Rachel Maddow had an unusual excuse for not covering a live event of the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. He might say something “untrue.”
That certainly sets a precedent for political news coverage. Because the way Rachel Maddow would have the MSNBC audience believe, the only politicians who have ever told a lie are Donald Trump and his supporters.
But the refusal to air the live event becomes even more dubious from a journalistic standpoint, because Trump has been afforded the right to discuss his defense in public. After all, it is presidential campaign season and he has been targeted for prosecution by a sitting U.S. president and election rival whose own “classified documents” scandal dwarfs that of Donald Trump.
“Now, I need to say that former President Trump has just started making public remarks just as he did on the evening of his first arraignment on criminal charges,” Maddow said. “That was April when he was booked on 34 felony counts brought by the state of New York. Now tonight after his arraignment on federal felony charges, he’s speaking again this time to an audience of his supporters that’s gathered for a, a campaign fundraiser tonight at his golf club and summer home in New Jersey.”
“We knew heading into this, that he was planning to make these remarks,” she went on. “We are prepared for his pre-fundraiser remarks tonight to again be essentially a Trump campaign speech. Because of that, we do not intend to carry these remarks live. As we have said before, in these circumstances, there is a cost to us as a news organization to knowingly broadcast untrue things.”
Rachel Maddow has knowingly broadcast untrue things for years throughout the Trump administration, particularly regarding the Russia hoax and numerous legal matters.
Beyond that, there are virtually no repercussions for airing a live political event. If one believes that things were said that are false, it is one’s duty as a journalist to provide balance with actual facts.
There is no justifiable reason to hide a presidential candidate’s defense from an audience after attacking him with a one-sided narrative all day that implies that he is guilty and a threat to national security, particularly while letting the current U.S. president and other Democratic political figures off the hook without serious criticism.
It is just another example of how MSNBC is doing a tremendous disservice to the American public with its one-sided partisan commentary masquerading as legitimate journalism. Journalists hold the powerful and privileged accountable, no matter their political party and ideological affiliation. But that is all-too-often something that the Woke mainstream media refuses to do.
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