This may be the most unintentionally ironic sentence ever written:
Chuck Todd has had a front-row seat for the spread of disinformation while hosting NBC’s Meet the Press.
That’s how Rolling Stone writer Peter Wade began his article entitled “How Disinformation Spreads, According to Chuck Todd.”
Going to Chuck Todd for information on disinformation makes sense, of course. It’s like going to John Dillinger for information on how to rob a bank.
The irony is that Wade was approaching Todd as if he were J. Edgar Hoover when he’s really the master criminal.
Chuck Todd, thy name is Fake News.
Todd, of course, is the host of the notorious left-wing propaganda show on NBC called “Meet the Press.” Every week he gathers with a coterie of pampered liberals to chortle and smirk about how Trump and the Republicans are evil Russian stooges trying to destroy democracy. He lampoons conservative guests and lauds liberals. In other words, he spins every interview into a master class on disinformation.
But because the Rolling Stone writer shares Todd’s anti-Trump bias, he has turned Todd into a champion of truth. His article gives Todd a chance to promote his Dec. 29 show where he will supposedly be exposing “the weaponization of disinformation” when actually he is spreading it. You don’t have to believe me — just look at his guest list: the editors of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Yorker, the unholy trinity of Fake News.
I don’t have time to debunk all of Todd’s and Wade’s misleading mischief, but I will summarily dispatch the cornerstone of the entire “disinformation” allegation — that Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway was being either stupid or disingenuous when she talked about “alternative facts” in response to a Chuck Todd question at the start of the Trump administration.
The left always has a good laugh about that one, and talks about how “facts are facts” and quotes Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous edict that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Well, much as I admire a witty bon mots as much as the next guy, Moynihan is just wrong. So is Todd. Everyone is entitled to his own facts — or specifically to present his own facts in support of an argument. Facts do not mutate, but they do multiply, as anyone who has ever visited a court of law knows. First, the state presents its prosecution case, laying out the facts in support of guilt. But lo and behold, those are not the only facts. They are just the facts that the prosecutor wants the jury to know.
Then, in a fair process, the defense attorney gets to talk to the jury, and he lays out what can only be called “alternative facts” — facts which the prosecutor did not want the jury to hear because they raise doubt, question the legitimacy of the prosecution argument, or even prove the innocence of the defendant.
If we were not entitled to present alternative facts, we could never have justice, and even more importantly could never get anywhere near the truth. It is indeed the failure to present alternative facts which has earned Chuck Todd, NBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN their charter memberships in the Fake News Hall of Fame.
Todd and his cronies think they are the only conduit by which facts should be dispersed to the people, and since they hate Trump, they share the “alternative facts” that support their case for disliking Trump or actually impeaching him. This isn’t just a guess; it is a fact — backed up by research compiled by among others the Media Research Center.
Even before the impeachment story got started, coverage of a trump in the mainstream media was 90 percent negative. After the impeachment story broke, the negative coverage soared to 96 percent. That was despite major accomplishments by the Trump administration in the economy (record high stock market, record low unemployment) and foreign affairs (successes in Mideast, the death ISIS Leader al-Baghdadi) and his continued historic popularity among Republicans for his judicial appointments and much more.
Of course, what Todd and the Fake News Gang don’t like is that they don’t control the narrative any longer. What they call disinformation is what the rest of us call thinking for ourselves. It’s the Internet, stupid! NBC and The NY Times no longer own our brains, and they don’t like it.
Sorry, Charlie, but we insist on the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and that includes the alternatives facts you would prefer we never see. Your day is over.
WHO WE ARE
Frank Miele has spent four decades in the news business and now offers conservative commentary to counter the left-wing bias in the national media. If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will consider purchasing one of my books. They are available at Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions. My new book — “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” — shows that Fake News has been around for years. The “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy tackles the politics of the last two decades: Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” Also consider subscribing to Heartland Diary on YouTube by clicking here for News Every Conservative Can Use.
Well said Frank. Being somewhat of a news junkie I watched all of the Sunday shows for years. MTP was my favorite. Tim Russert was liberal but fair. He must be spinning in his grave watching Todd eviscerate the show he built and loved.
Agreed. I grew up watching those shows during the Vietnam War, civil rights movement, Watergate. They were informative and educational and newsmakers were respected, not reviled.