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Will Vance Use Debate to Ask CBS to Apologize to Its Own Reporters for Ethics Scandals?

Posted on Saturday, September 28, 2024
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by Aaron Flanigan
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Just weeks after the ABC News moderators gave America the most biased performance in presidential debate history, Republican J.D. Vance in his upcoming CBS Vice Presidential debate is likely to be ready to counter any similar bias from that network’s moderators. A skilled polemicist and writer with highly developed critical faculties, Vance can be expected to bring up the very Harris-Walz ticket vulnerabilities the CBS moderators will undoubtedly try to steer away from such as the ugly realities of Harris-Biden hyperinflation, border destruction, rising crime, and foreign dangers. But how fun it will be if Vance also mentions other forbidden topics to network news operations such as Kamala Harris’s instability as a boss, with a 92% turnover on her vice-presidential staff, or the exploding charges of anti-Catholic bigotry against her and vulnerable down-ticket Democrats as a result of allegations by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that Harris is the most anti-Catholic presidential candidate in the last 150 years, or the allegations laid out in a series of hard-hitting TV ads, hammering endangered Senate Democrats for their party’s persecution of the Little Sisters of the Poor, attempts to stop Catholics from holding public office like judgeships, FBI Director Christopher Wray’s cover-up of the Biden-Harris persecution of traditional Catholics, and the White House’s thumb in the eye to Christians with its now notorious transgender proclamation on Easter Sunday.

But if in doing the CBS moderators’ jobs for them, Vance actually makes Democrat Waltz answer something other than softball questions, he could also downright thrill tens of millions of Americans by bringing up the great unspoken, and possibly most important, issue of the 2024 campaign. Like Vivek Ramaswamy during one of the GOP primary debates last year, he could ask the moderators to address the matter of a corporate media that is, in the eyes of much of the public, gravely corrupt. Vance, then, could ask his questioners why TV networks that claim to be journalistic enterprises have a liturgical adherence to running only negative stories about Republican candidates and favorable ones about Democrats—and thus appear to the public as the media arm of the left-wing ruling class and current administration— but he also might take a step beyond and focus on CBS’s own distinctive history here. Notably, the cases of reporters Catherine Herridge and Sharyl Attkisson, whose persecution by the network will someday be studied by journalism students as classic examples of the era of corporate media corruption and the network’s determination to serve power, not truth.

Before describing, however, Herridge’s and Attkisson’s attempt to defy their bosses’ determination to cover up what is, in Herridge’s case, probably the worst public corruption case in American history—the use of public office by a U.S. Vice President to enrich his family to the tune of $27 million (a felony under federal law)—and in Attkisson’s case, the worst falsehood told to the American people during a national security crisis since the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a revisit is in order to the delightful moment a year ago when Vivek Ramaswamy held the media accountable. During a November 2023 Republican primary debate, Ramaswamy stopped the political world cold when he said out loud what many voters have long known to be the truth.

“Think about who’s moderating this debate,” Ramaswamy said on the debate stage in November. “This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk—we’d have 10 times the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about, and bring in more people into our party.”

“We’ve got Kristen Welker here,” he continued. “Do you think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate? They wouldn’t do it. And so the fact of the matter is, Kristen, I’m going to use this time—because this is actually about you and the media, and the corrupt media establishment—[to] ask you [about] the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years. Was that real? Or was that Hillary Clinton made-up disinformation? Answer the question. Go.” The camera then panned to Welker, who awkwardly smiled and refused to answer Ramaswamy’s question as the crowd erupted in applause.

In taking this approach, Ramaswamy let a massive political genie out of the bottle and exposed why so many Republicans and Independent voters view not the Democrats, but the corporate media, as the real opposition party in American politics.

Thus this emerging dynamic in public opinion gives Vance a good opportunity to expose CBS’s role in perpetrating the era of media corruption and confront moderators Margaret Brennan (whose husband has come under fire for donating to the anti-Trump, scandal-ridden group, the Lincoln Project) and Norah O’Donnell on the matter of their own network’s shocking instances of violating journalistic ethics in the case of two of its trusted correspondents.

