Over at Newsmax (and full disclosure I am a Newsmax contributor), evening anchor Rob Schmitt did a spot-on analysis of the media’s coverage of the so-called “Russia-Trump” collusion.
Rob opened by noting that “the media ignores the biggest Russiagate bombshell in six years.”
Exactly.
He went on to note that the media had been, for years on end, “obsessed” with the idea that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election, defeating Hillary Clinton. They “simply could not get enough of the story,” he quite correctly said.
Rob had some numbers (from Rich Noyes here at NewsBusters), which vividly illustrated his point. In just the first five weeks following Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Counsel in 2017, the media coverage of “Russiagate went nonstop.”
In terms of the three major broadcast networks he offered our network coverage scorecard of “Trump-Russia Collusion.”
* ABC had 134 minutes/63 percent of all Trump coverage.
* CBS had 124 minutes/54 percent of all Trump coverage.
* NBC had 95 minutes/48% of all Trump coverage.
Rob went on to note that the nets couldn’t get enough of this story, with any detail causing the whole story to be told all over again.
He added numbers (not from NewsBusters) that over the course of the Russiagate story, it added up to 26% of CNN's coverage in prime time, while at MSNBC 32% of their prime time coverage was devoted to it. In short, Russiagate coverage was “non-stop.” In other words, over three years time this was a full third of the liberal media’s coverage. As he noted, there were “thousands and thousands of hours talking about Trump-Russia collusion.”
Rob also goes straight to the videotape. And there in living color, as the old saying goes, are the following all flatly stating Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
- Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries
- MSNBC Commentator Lawrence O’Donnell
- CNN’s Jake Tapper quoting “all these Russia experts” saying Russia hacked the election.
- Then-California Democrat Congressman (now Senator)Adam Schiff
At that point Rob Schmitt notes that he wanted to take viewers back to all of that to remind just how intense was the coverage. With the Newsmax chyron saying correctly:
Big Media Overdosed on Russiagate.
And then…..
And then Rob brings the hammer down, showing the contrast in media coverage after President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard spoke at the White House and, with thorough documentation in hand, gave an “explosive update” on the story.
The update revealed in chapter and verse that the Russians did not interfere on Trump’s behalf. In fact, Director Gabbard noted that the documents showed the Russians assumed Hillary Clinton was going to win, and planned on an anti-Clinton document dump of their own that would take place once Clinton was in the White House.
Next up was tape of Director Gabbard in her White House appearance, saying the documents in her possession did not cite any reports that indicated helping Trump win was a Russian objective. To the contrary.
Rob moves on to again to the issue of media coverage, saying, “You would think their heads would explode,” he says. Then he flashes onscreen the coverage numbers of Gabbard’s presser from the Big Media:
- ABC News Tonight with David Muir: No Coverage
- NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas: No Coverage
- CBS Evening News: 24 seconds
Rob was understandably incredulous, adding:
Ignoring the story as it damages the Obama Deep State after devoting endless coverage to it when the details damage President Trump. That is how fake the news really is - and again, these are the broadcast networks….
One could go on -- and on and on -- with illustrating the vivid differences in media coverage of the phony Trump-Russia collusion story versus the decidedly accurate and seriously documented Obama/Clinton/Russia story, but it all would come down to the same old, same old media story.
The fact is that the American media - whether the big broadcast networks, cable news at MSNBC and CNN, or the old time print journals all lean seriously Left. And after presenting a repeated story on so-called Trump-Russia collusion they are face-to-face with the hard reality that the story they had been so arduously promoting was not only not true but in fact it was the reverse.
Which left the media with their chosen response - ignore the story.
And in doing so, they vividly illustrated exactly how Fake News works.
When the Left loves the Fake News, they promote it endlessly.
When they hate Real News that tells the truth, they just ignore it. Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.
It is, alas, the way the liberal media works. And always has.