The struggle on conservative media is getting into a brand new part. Two Home Democrats have written a letter to AT&T, Comcast, Dish, Verizon, and different TV suppliers asking them in the event that they plan to proceed carrying Fox Information, Newsmax, and One America Information.
Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney of California denounced these channels as harmful Pretend Information that must be scrapped.
“Misinformation on TV has led to our present polluted data setting that radicalizes people to commit seditious acts and rejects public well being greatest practices, amongst different points in our public discourse,” they wrote. “To our information, the cable, satellite tv for pc, and over-the-top corporations that disseminate these media shops to American viewers have accomplished nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these shops.”
The Democrats need TV suppliers to curtail networks that present data dangerous to Democrats – er, the general public.
They requested a collection of loaded questions, resembling: “What ethical or moral ideas (together with these associated to journalistic integrity, violence, medical data, and public well being) do you apply in deciding which channels to hold or when to take hostile actions in opposition to a channel?”
The seventh and final query is that this: “Are you planning to proceed carrying Fox Information, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV each now and past any contract renewal date? If that’s the case, why?”
Democrats know this sort of marketing campaign is secure, as a result of the censors at CNN’s Media Unit made it clear it isn’t about freedom of speech, it is about “freedom of reach.”
Left-winger Glenn Greenwald summed it up:
It’s only a proven fact that the individuals who spent the final 4 years claiming to be so very apprehensive about authoritarianism are completely dedicated to utilizing their new energy as the bulk occasion to censor their adversaries off each the web & cable utilizing bullying techniques like this: https://t.co/aycybk9Uvx
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 22, 2021
Fox Information issued an announcement: “As probably the most watched cable information channel all through 2020, FOX Information Media supplied hundreds of thousands of People with in-depth reporting, breaking information protection and clear opinion. For particular person members of Congress to spotlight political speech they don’t like and demand cable distributors interact in viewpoint discrimination units a horrible precedent.”
Eshoo and McNerney serve on the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee, which can maintain a listening to on “misinformation” on Wednesday.
Now think about Home Republicans in February of 2017 holding hearings on why cable suppliers are nonetheless carrying CNN and MSNBC, after which think about how that may be greeted with screechy claims of Hitlerism/Stalinism descending on America.
No Republican is proposing CNN’s “freedom of attain” be drastically curtailed as a result of it bought a phony Russian-collusion narrative for 3 years, or championed the “election denialism” of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, or carried infinite hours of Andrew Cuomo puffball press conferences as he dramatically mismanaged the coronavirus in New York.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy is clearly proud of this letter, as if he scripted it himself. “Eshoo and McNerney posed a variety of questions — a few of which I’ve requested and been unable to get the solutions to — to TV suppliers. These are honest questions these corporations don’t appear to wish to reply.” He complained “I checked in with the key TV suppliers to see if that they had any remark, however did not get any.”
We now have a remark: Stuff it, Oliver.