Thus, in asking Brennan and O’Donnell whether the network wishes to publicly atone for its most recent case of journalistic malpractice, Vance can mention the February 2024 firing of veteran investigative journalist Catherine Herridge and CBS’s shocking seizure of her files. Herridge thought it her duty to look into what has become the largest corruption scandal in U.S. history—a scandal that, in the range of its influence-peddling and shakedown operations of foreign governments over, for example, the release of foreign aid funds to Ukraine, saw a sitting Vice President of the United States use his office to enrich his family by tens of millions of dollars—and thus far exceeds in gravity and magnitude other historic scandals like Teapot Dome, Crédit Mobilier, or Watergate. Such actions in the past, as George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley has pointed out, led to felony prosecutions by Department of Justice. Even more appalling is the attempt by CBS and other networks to help the political class to dismiss the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as Russian disinformation and then fix the case for the president’s son—a fix stopped only by the heroism of two IRS whistleblowers and a federal judge who refused to accept a sweetheart deal given the younger Biden.

Though the persecution of Herridge by CBS executives who were angry at her for embarrassing them with their friends and allies in the Harris-Biden administration and her abrupt departure from the network has garnered some attention in the media, it is particularly noteworthy because it serves as a climactic endpoint to another shocking CBS newsroom firing of a female reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who also bucked the trend of corporate media’s fierce protection of politicians like Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Indeed, a word about the Obama era is in order here in view of its relevance to any CBS-sponsored event such as Tuesday’s debate since it marked the network’s first full-on collusion with government and politicians. An earlier generation of news staff at CBS would have been appalled at the thought that the organization once dubbed “the Tiffany Network” had become a network whose newsroom was being run by the brother of fanatical anti-Trumper and former Obama aide Ben Rhodes, and who tried to crush a reporter like Sharyl Attkisson for exposing the truth about the greatest lie ever told to the American public in a moment of national crisis, one far worse in its deliberateness and planning than the Johnson administration’s lie about the Tonkin Gulf incident to Congress.

Attkisson, who worked for CBS for more than two decades, left the network when it stopped reporting on the Benghazi attack weeks before the 2012 presidential election in efforts to protect then-President Obama’s reelection prospects. The attack, which claimed the lives of four American officials or contractors stationed in Libya, exposed a prolonged period of deceit by the Obama administration, spanning more than five days. Many in the corporate media fervently echoed these falsehoods, adamantly insisting that the attack was not orchestrated by radical Islamic terrorist groups but rather attributed to a YouTube video. However, internal communications revealed that administration officials were aware of the true nature of the attack. Hillary Clinton even sent an email acknowledging the deception, Susan Rice appeared on television spreading the false narrative despite knowing it wasn’t true, and numerous other officials were complicit. Nevertheless, the media enthusiastically continued to propagate these falsehoods, compounding the deception.

To another generation of network executives, it would have been unthinkable to bar a story of such magnitude just weeks before an election. “Many in the media,” Attkisson wrote, “are wrestling with their own souls.” She continued: “Some worry that the news coverage will hurt a cause that they personally believe in. They’re all too eager to dismiss damaging documentary evidence while embracing, sometimes unquestioningly, the Obama administration’s ever-evolving and unproven explanations.”

Following her departure from CBS, Attkisson went on to publish Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, in which she detailed her executives’ rejection of “stories that the Obama Administration dismissed” and outlined the increasing “decline of investigative journalism and unbiased truth telling in America today.”

CBS was not alone, of course, in abandoning its journalistic soul to cover for Obama. One of NBC’s most respected reporters, Lisa Meyers, left the network after it refused—in another classic instance of network newsroom corruption—to air her revelations about deliberate administration lies regarding Obamacare, the single largest piece of domestic legislation since the Social Security Act. The network wanted no part of the evidence Meyers had gathered showing that the administration knew well the falsehood of its claims that its plan would allow Americans to save $2,500 a year in health costs and keep their own private plans or doctors. While the real turning point toward a culture of network news executives actively trying to cover up stories for their political friends or allies and silencing reporters who were trying to do their jobs occurred during the Obama era, no discussion of the current state of network news and the upcoming CBS vice presidential debate can be complete without noting one earlier newsroom cultural shift that began all the trouble. This shift occurred when networks began hiring for key Washington positions—not reporters with journalistic experience, but Democrat Party Capitol Hill aides or campaign operatives like Tim Russert, who had served as an aide to liberal New York Mayor Mario Cuomo and Patrick Moynihan, George Stephanopoulos, a key Clinton campaign and White House staffer who, even while at ABC, gave undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation and participated in morning strategy calls with Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and advisor James Carville, and Chuck Todd, a former Senator Tom Harkin staffer whose on-air pumping up of Democrat Party hopes in any given election is only exceeded in boldness by his financial ties as a landlord to Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a frequent guest on his show.

