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NPR's David Folkenflik Assembles the Anonymous Bari-Bashers Inside CBS News
On Tuesday, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik was back on his “keeping liberal media outlets liberal” beat with a preview of Tuesday’s Bari Weiss meeting with CBS staff. First, let’s express amusement at how liberal journalists grant other liberal journalists anonymity so they can avoid “professional repercussions.”
Overall, this story draws on interviews with eight current and former CBS News journalists. All of those still at the network spoke on condition they not be named, citing professional repercussions. Several noted that Weiss has told staffers she welcomes internal debate but cannot abide public dissent.
Now let’s ponder the end of Uri Berliner’s career at NPR. He publicly dissented from NPR’s bias by name -- at Bari Weiss's site The Free Press -- and the NPR staff quickly refused to work with him anymore and “repercussed” him into quitting. We don’t recall Folkenflik being a fan of his colleague's bold media criticism.
Folkenflik unloaded a lot of rehashed whining about Weiss proclaiming the need to move toward the center, and the fuss over 60 Minutes, which the NPR guy called the "crown jewel" of CBS. But let’s focus on how the in-house hotheads were furious about CBS Evening News going light on the January 6 anniversary.
Dokoupil offered this scant reference: "President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol, while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the president of 'whitewashing' it." The he-said, he-said formulation lasted about 15 seconds.
That prompted denunciations from outside critics. Sarah Longwell, the founder and publisher of the center-right, anti-Trump publication the Bulwark, wrote on X: "Trump is getting exactly what his rich buddy paid for."
Calling The Bulwark “center-right” is hilarious. Longwell appeared at campaign events with Kamala Harris, who was not a “center-right” candidate.
Then came the anger of January 6-obsessed CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane:
CBS Justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane took great exception to Dokoupil's Jan. 6 broadcast, according to two people inside the network who spoke on condition they not be named.
The reporter has spent the past five years covering the attack on the U.S. Congress, drawing upon evidence presented in court to document the effort to deny the formal certification of President Joe Biden's win in the 2020 race.
He did not appear on the air on CBS News this Jan. 6. Instead, as he posted on the social media platform X, MacFarlane appeared on the BBC. It lasted nearly four-and-a-half-minutes.
"Here's my deep dive on the 5-year mark of Jan 6," MacFarlane wrote. "The ongoing impact on victims, the lies... and the continued malignant corrosion of democracy[.] As aired on....The BBC."
At old-guard CBS, the "continued malignant corrosion of democracy" clearly includes the re-election of President Trump. Obsessing for years over a dreadful four-hour "insurrection" coincided neatly with what Democrats thought was one of their best campaign issues to elect Kamala Harris in 2024 -- "saving democracy." They lost.
On the same night, Folkenflik noted, Dokoupil ended the newscast with a segment on social-media memes about Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and cracked “Marco Rubio, we salute you.” He lamented: "The light-hearted approach to the minute-long segment so close to the Venezuelan military action delighted the Trump White House and stirred backlash from journalists." Journalists who love Democrats. Democrats who hide behind anonymity to trash any moving away from "news" that is all Democrat narratives and talking points.