Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week we call out Brian Stelter’s hypocrisy, dive into the New York Times’ unfair take on parental concerns, and hit more media misses.
Stelter Proves He’s Not a Reliable Source
CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter last week extolled the importance of journalistic humility, counseling reporters and pundits to admit when they’re wrong, all while continuing to defend his initial dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020.
During a “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference at the University of Chicago last week, a University of Chicago freshman and journalist from the Chicago Thinker questioned Stelter about many of the network’s recent bias-related fumbles.
“They push the Russian collusion hoax, they push the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smear Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a white supremacist. And yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation,” the student, Christopher Phillips, said.
He asked why “all the mistakes of the mainstream media and CNN, in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction.”
Stelter replied that journalists must “admit it” when they “screw up” to “protect democracy.”
Yet Stelter seemed unwilling to admit his own “screwup” on the Hunter Biden story. In October 2020, he claimed the New York Post story was potentially “made up,” “manufactured,” and a “right-wing media” smear.
The student’s question begins at 3:42:10:
Given the chance to redeem himself at the conference, he claimed that critics “don’t know how newsrooms work.”
Stelter again showed this unwillingness to dive into the Hunter Biden story when he had the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum on his show, Reliable Sources, on Sunday and failed to press the reporter on her own comments about the laptop story at the “disinformation” conference.
College freshman and Chicago Thinker journalist Daniel Schmidt asked Applebaum at the conference if she believes the media acted “inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation.”
“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is, I think, totally irrelevant. I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation,” said Applebaum, who focuses much of her journalism on calling out corruption in foreign countries. “I mean, I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States. So, I don’t find it to be interesting. I mean, that would be my problem with that as a major news story.”
However, while Applebaum claims the younger Biden’s business relationships don’t have anything to do with the president, one infamous email purportedly detailed a business arrangement between a Chinese company and the Biden family.
Tony Bobulinski, who is listed as a recipient of the email first published by the New York Post, offered further detail last year in a statement to Fox News on the correspondence in October 2020, which references a proposed equity split: “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?”
“The reference to ‘the Big Guy’ in the much-publicized May 13, 2017, email is in fact a reference to Joe Biden,” said Bobulinski, who says he was brought on as CEO of Sinohawk Holdings by Hunter Biden and James Gilliar, the sender of the email.
Sinohawk “was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family,” he said.
On Sunday’s episode of Reliable Sources, Stelter avoided both his and Applebaum’s comments from the conference.
After initially dismissing the report about the data recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop left with a Delaware repair shop, the mainstream media have recently gotten on board with the story. The New York Times has authenticated key files from the laptop, as has the Washington Post.
Other outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, have reported that a federal tax probe into the younger Biden is “gaining momentum,” with prosecutors reportedly investigating his sources of foreign income.
Headline Fail of the Week
The New York Times again discounted the concerns of parents this week in a piece titled, “Conservatives Open New Front in Elite School Admission Wars.”
The article details a federal lawsuit against Fairfax County Public Schools challenging the new admissions policies at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va.
The lawsuit was brought by the Coalition for TJ with the help of the Pacific Legal Foundation. The coalition, made up of concerned parents and students, says that the school’s new equity admissions policy reduced the number of Asian-American acceptances.
The new policy eliminates standardized testing and gives weight to poorer students and students learning the English language in an effort to balance the racial makeup of the school.
Coalition for TJ argues that the new admissions process discriminates against Asian-American students.
Asra Nomani, co-founder of Coalition for TJ, shared a link to the article and wrote, “This is how the @nytimes has covered our historic battle as Asians: focusing on ‘conservatives’ fighting for merit. How about this headline: Brave Asian immigrant parents fight for childrens’ civil rights, challenging admissions policy as racist.”
This is how the @nytimes has covered our historic battle as Asians: focusing on “conservatives” fighting for merit.
How about this headline:
Brave Asian immigrant parents fight for childrens’ civil rights, challenging admissions policy as racisthttps://t.co/HjLuA2js8X
— Asra Q. Nomani 🐾 (@AsraNomani) April 10, 2022
Media Misses
• Mary Bruce, senior White House correspondent for ABC News, might have been mistaken for a senior White House staffer at Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s swearing-in ceremony on Friday. Among other declarations, Bruce affirmed President Biden’s assertion that “this is a moment, certainly, for the entire country to celebrate,” and mentioned that Jackson’s “beaming smile” would be what she remembered most about the day. The coverage could be contrasted with an ABC report from October 2020 that took special care to note that Justice Amy Coney Barrett posed for a photograph without a mask after being sworn in.
ABC’s Mary Bruce says today will be etched into our memory celebrating KBJ and her smile, etched in our memory b/c Biden stood “next to these two remarkable women” after Jackson faced Republican “attacks” and “racism” that were proof of “how much progress still has to be made.” pic.twitter.com/7CpMCauqPx
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 8, 2022
• Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison called Senator Tom Cotton a “maggot-infested man” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week. Co-host Mika Brzezinski interjected only to say “yeah” as Harrison continued his rant.
UNHINGED: DNC Chair Jaime Harrison calls Sen. Tom Cotton a “maggot-infested man.” pic.twitter.com/daIxAnkYlA
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 6, 2022
• Nikki Fried, Florida’s commissioner of agriculture and a Democratic candidate for governor, tweeted last week that “Florida is a blue state.” Florida hasn’t had a Democratic governor since the turn of the millennium, so that’s a bit like mistaking Clifford for a big blue dog.