***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
What a news organization allows to be aired on their network tells you a lot about their priorities. While Fox News kicked off Sunday’s 11:00 a.m. hour with the press conference featuring the heroic Nashville police officers who evacuated people ahead of the Christmas bombing, CNN pressed forward with a prerecorded segment featuring five of their reporters reliving their grievances of the Trump era.
The time slot was the home of both networks’ competing programming dedicated to covering the news media’s antics of the week (MediaBuzz on Fox News and so-called “Reliable Sources” on CNN). And while Fox News host Howard Kurtz pushed back his start time to give way for the officers, CNN went right on ahead with their taped segment with host Brian Stelter.
So, while the officers were talking to the press about what they saw, heard, and did Christmas morning to save lives, Stelter was rehashing CNN’s coverage of the crowd size at President Trump’s inauguration:
But I want to begin by rewinding four years back to the very beginning. Trump's very first full day in office in January 2017. I know everyone remembers when President Trump freaked out about crowd size at his inauguration. But most people don't know that his fury was triggered by this segment on CNN. It was at 5:19 in the morning on January 21st. Yet, crowd size gate started right here on this network. It was a short accurate report, but it drove Trump up a wall. It was the first sign that his entire presidency will be ruled by what he saw on television.
Following a soundbite of Trump saying he had a “running war with the media,” Stelter bloviated. “Back then, in 2017, media leaders wondered, would he change? Would Trump grow into the role? We know the answer now. Historians one day will write that Trump's conduct deteriorated during his four years in office. He lied more and more dangerously as time went on.”
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