was a "violent insurrection," and former Vice President Mike Pence proclaimed "Trump was wrong" about insisting Pence could overturn the Electoral College. One can question whether these statements are really "new," since they echo in sentiment what these men said on the day of the riot. McConnell was moved to repeat himself by strange language in a Republican National Committee statement suggesting the Jan. 6 committee was persecuting "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse." Rioting is never legitimate political...

When you look at the people on CNN the absolute last thing to come to your mind is “sex.” Now that I’ve planted that thought in your head you’ve probably thrown up in your mouth a little bit, sorry about that. But while “CNN” and “sex” are the brushing your teeth and drinking orange juice of cable news, it turns out the network founded by Ted Turner was pretty much an unaccountable key party that appears to have come to an end. For those who haven’t seen a movie featuring one, or didn’t live through the 1970s and attend one,...

As a broadcast journalist, my goal was always to get my accurate story on the air first. Beating the other networks by even just a minute was a major victory when covering breaking news. It drove ratings and ratings are everything. So, let me give you an advantage in your political discussion group. Here is the headline for January 1, 2022: The old CNN is dead! The cause of death is not the forced departure of Chris Cuomo or Rachel Maddow’s act becoming so old she is moving to a weekly show. Nor is it that CNN’s jaundiced journalists conspired...

To paraphrase the old saying, when your opponent is destroying himself…let him. There are few things I enjoy more than bad things happening to bad people, and the news about the collapse of CNN’s ratings falls nicely into that category. It couldn’t happen to nicer people. So let’s revel a little in the historic 70 percent ratings collapse of the “Cable ‘News’ Network.” The primetime line-up of CNN is a joke. How can a network in literally every home with cable, which is almost all of them, draw fewer than a million viewers nightly? If you tried to be as...

The arrogance of the liberal media can be measured by their dismissal of all conservative criticism as "bad faith" attacks on the press. Assuming that conservative critics are dishonest and disreputable cynics is a common trope of CNN's Brian Stelter when liberal journalists become mired in scandal. In a June 15 "Academic Minute" podcast, Marist College professor Kevin Lerner explicitly defined the entire conservative movement as bad-faith media critics. "These bad-faith attacks on the press began to rise most recently in the 1960s and '70s, led by a concerted effort among conservative journalists and critics," Lerner argued. "Along with efforts...

In the recently released movie, News of the World, Tom Hanks plays a former Civil War Captain for a regiment in Texas who now makes his living by going from town to town reading newspapers. The town folk of that era were essentially isolated from what was happening in the rest of the country and the rest of the world. If that sounds familiar, today's mainstream media readers – liberals – are in the same boat. Fed a constant diet of leftist propaganda, and excluded from what's actually occurring, most of them, sadly, have no clue as to what's going...

What will be the final word on the election? That remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: Anticipating a revolution, the media was far, far wrong. And Thursday, Adam Carolla pointed it out. Adam occupies an interesting place in the entertainment ether: He’s a comedian who apparently found out late he’s actually somewhat of a conservative. To him, his views aren’t excessively political; they’re merely common sense. And that sense is widespread — he’s a great friend to both conservative Dennis Prager and outspoken left-winger Jimmy Kimmel. Speaking to Fox and Friends on the 5th, the man who...

Forty-nine-year-old Lee Keltner was fatally shot following a “Patriot Muster” protest last Saturday afternoon in downtown Denver, blocks from the Colorado Capitol near the Denver Art Museum. The shooter was an unlicensed security guard with documented far-left ties who was hired by Denver NBC News affiliate KUSA 9News. The story even garnered President Trump’s attention, with multiple retweets on Wednesday. On Thursday, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, a Democrat, announced she will file second-degree murder charges against Dolloff. While first-degree murder charges in Colorado require evidence of planning and intent to kill, second-degree murder charges imply that “the person knowingly...

It is the kind of move that, had the players been changed, would have had Brian Stelter pontificating loudly about the inference of intolerance. But as the Republican convention kicked off last night, we saw a very curious decision made by the production staff at Brian’s network, and you have to raise a number of questions about the move, especially considering some of the comments made by Stelter himself. Kim Klacik made a quick name for herself with a campaign ad she made to run for the representative seat in her hometown of Baltimore. That a forceful person of color...

