Liberal journalists may be part of the fake news crisis, but that doesn't mean they all want to be. ABC's David Wright made that abundantly clear on an undercover Project Veritas video that led to the correspondent's suspension. Sure, he may have radical views (he openly calls himself a "socialist" in the footage), but even he sees the values in reporting the truth. Unfortunately for him and so many others, his bosses at ABC don't.
No, David Wright doesn't like the president. But he also understands that he's a strong man that the Left hasn't "figure[d] out how to challenge..." That was just one of the revelations caught on tape in New Hampshire last month. "We don't hold him to account," Wright says. But, "we also don't give him credit for what things he does do." It was a candid assessment of the state of journalism in America. "It's like there's no upside in -- or our bosses don't see an upside -- in doing the job we're supposed to do, which is to speak truth to power and hold people to account. And because of that, David says frankly, "the truth suffers" and "voters are poorly informed."
Thursday, James O'Keefe, the conservative behind this latest video, joined Sarah Perry on "Washington Watch." The bottom line, he said, is that "the media's broken." They're pushing their own narrative, and Americans don't trust them. "I'm not surprised by anything anymore," James said, almost sadly. "It's just a matter of what I can prove." But the big picture is that most of the bosses in the media are more concerned about "covering their [backsides] than telling the truth. And that's the problem."
And nowadays, James laments, people shrug their shoulders and say, "'Well, that's just the way it is.' No that's not the way it is. That's not the way it used to be. Reporters before the digital era... took their job seriously. Investigative reporting was... a full-purpose profession..." Now, he says with a sigh, the industry is set up in such a way that it's almost completely incompatible with truth-telling.
So what do any of us do about getting accurate news?
"Well, the first thing that you do is that you don't trust information that comes from these platforms. They're giving you no reason to trust them. They've settled lawsuits with the Covington kids. They've squashed stories on Jeffrey Epstein. Their own veteran correspondents say their bosses don't report news, that their prerogative is not to report information the public has a right to know. You hold yourself to a higher standard...
I would advise the American people, just stop believing the things that you see. It'll probably improve democracy, because most of what you're seeing is manufactured right now in television news. And don't take my word for it. Just listen to the words coming out of... David Wright's own mouth. And much more to come."
