Abby Phillip, CNN
To anyone watching, it was as plain as the nose on your face.
I’m neither a CNN fan, nor a CNN hater.
But this is blatant, and inexcusable.
It demonstrates an utter lack, and wholesale abandonment of professional journalistic integrity.
It wasn’t merely the Democrats or Progressives who noticed, either.
In fact, voices from the Conservative Right Wing were the loudest to decry the moderator Abby Phillip’s action.
I mean to refer to the 7th Democratic Debate held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa this past Tuesday evening, 14 January 2020.
For some, it was analogously like the 7th Level of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, which was also full of violence toward individuals, and the Earth.
Though there were no fisticuffs, no bomb threats, no armed shooters, and no physical violence of any kind, there was another killing – two, in fact.
One, was CNN, which along with Moderator Abby Phillip, burned her journalism career, and the last shred of respectability or integrity CNN had remaining.
The other was Bernie Sanders.
It was obvious from the get-go.
Corporate interests in America do NOT want to see him win the Democratic Nomination for President.
It’s.
Just.
That.
Simple.
The Federalist, one such website, Tweeted this about Abby Philip’s demonstration of lack of character, and her ethically unacceptable behavior:
Brianne Pfannenstiel, Chief Politics Reporter, The Des Moines Register, Iowa
The Chicago Tribune’s John Kass, another conservative columnist, also laid into CNN and Abby Phillip over her unethical journalistic behavior.
His remarks from his column, in part, are found below.
Even Rolling Stone magazine’s Matt Taibbi found Abby Phillip’s disrespectful treatment of Bernie Sanders to be not merely a cheap shot, but a calculated and active interference to sway viewers’ opinion.
The 24-hour network combines a naked political hit with a cynical ploy for ratings.
“This time, the whole network tossed the mud. Over a 24-hour period before, during, and after the debate, CNN bid farewell to what remained of its reputation as a nonpolitical actor via a remarkable stretch of factually dubious reporting, bent commentary, and heavy-handed messaging.
“The cycle began with a “bombshell” exposé by CNN reporter MJ Lee. Released on the eve of the debate, Lee reported Warren’s claim that Sanders told her a woman couldn’t win in a December 2018 meeting.
[These banal meanderings] “continued during the debate, with the chryon featuring questions like, “How will [Sanders] avoid bankrupting the country?” Or: “Does Sanders owe voters an explanation of how much his health plan will cost them and the country?””
Then McIntosh said this: “I think what Bernie forgot was that this isn’t a he said/she said story. This is a reported-out story that CNN was part of breaking. So, to have him just flat-out say no, I think wasn’t — wasn’t nearly enough to address that for the women watching.”
The Washington Examiner, another Right-leaning publication, also chimed in later that evening with a story headlined, “CNN debate moderator assumes Bernie Sanders is lying about women.”
In her story for the Examiner, Breaking News Reporter Madison Dibble wrote in part that, “A moderator from the CNN/Des Moines Register debate sided with Elizabeth Warren in the he-said-she-said dispute over whether Bernie Sanders said a woman couldn’t be president.
“Abby Phillip, a CNN reporter, phrased her questions in defense of Warren, who claimed that Sanders told her he didn’t think a woman could be president during a meeting in 2018. The Vermont senator has denied that he ever said such a thing, but Phillip worded the questions as though there were evidence backing up Warren’s claim.”
Even POTUS Trump sees it.
Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, who helped Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, was later discovered to have been pilfering debate questions ahead of time, and sharing them with Hillary, with the intent to defeat Bernie. Like Roger Stone, she remains unrepentant for her misdeeds. CNN also fired her for that activity. But CNN wasn’t the only one.
Fox News also showed Brazile the door with the left foot of fellowship.
Vice-President of Fox Ethics, Satya Martin, described Brazile’s firing:
“Donna Brazile is the worst reporter or commentator or whatever she is that I’ve ever known.
Her only goal, it seems, is to be contrary.
She literally claims opposite supposed ‘facts’ to everything that we report in the news. And her opinions are over the top in their opposition.
She’s like a child who just screams in tantrums against us for attention.
“She was fired from CNN for fabricating stories so she was already known as a purveyor of fake news.
The brass had their reasons for taking a chance on her.
I’m sure they wanted to attract a liberal audience just to show that we mean it when we say we’re fair and balanced.
But there’s fair and balanced and then there’s off her rocker crazy train journalism.
That’s Brazile.
Nuts.”
It wasn’t long after she was fired by CNN that Donna Brazile quickly wrote a tell-all which fingered Hillary as the brainchild behind an unethically-appearing fundraising bargain with the Democratic National Committee, in which the DNC was rigged in Clinton’s favor because her campaign was largely financing the party early on in the presidential election. And Donna Brazile, who knew about it from the get-go said the agreement “was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical.”
Of course,
as Bernie has long said,
it’s all about the Benjamins,
and a
Corporate System
legally rigged
AGAINST
the
Average American.
Even John Kass sees it.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-bernie-sanders-cnn-kass-20200116-avuaiaxbfvdkbb2w6y4yoiafuq-story.html
“What CNN did to Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Democratic presidential debate — stabbing him with the gender card on behalf of a weakened Elizabeth Warren — was cheap and unfair.
“And it was shameful.
“I’m probably the last guy to defend Sanders. He is a man of the far left and I most certainly am not.
“But even a conservative like me can see that Sanders was cheated out of the Democratic presidential nomination the last time, with the Democratic National Committee rigging the whole thing for Hillary Clinton. And now it’s happening again.
“No wonder the Sanders supporters are angry.
“What happened on CNN in Iowa was bad for journalism. But it sure was good for Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden.
“Sanders, the authentic candidate on the left in this cycle, as he was in the last, was surging in the Iowa polls. Warren, also on the left, was fading, desperate and in full panic. She began waving her gender card on that dangerous Intersectionality Highway where Democrats, addicted to identity politics, often crack up.
…
“And Joe? With Bernie on Trump jury duty in Washington, Biden is left to wander around Iowa with (former) Mayor Pete — who also was not challenged by CNN — and that radical billionaire environmentalist who made his gold in fossil fuels.
“No wonder Sanders’ supporters are upset. They’ve seen this before. They watched the same game play out three years ago, when the Democratic nomination was almost his, and establishment media handmaidens of the Democratic National Committee protected Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump.
“A Sanders vs. Trump campaign in 2016 would have been a clash of populist titans. Sanders could have won. We might see this matchup in 2020. Establishment Democrats are panicked, and conventional wisdom suggests Trump would smash him, but I’m not so sure.
“The electorate has been primed by relentless media attacks on Trump, who attacks them back. Americans are unsettled and worried about their future in a world undergoing economic upheaval. Bernie could win.
“The Democratic base is energized for 2020. Sanders, who suffered a heart attack weeks ago, looks positively vital when compared to Biden. Conventional wisdom also once said Republican Jeb Bush couldn’t be beat. How did that turn out?
“Joe is the new Jeb.
“I suppose it would be much easier to focus instead on Trump impeachment theater in Washington. But the script has been written, the Senate won’t convict Trump. It’s all posture and gesture and fundraising.
“I disagree with Sanders’ policies, but at least he’s honest about what he wants to do. Establishment Democrats see Sanders’ base as full of energy and know they must stop him in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“They feed Warren so Sanders doesn’t defeat Biden. And they’ll use friendly media to shape a stiletto and slip it between Bernie’s ribs.
“Sanders’ voters have seen this one before.”
And that is precisely what Bernie has been saying all along.
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