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had the audacity to join Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union program and blame his failed handling of the coronavirus pandemic on President Donald Trump. He said this as if his decisions have not directly resulted in LA’s surging cases and a corresponding rise in homicides.  Garcetti started out the interview by saying that the city “was left on their own” when they should have had help. But did the Mayor completely forget that President Trump, at the request of Governor Newsom, sent the USNS Mercy to the Port of Los Angeles early...

The media is distorting everything that comes out of the Trump administration. Here are four examples from just the last few days. Last Thursday, the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today obnoxiously proclaimed: “'Science should not stand in the way' of schools reopening, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says.” What did McEnany actually say? “You look at the JAMA pediatric study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from COVID is far less for children than the seasonal flu. The science is on our side here.” Clearly, McEnany was arguing...

Last week, CNN’s Don Lemon spoke with actor Terry Crews about the Black Lives Matter movement. In recent weeks, Crews has been outspoken on the subject by stating that he wishes to “unite people,” that he does not want to see Black Lives Matter morph into “Black Lives Better,” and warning against threats of violence from the increasingly belligerent BLM movement. Never one to fail to protect “the narrative,” Lemon practically scolded Crews by rejecting the need to even discuss wider issues affecting “black lives” - such as black-on-black violence - arguing that “the Black Lives Matter movement was started...

What happens if COVID death rates plummet to the point of no longer being a pandemic threat? The media will turn it on Trump.> Legacy media became predictably hysterical after President Donald Trump’s speech Friday defending American exceptionalism at one of the nation’s most iconic monuments, Mount Rushmore. “We will state the truth in full, without apology: We declare that the United States of America is the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on Earth,” Trump proclaimed from the South Dakota Black Hills. “We are proud of the face that our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and...

<p>The Grand Canyon is a fitting metaphor for the difference between the uncensored version of President Donald Trump's Independence Day speech gleaned from live television and the feverishly distorted versions of his speech shown by the "reality-based press," as the leftist journo-braggarts call themselves.</p>

In Independence Day Blowout "This monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never ever be destroyed," Trump said in front of Mt. Rushmore.The first time I met South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, in mid-July 2019, she shared a sincere hope for the future: The fireworks halted by President Barack Obama’s National Park Service in 2010 would be allowed to return to Mount Rushmore. President Donald Trump, she hoped, might come to South Dakota for the celebration.The world has changed dramatically in the year since. The Chinese coronavirus halted the global economy, with every...

Despite their roots in reality, there is no doubt that these crises -- and the White House and Senate's attempts to tackle them -- would be reported differently if Hillary Clinton were president. It took more than five years, but the corporate media finally have the tools and strategy to successfully defeat President Donald Trump.The corporate media have these, mind you, despite the Democratic Party, whose foibles, stumbles, and misfires over those same five years have only complicated efforts, kicking off with a disastrous 2016 defeat and eventually culminating in a near-invisible and increasingly senile presidential candidate stumbling through a...

If you watched CNN or MSNBC you’d probably think you’re going to die. Of course, if you watched either of those networks why wouldn’t you want to? If you read liberal columnists you’d likely believe President Trump is coming to get you, to personally give you coronavirus. It makes you wonder, did Donald Trump drive these people crazy, or just make the rest of us realize they always were? Given how the list of possible coronavirus symptoms continues to grow, showing how little anyone knows about this monster, insanity might be a one of them. If it is, maybe we...

As facts about the Obama administration's spying and leaking are spilling out, media have a brief window of opportunity to salvage some credibility. As new details emerge about the Obama administration’s broad spying-and-leaking campaign against the incoming Trump administration, reporters have a choice to make about whether to cover this story honestly, at long last. There is a brief window of time afforded the media to get the story right. They should take advantage of it.Journalist Lee Smith already noted the seriousness of the problem facing legacy media after the implosion of the Russia collusion conspiracy theory they peddled. “Americans...

Several weeks ago, we detailed how American mainstream media outlets were intent on parroting communist propaganda talking points coming from disinformation ministers in Beijing. At first glance, it would be easy to write this disturbing surrender of journalistic integrity to advanced stages of Trump Derangement System. It would be reasonable to suspect that reporters, producers, anchors and editors held such an intense zeal to oppose, resist and damage President Trump that they'd even stoop so low as to hand their bylines over to propagandists supporting the totalitarian murderers at the top of the Red China food chain. However, something even...