The liberal Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) continued to revel in the throngs of agitated leftists descending on the town hall meetings of GOP lawmakers Wednesday. “We begin tonight with Americans across this country determined to have their voices heard, and their target, members of Congress home for break,” hyped anchor David Muir, kicking off World News Tonight, “What they are getting instead is an earful.” They all pushed back on claims that the rabble-rousers were not organized protesters, but that’s not what one network was glorifying just last week.
Muir heaped praise on the mobs by constantly referring to them as “voters,” implying that they all were indeed registered to vote. “Voters putting these missing signs on milk cartons to call them out,” Muir claimed, “Tonight the White House is calling some of these voters professional protesters.”
ABC reporter Matt Gutman ran a highlight reel of GOP lawmakers being screamed at by the liberal protesters. There was no mention at all that members of Congress were getting shouted down whenever they tried to speak. And he seemed to hold it against a frustrated Jodi Ernst when she left an event. “Leaving after just 45 minutes, protesters following her to her car,” he noted.
He also hailed a tweet from Hillary Clinton scolding Republicans, reporting that, “For a second day in a row, Hillary Clinton taking aim. This time at the lawmakers avoiding their constituents, Clinton tweeting, ‘If you can't stand the heat, get out of the congress.’”
“Tonight, the hostile homecoming continues for Republican members of congress. Being confronted by angry constituents at town halls held across the country,” announced anchor Lester Holt during NBC Nightly News. Holt handed it off to Peter Alexander who grilled Republican Representative Dave Brat with ridiculous questions. “Is this a metaphor for America, what we witness in this room? You’ve got people yelling and screaming at you,” Alexander inquired after playing a clip of a wild-eyed protester who shrieked “What are you talking about?! You're insane!”
The coverage conducted by Nancy Cordes on CBS Evening News was extremely slanted, as she set out to investigate the accusations of organized protesters. “If professional agitators were lurking in the line outside the Jefferson Parish Library today, we didn't meet them,” jokingly declared at the start of her segment. “Do we look like loud individuals? Do we look like paid protesters,” an elderly old lady told her.
“This group of mostly retired women, brought homemade signs, umbrellas for the sun, and a newfound sense of activism,” Cordes concluded. Yet Cordes interviewed a woman who admittedly used Facebook to help “spread the word” and organize people. She also feigned seriousness and asked her if she paid people to be there:
CORDES: How does this crowd match up to your expectations?
TODD: It's pretty good. We did have, you know, over 1,000 people R.S.V.P. on Facebook.
CORDES: Could you pay protesters if you wanted to?
TODD: No. Nor would I.
But it was CBS who, one-week-ago to the day, glorified the efforts of “progressive” organizations to gin up liberal protests. Reporter Dean Reynolds touted how a father of two would “get his marching orders” from “Progressive websites that seek to marshal his energy and meld it with millions of other opponents of the new president.” And just yesterday, reporter Chip Reid interviewed the founder of just such a website.
Eight years ago, the Big Three networks parroted every word from the Obama administration that the Tea Party was a violent “AstroTurf” movement because it had online organization. But in 2017, they simultaneously glorify their online organizing and treat it as an organic movement.