President-elect Donald Trump’s attack against CNN is drawing an unexpected defender to the channel’s aid: Fox News. During the president-elect’s circus of a press conference on Wednesday, he refused to even take a question from their reporter and referred to them as “fake news.” Now, freedom of the press is finally binding the different news channels together.
Speaking on behalf of Fox News, anchor Shepard Smith delivered a speech on air Wednesday night condemning Trump’s attacks:
“CNN’s exclusive reporting on the Russian matter was separate and different from the document dump executed by an online news property… Though we at Fox News cannot confirm CNN’s report, it is our observation that its correspondents followed journalistic standards, and that neither they nor any other journalist should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect of the United States.”
Trumps attacks were based on reporting by CNN and BuzzFeed that the Russians possibly had compromising information about him. Trump himself has vigorously denied these claims. While BuzzFeed has received criticism for making unsubstantiated claims, the same is not true for CNN.
They defended their decision to report the story in this statement:
“CNN’s decision to publish carefully sourced reporting about the operations of our government is vastly different than Buzzfeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos. The Trump team knows this. They are using Buzzfeed’s decision to deflect from CNN’s reporting, which has been matched by the other major news organizations.”
Other journalists are jumping to CNN’s defense as well, berating the other journalists present at the press conference for their lack of action during the debacle. Pete Vernon of the Columbia Journalism Review wrote that:
“[Journalism] is a competitive buswiness, but it’s not a zero-sum game. We all campaign for scoops, access, and sources, but we are, effectively, on the same side. If Trump ignores or blacklists outlets he deems hostile, and others in the industry don’t defend them, the public loses out on the perspective those reporters bring, and we as an industry lose out in our efforts to hold power accountable.”
We are so used to the different media sources being divided along partisan lines. It is refreshing to see. But a new schism seems to be forming: the one of Trump and his cronies versus the media.
Better get ready, Mr. Trump. If you unite all of the media against you, it is going to be a long four years.
Watch a clip of the press conference here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJxxQM7GxJA
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