Thus, the current ethical wasteland at the networks seems to have initially stemmed from these hires and would eventually lead, in the Trump era, to a willingness to collude with Democrats in promulgating rather than exposing the most remarkable political dirty trick in American history—the Clinton campaign’s million-dollar, successful effort to collude with the FBI and Department of Justice in the Russian hoax that Trump had ties to the Russian government. The media never explained, never apologized. And this is not to mention the staggering wave of false prosecutions, censorship, and violations of civil liberties engaged in by the Biden administration and its Justice Department against political opponents—just the sort of government censorship and oppression, including the pattern of harassing or even imprisoning dissenters that in another era would have infuriated journalists of any political persuasion and led to countless exposes.

Thus, the problem for Vance in Tuesday’s debate—but also the opportunity—is that he will face moderators who are deeply in the grip of this decades-long decline in network ethics and professionalism and who may not even be able to process the idea that they have biases that can cost them and their network dearly. ABC moderator David Muir’s distortion, for example, of Trump’s January 6th speech—during which he left out Trump’s call for a “peaceful” Capitol Hill demonstration—was the sort of falsification by omission that could have gotten a reporter fired in earlier times. So too Muir’s ridiculous repetition of the falsehood that Trump called the Charlottesville neo-Nazi demonstrators “very fine people” shows the kind of inwardness that can be professionally suicidal. One wonders if it ever occurred to Muir that in his false fact-checking, he himself might be called out for dishonesty.

Expect then that the corporate media networks’ addiction to partisan activism will be on display this Tuesday, and that is why the playbook offered by Vivek Ramaswamy in last year’s debate—and regularly presented by Vance during his media appearances, as well as in John Nolte’s famous Breitbart list of media fabrications—might help lead eventually to a much-needed restoration of journalistic ethics and a return of the media’s credibility in the eyes of the American public.

Polls now consistently find that Americans’ trust in the media is plummeting to frighteningly low levels, a process unlikely to be reversed until reporters of integrity like Herridge and Attkisson can wrestle newsrooms back from the activist executives and “suits in the suites” currently running the news shows.

Vance calling out CBS on its own journalistic scandals could be a big step forward.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.

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Barbara
Barbara
1 month ago

If Vance does try to do any of this, they will simply turn off his microphone. There is no such thing as “news” anymore. It is simply a “ journalists” opinion.

PaulE
PaulE
1 month ago

The author of this article should remember that CBS has reserved the right to shut off the microphones any time they like. For any reason whatsoever. Thus, if it appears that Vance is about to demand some sort of apology from either CBS or the two shills acting as moderators, it is reasonable to expect his microphone will be immediately muted before he can finish a sentence and those watching at home will hear nothing.

If Vance starts gesturing to the cameras his outrage at having his microphone cut off, I wouldn’t put it past CBS to go to a black screen and then a “We are experiencing technical difficulties” for a few seconds until they go back live showing the moderators addressing a smiling Walz. It’s well past time that the American people finally realize that the MSM’s sole function is to propagandize the American public on behalf the Democrat Party and its members.

The way debates are conducted today is a joke. The entire debate process has been reduced to a limited exchange of short sound bites from the candidates, as the moderators mug for the cameras. That educates no one on any of the serious issues we face as a nation. I can guarantee you that the MSM has already written all their stories about how wonderful Walz performed during the debate. It doesn’t matter how the candidates perform, because today it is all about media spin.

All the TV talking heads on all the major networks already have their DNC approved scripts on how they are supposed to gush over what an incredible job Walz did. Even if Vance mops the floor with him. Reality isn’t about what the news is about anymore. Don’t believe me? Just listen to how the MSM will all be using the exact same adjectives and adverbs to describe their views post-debate. It’s all canned theater at this point. Short of Walz doing a Biden and freezing up on stage or keeling over, the actual debate is a mere formality before the MSM releases their already prepared debate results.

As for the so-called undecided voters this is all about, the real number of undecided voters is far smaller than one would think. Anyone who legitimately hasn’t made up their minds yet has either been living in a cave for the last 4 years or they are a complete moron. In either case, such people would probably decide how they vote by simply flipping a coin before casting their vote.

James Ross
James Ross
1 month ago

Some seem to forget (including the writer of this article) that this is a VP debate. A debate between Vance and Walz, not a debate between Vance and Harris or Vance and the moderators. All Vance has to do to cream Walz is talk about Walz’s record as governor of Minnesota, his ties to China and all Walz’s radical left policies that will destroy America under a Harris/Walz administration.

