Are talk show producers and hosts finally getting wise to the idea that having “alternative fact”-spewing Presidential Advisor Kellyanne Conway on television is basically antithetical to the pursuit of truth?
Apparently so, based on a tweet sent by CNN’s PR team responding to Conway’s, well, lie about her no-show status on the Sunday morning show circuit.
Conway said she turned down the network; the network countered that the administration offered her as a guest and they said no. Hmm, hmm, whom to believe here? (Scratches head).
Conway’s use of the made-up “Bowling Green massacre” story (a trick she’s tried before) to justify the administration’s Muslim ban, mere weeks after Alternative Facts-gate seems to have been a tipping point, notes Times media reporter Jim Rutenberg. He thinks the massive, meme-worthy backlash against this made-up massacre has finally, irrevocably tarred Conway and the administration she shills for with their own “fake news” brush.
Some, like the New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, were calling upon the television networks to stop booking her. And CNN declined to have her as a guest on Sunday — in part because the Trump administration offered her in lieu of Vice President Mike Pence, but also because of what the network told me were “serious questions about her credibility.”
This is an important development (and one to hold onto — the media may be fickle) as the Prez himself keeps dangerously saying that every negative poll he faces, every leak-ridden article, is “fake news.”
It’s encouraging, as well, that CNN has shown at least some spine after being attacked by the Orange One. Mainstream news organizations have to have the backbone to stick up for the truth, and furthermore refuse to let the Overton window continue to move.