The job of any reporter or journalist is to provide information in a neutral and factual way. The individuals who purported to be serving as reporters and journalists on CNN this afternoon failed abjectly and miserably in this duty.
I made the poor decision of turning on the TV to watch coverage of the brave patriots who were fighting back against authoritarianism in Washington, D.C. The way that the employees of CNN covered this topic was so egregiously biased that I simultaneously felt sick to my stomach and could not stop watching. One vicious insult after another flowed from the lips of the CNN employees. Some of the words used included:
- “Shameful”
- “Absolutely disgraceful”
- “Treasonous”
- “Disgusting”
- “Revolting”
- “Deplorable”
- “Deranged”
- “Unacceptable”
- “Ridiculous”
- “Deranged”
- “Thugs”
- “Knuckleheads”
- “Wannabe weekend warriors”
- “Criminals”
- “Insurrectionists”
- “Mob”
- “Rioters”
- “Domestic terrorists”
These are what managed to pass for headlines, with the words “mob” and “rioters” used matter-of-factly as if they were somehow objective terms:
As if this were not enough, so-called anchor Anderson Cooper ridiculed the protesters for high-fiving each other and smiling, calling this a “deplorable display” and adding that they “stood up for nothing other than mayhem.” He opined, preposterously, that the protesters had nothing to feel aggrieved about because for years gay people were not allowed to marry. He described the situation as completely Trump’s fault and criticized Trump’s family for being “enablers.” Reprehensibly, he described an individual protester wearing colonial garb as a “buffoon.” And he pompously and contemptuously declared, “They’re not protesters, they’re insurrectionists.” Van Jones said of the protests, “We need to snuff this out” and demanded a “uniform denunciation” from the Republican Party. Wolf Blitzer claimed that the protesters “probably are too stupid to know” that they could be arrested. Several alleged journalists on CNN compared the situation to the Black Lives Matter protests and implored viewers to imagine if today’s protesters were black people or Muslims (seemingly implying that they would have been treated worse if that had been the case).
In addition to Cooper, Jones, and Blitzer, other CNN employees who behaved completely disgracefully today include John King, Abby Phillip, Gloria Borger, and Kaitlan Collins. There are probably more that I am missing.
The type of language used by these people would be unacceptable even in an editorial or opinion piece. In news coverage, it is beyond preposterous. It does not matter what the subject matter is; every person who claims to be a reporter or journalist must present it in a neutral way. When one is supposed to be covering the news, expressing opinions is not okay, let alone expressing them in a way that involves vile personal insults. Neither Osama bin Laden nor Saddam Hussein nor Adolf Hitler nor Jeffrey Dahmer deserved to be described the way the CNN employees described the pro-Trump protesters today. Each and every individual who spoke on CNN this afternoon needs, at the absolute least, to be fired immediately.