Oakley
Oakley
1 month ago

The people in the media don’t seem to care a bean that they are viewed as untrustworthy, liars, or colluders with the Dems. The media should hold themselves accountable, but that seems like an unattainable expectation. In a nutshell, they simply don’t care and are not shamed by anything they have done to drag this country down.

LINTON ELIZABETH
LINTON ELIZABETH
1 month ago

I have absolutely NO problem with J.D. Vance, or with whatever he says. If his mike IS turned off, that is just another indication of the fact that the left can’t tolerate the truth. The debate with Harris showed such horrible bias and cheating, that I would expect that to happen again. The left isn’t doing themselves any favors with these stupid tricks. They are so obviously desperate, that they must cheat!! Such a shame!!

cupera1
cupera1
1 month ago

Every time Vance go in front of a bunch of liberal advocates just point out they are 90% of the time mouth pieces for the democrat party and point out multiple examples of their bias, do you homework and be ready, then go on and make your point. If they ask a biased question point out that it is a talking point question from the DNC, refuses the premise of the question and point out more liberal bias and make a further point. Constantly ask them not to act as political hacks for the liberals and make another point. Have a  DNC bumper sticker for their for head handy if they persist.

ron
ron
1 month ago

Let’s hope Vance doesn’t go off on the tangent that the author suggests. A few good sound bites regarding their bias will do the trick. Hammer Harris and hit back if the “moderators” try to defend her.

Thinking
Thinking
1 month ago

He might hurt himself more by calling it out. The MSM with Biden Harris Walz P S and O don’t care about that they are telling lies. They have fabricated these stories have put people in strategic places to convincingly perpetuate the premise. And after all these years (since 2008) they have convinced many people that anything coming out of the White House is true. That is why they can lie so freely. They have no conscience they have no soul. They don’t believe in a God. They worship at the Soros and WEF altars of power. Vance should not bring it up on Tuesday. Keep telling the American people on the campaign trail and through ads, fliers etc. And we Maga voters have to tell our friends and family what’s going on. Even if it means a gap is created between them and you. The culture the left and the elites have created the past 16 years has to end. Will we survive as America. VOTE TRUMP/VANCE your livelihood depends on it.

Norma
Norma
1 month ago

Their useless tactics are why I do not watch any of these democratic cult news stations anymore. They think no one is allowed to have any intelligence except them. I love seeing their ratings tank caused by their own stupidity. I can read and think for myself I do not need their blind attitude!

teresa
teresa
1 month ago

i would rather vance press the issue regarding all the illegals, the rapes, the drugs, the sex traffiking – I want people to understand the impact this horrible act has on young children and women!!!!!!!

Phil
Phil
1 month ago

A great article, and one that just makes my blood boil. America is circling the drain and mainstream media outlets are perfectly happy to watch it happen without a word being said to the public, lest it rankle their democrat masters.

Joe
Joe
1 month ago

The debate drinking game: take a shot of liquor for every Tampon Tim lie and moderator demonstration of bias against Vance, and participants will pass out within thirty minutes.

TXResister64
TXResister64
1 month ago

Wouldn’t it be wonderful? But the deep state-corporate media-Uniparty axis is still as strong as ever, and it won’t happen.

Philip Seth Hammersley
Philip Seth Hammersley
1 month ago

If the “moderators” are even “moderately fair,” Vance will wipe the floor with Tampon Tim. TT lied about his military service, lied about his coaching term, and is a toady of the Chinese Communists. What kind of AMERICAN would honeymoon in Communist China?

KEN KING
KEN KING
1 month ago

GOD SAVE AMERICA AND THE PEOPLE. I ONLY WISH TIMES 3 IS A TOTAT VICTORY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP & J.D. VANCE .

Roseann Carpenter
Roseann Carpenter
1 month ago

What a despicable practice of our corporate media, and this media has seemingly no shame nor pride in their profession. Do they, each reporter, even realize that this is why they get the protection they get for doing an honest job and being equal to all in their pursuit of the facts, let the chips fall where they may’? Now we have so few to rely on to get the facts of the matter at hand. just a thought!

David Millikan
David Millikan
1 month ago

Very informative. You know that cbs will pull the same garbage as abc on this debate. Either way, Vance will walk out on Top.

uncleferd
uncleferd
1 month ago

It’s funny how the political conversation is always centered around the dishonesty of the “Democrats”. Depraved indifference to criminality is absolutely their most notable attribute, but, somehow, in their own view, it’s more acceptable to support the Party.
It further amazes me that their supporters fault the Republicans for not wilfully giving away their money… but they won’t vote for republican policy that would make them wealthier. I guess they’d rather still be Democrats so they can keep stealing it.

