CNN Panelist Tears into Host and Media for Liberal Bias in Reporting

Nicholas Fondacaro | November 13, 2016
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Following Donald Trump becoming the president-elect in a stunning upset, CNN’s Brian Stelter was desperate to find a reason for Hillary Clinton’s loss on Sunday’s “Reliable Sources.” He went so far as to wonder if the media was being too balanced during the election. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway seemingly fed up with Stelter’s antics chided, “I guess what maybe you need to realize is that for a lot of people who don't share your political opinions that's what it [felt] like…the last eight years.

Hemingway’s rebut of Stelter came towards the end of a fairly long segment were the CNN host was trying to figure out where the media went wrong during the election. “Because I believe there were a lot of journalists, most journalists, who were fearful of a Trump presidency who were engaging in wishful thinking believing he couldn't be elected,” he first asked Hemingway.

She identified the media’s bias as more than just “wishful thinking” as Stelter put it, they were actively betting and advocating for her, “They clearly and overtly and even told us they wanted Hillary to win and they gambled everything -- including their credibility, on defeating Donald Trump and electing Hillary Clinton and they lost.” Stelter played coy and questioned her on who she was talking about.

No body with eyes or ears could have any question what so ever in the media felt about Donald Trump, what they felt about his voters,” she stated as she called the media out on their games, “So you had people in our newsrooms, in our major national media telling us things we knew were not true.

After a short discussion, Stelter wondered if the media was too balanced when reporting on Trump and Clinton, with “false equivalencies” being draw between their scandals. Hemingway shot down Stelter’s ridiculousness quick, “The very term "False equivalency" should die in a fire, and the proof is that Donald Trump has been elected president.” She pointed to the fact that the pubic vastly distrusts the media, but Stelter didn’t buy it saying only “some” did because the popular vote was almost 50-50. He simply ignored a September Gallup poll showing that  two thirds of Americas distrust the media. Two thirds is not “SOME,” it’s MOST.

The Federalist editor went on to scold the media for bullying people with different political opinions than theirs:

So, to talk about how unliked these candidates are, when we ourselves are loathed and detested for what we're doing and for how we bully people… They're deciding to quadruple down on everything they got wrong, disparaging people they don't understand, don't even seek to understand and continuing to avoid dealing with the fundamentals of this race, what people were motivated by, they're not even interested in it.

The panel seemed momentarily stunned by Hemingway’s candor, but before long Stelter was showing off his bullying side.

As the conversation went on, Stelter brought up how hostile Trump was to media, and how it was unbecoming of a president to be that way with the press. Hemingway reminded him that President Barack Obama was the same way with Fox News. He snapped at her, and scolded her for saying Obama did it most of the time. Stelter seemed to have conveniently forgot how Obama tried to kick Fox News out of the White House press pool, before other outlets stepped in.

Hemingway seemed to of had enough of Stelter masquerading as an objective journalist, and unloaded on him and the rest of the media:

Okay. I guess what maybe you need to realize is that for a lot of people who don't share your political opinions that's what it feels like. What you're going through right now is what it felt like for the last eight years. And so to go to our fainting couches when Donald Trump points out The New York Times completely crapped the bed this cycle. They should be apologizing for how they covered it, their headline the day after the election was a joke saying that it was all about foreigners and allies, Democrats very concerned about the victory after Donald Trump won the presidency. I mean, this is a joke!

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