Former CBS Evening News co-anchor Connie Chung surfaced on Friday afternoon’s CNN News Central to pitch a series of unhinged rants over Skydance Media’s impending purchase of CBS’s parent company Paramount Global. Chung declared it “the end of CBS as I knew it,” claimed CBS News won’t have minorities like her, insisted “honest, unbiased, fact-based journalism” would no longer happen at CBS, and implied Fox News primetime anchors should be fit for “ankle monitors.”
Far-left partisan co-host Brianna Keilar greased the skids by declaring the $8 billion deal — which was cleared late Thursday by the FCC — “was riddled with allegations of political interference stemming from Trump’s scathing criticism of Paramount’s CBS News division.”
Following some Boomer moments in which Chung was unsure if she was being seen or heard, Chung immediately became unglued, calling it “the end of CBS as I knew it” in which “[h]onest, unbiased, fact-based journalism” ruled the day and executives respected “the rights of the journalism, the First Amendment, the fourth estate.”
This all will be replaced, she claimed by “avarice,” “greed,” and “tainted journalism.” Worse yet, she argued without evidence that CBS will no longer have journalists from a racial minority:
Our own Tim Graham had some thoughts on this lunacy: “PEAK CBS. She says we never bowed to pressure by politicians. But ‘60 Minutes’ kissed rings with the Clintons. Steve Kroft had a cottage industry of Obama-suckup interviews. Scott Pelley ushered Joe Biden through the word-salad bar. The Dan Rather network, so full of integrity!”
And who honestly lets a Democratic donor and Obama family friend anchor your morning show?
Offering zero pushback on Chung’s cockamamie claims, Keilar next wondered “what you would say to” those still at CBS News.
The news anchor — who has her own strand of marijuana — insisted they should “fight the good fight” and not “allow biased owners” since CBS is not “the culprit” of what ails the news business.
Despite having just cloaked herself and journalists as the living embodiment of the First Amendment, Chung demanded censorship of podcasters and social media companies as well as asserted Stephen Colbert has been “disappear[ed]”:
[W]hat needs to be policed is social media, which have no fact-checkers, podcasters and the like. No one is checking those facts and the problem is — is that — that is inaccurate information that’s being disseminated. I think that all — of all of the changes that so far have occurred by Shari Redstone and the Ellisons are, I — I have difficulty believing what they claim, which is that the 60 Minutes agreement had nothing to do with the merger, or a settlement had nothing to do with the merger, and also that the disappearance of Steve [sic] Colbert had nothing to do — it had only to do with financial issues. It all smells.
Oh, yes, Connie, a show with a 200-person staff losing $40 million a year isn’t that big of deal.
Then came the stunning moment when she clearly made a veiled reference to Fox News and the need for law enforcement to punish them:
Keilar closed with a ridiculous question about how journalists should “cover Trump independently.”
Chung started way off the reservation by declaring the end of honest journalism executives was due to the Reagan era, aka “the decade of greed.” And, always one to make it about themselves, Chung relayed a claim she made while on book tour for her memoir (click “expand”):
It is — it is — you know, the — the — the period, the decade of greed was the 1980s and that’s when companies that owned networks acquiesced to the new owners, not the original owners who had felt a responsibility to journalism. So it already began in the 1980s, when companies that were looking at the bottom line started out— started to only look at money, look at networks as money-making machines. Now, the extreme has occurred. I — I greatly fear the — that the pendulum cannot swing back. So I — I want all of us who have been in journalism and are still in journalism to speak truth to power. We cannot allow what we learned as journalists to — we can’t cave. We just can’t. That’s what I believe, but I don’t — I don’t believe in opinion in news. They’re just — there’s no — I just want facts and I think when I was crisscrossing the country promoting my memoir, I — I discovered that I — I would get applause when I would say I just want facts and I think there are many news organizations that just provide facts and label analysis as analysis. I don’t want any bloviators. So, I’m — since I’m out of the news business, I really feel that I can cross the line and not stay in my lane because I’m no longer a journalist and I — I have some bona fides in journalism and I want to be able to say that we, in journalism and you, Brianna, who I respect tremendously, should just continue to fight the good fight and just tell the truth, just give facts.
Having listened to this far-left, sanctimonious drivel, Keilar wrapped by telling Chung it was “so wonderful to have on the program today” while Chung thanked Keilar and added “I appreciate many of those who work at CNN who just provide the facts.”
The arrogance of these people never ends.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from July 25, click here.