GMA
GMA
1 month ago

Vance can present it at the very beginning..”I hope that this debate between Mr. Walz and myself …..etc.”

Myrna
Myrna
1 month ago

The microphones will be on (until the programmers switch them off). Free speech is gone.

Nick
Nick
1 month ago

I would trust my sister telling me the electric fence is off go ahead and touch it, before I would trust anything that the lame stream media says. They are so corrupt is unbelievable. It is way past being subtle, it is openly blatant corruption

Sharon
Sharon
1 month ago

Hope he doesn’t engage in this.

Franklin Werkheiser
Franklin Werkheiser
1 month ago

Good Luck and it would be a complete waste of time. Asking CBS to admit and apologize for Ethnics Scandals is like putting a hungry Wolf in a cage with a sheep and hope he doesn’t eat it. Not going to happen.

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
1 month ago

Give up! None of these ppl will risk making Harris or Walz look bad because, their worst fear, it might mean a Trump presidency. The only thing Trump and Vance can do is have control of the FACTS because (most) ppl aren’t stupid and will recognize a LIE.

ROTHERS
ROTHERS
1 month ago

back in the day. It was what learned in the paper. not it is Numbers of text/ hits OR creative anagrams covering many creative relationships to enable a reply. Just. basic marketing 101

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
1 month ago

I would But they can Control mike alas

Frank michaud
Frank michaud
1 month ago

Excellent article ???? ???? Bringing to mind the total take over of MSM by ultra left party of Liars and control freaks,namely Obama Clinton

Sally
Sally
1 month ago

NOT IN ANY WAY — BIDEN AND DOJ GARLAND AND HARRIS ARE LIKE HITLER, GARLAND IMPRISONING ANYONE WHO DARED APPEAR AT CAPITOL ON 1/6, PUT IN HORRIBLE PRISON CONDITIONS, DENIED DUE PROCESS, MEDICAL TREATMENT, FAMILY VISITS — AFTER 4 YRS, MOST ARE STILL IN PRISON AND GARLAND SAID JUST 2 WEEKS AGO THEY ARE STILL SEARCHING FOR OTHER 1/6 PEOPLE WHO WERE JUST THERE AND DID NO HARM. HAS TRUMP CALLED FOR GENOCIDE OF ANY RACE, LIKE SYMPATHIZERS OF PALESTINIANS, HARRIS BEING ONE! DID HE IMPRISON ANYONE? DID HE SET UP INDOCTRINATION CAMPS FOR KIDS? DID HE PERSECUTE ANYONE AGAINST HIM? NO — IT IS THE DEMOCRATS WHO HAVE DONE THAT AND CONSTANTLY LIED ABOUT HIM(& MEDIA PROPAGANDA OF COURSE). PEOPLE WHO SAY TRUMP A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY SAY THAT ONLY TO SCARE PEOPLE AND DEFEND THEIR OWN BUTS, AND NEVER SAY HOW HE WOULD THREATEN DEMOCRACY. IT IS THE PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS AND HARRIS WHO WOULD BE LIKE HITLER, TARGETING CONSERVATIVES, PEOPLE OF FAITH, PARENTS STANDING UP FOR THEIR KIDS AND AGAINST TRANS TREATMENT FOR MINORS! YOU ARE DELUSIONAL AND DO NOT KNOW THE FACTS ABOUT ANYTHING!

Sally
Sally
1 month ago

That is a STUPID comment!

gnome
gnome
1 month ago

And the Pope. And Leo Cosworth. Never forget Leo Cosworth.

James Ross
James Ross
1 month ago

What a dumb thing to say. You must be a college student.

johnh
johnh
1 month ago

Very slanted article. Trump had the chance more than once to cover the border crisis & got off track on subject. This started with the first question…when Trump asked about economics, he got off on tangent on illegal immigration & David Muir said okay we will cover that in a later question. Trump blew the opportunity to stick on Border crisis & really blew in with the Springfield Ohio story. Trump should be able to debate even if against a thousand on the other side. Quit blaming this on CBS & why does Trump think that he won this one like a prizefighter? Stick with the facts.

Jay
Jay
1 month ago

The unspoken message here: Trump himself is so inarticulate and slow on his feet that he is repeatedly unable to take on the media in a devastating way. I pray Vance can make up for this.

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Donald Trump speaking to supporters at an immigration policy speech at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
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