Corporate media journalists, particularly the vacuous Barbie and Ken TV kind, have a simplistic view of the world. There are good people and bad people, winners and losers, and the end justifies the means if the cause is just and noble. ABC News’ rigged debate last night “moderated” by David Muir and Linsey Davis is today’s case in point.
ABC News embodies the meaning of corporate journalism. The network is owned by Disney, a company once viewed as a purveyor of “family entertainment” but became so woke under CEO Bob Iger that Breitbart’s salty but insightful media reporter routinely refers to the company as a “grooming syndicate.”
Perhaps that’s a tad harsh for a company whose beloved characters include Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but the ABC News Musketeers know they better toe the company line or they will suffer the fate of Catherine Herridge, the former CBS News reporter whose ignoble firing many believe was sparked by her temerity to pursue critical stories about Joe Biden when he was still “fit as a fiddle” and slated to run for reelection.
Award-winning ABC News correspondent David Wright learned the hard way when he spoke the truth about his former network four years ago, unaware he was secretly being filmed by an advocacy group seeking to expose the legacy media’s liberal bias. ABC News promptly suspended Wright, and despite being among the most accomplished TV journalists of his generation, none of his colleagues made much, if any, of a fuss.
In an unguarded discussion with a stranger, Wright admitted that he was a “socialist” who favored universal health care, reigning in corporations, and narrowing the wealth gap. He was also critical of ABC News’ coverage of President Trump: “We don’t hold him to account. We also don’t give him credit for what things he does do,” Wright said.
“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,” Wright said, confessing he felt badly because “the truth suffers” and “voters are poorly informed.”
Wright also lamented Disney injected the company’s commercial interests into the network’s news and entertainment programming. “Now you can’t watch Good Morning America without there being a Disney princess or a Marvel Avenger appearing,” Wright said. “It’s all self-promotional.”
Wright was promptly suspended and demoted after the video was posted and he left ABC News the following year. Wright’s LinkedIn bio says he’s a journalist but doesn’t list any news affiliation.
The fix was in on Donald Trump when he walked onto the debate stage, and he deserved the 3-on-1 drubbing he effectively received and likely still doesn’t know what hit him. The corporate media despises Trump and agreeing to a debate moderated by ABC News showed remarkably poor judgment, underscoring how clueless and inept Trump is dealing with the communications arms of the Democratic party. When it comes to corporate media relations, Trump is an appalling flunky.
As reported by the New York Times, the Disney executive who oversees ABC News is Dana Walden, who is very close with Kamala Harris, a friendship that dates to 1994. Their respective husbands, Matt Walden and Doug Emhoff, have known each other since the 1980s, and I’d venture that Walden knew the family nanny Emhoff slept with and possibly impregnated.
Harris calls the Waldens “extraordinary friends,” and the couple have donated money to Harris’s political campaigns since at least 2003, when she ran for district attorney in San Francisco.
“In many ways, Dana and Matt are responsible for my marriage,” Harris said at a fund-raiser in April 2022 at the Waldens’ home in Brentwood, a wealthy Los Angeles enclave where Harris and Emhoff also own a residence. The Waldens, the Times reported, set up a couple who in turn had set Harris up with Emhoff on a blind date.
Of course, we have ABC News’ word that it is totally independent of its corporate owner.
“ABC News has built its longstanding reputation on journalistic integrity,” the network said in a statement it gave the Times. “All editorial decisions are in the hands of ABC News management and the seasoned journalists and producers of ABC, who hold themselves to the highest journalistic standards.”
Journalistic integrity isn’t what comes to mind at the mention of ABC News. It’s likely true that Dana Walden was smart and savvy enough not to put in writing an edict ordering Muir, with an estimated net worth of $25 million, and Davis to ensure Harris prevailed during the debate. I’ll defer to Senator Bernie Sanders, who was treated unfairly by Comcast’s MSNBC when he ran against Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries.
“I’m not trying to sell you a conspiracy theory,” Sanders wrote in his 1997 autobiography. “I doubt that (former Disney CEO Michael Eisner) or Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner) decides what specific items will be aired on an evening news broadcast. Still, there is a convergence. Big money interests own the media. The media plays an enormous role in shaping our view of reality.”
The corporate media was unanimous in proclaiming that Kamala Harris absolutely, positively clobbered Trump in the debate. For those who still believe that CNN is a credible and trustworthy network, there’s some preliminary evidence to support that.
According to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS, registered voters who watched Tuesday’s presidential debate broadly agree that Harris outperformed Trump. Harris also outpaced both debate watchers’ expectations for her and Joe Biden’s onstage performance against the former president earlier this year, the poll found.
Trump haters will be disappointed in a Reuters story reporting that a sampling of 10 undecided voters before the debate revealed that six of them would either vote for Trump or were leaning toward backing him after watching the debate. Three said they would back Harris and one was still unsure how he would vote.
“I still don’t know what she is for,” said Mark Kadish, 61, an entrepreneur in Florida. “There was no real meat and bones for her plans.”
Even the New York Times felt compelled to report that it was far from assured that undecided voters were swayed by Harris’ performance. Samira Ali, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Times she entered the debate unsure whether she would vote at all, and remained unsure after the debate.
“(Harris) still has to impress me,” said Ali, 19. As someone who recently moved into her own place off-campus and has had to buy groceries for the first time, Ali said she wanted to hear Harris speak more about housing costs and inflation. “I’m still deciding,” she said as the debate neared its end.
In Las Vegas, Gerald Mayes, 40, said he felt both candidates failed to connect their campaign promises to his family’s budget. And he came away confused.
“Nothing is clear to me, and I am really trying to follow it,” he said. “I want to know how all of this impacts my family financially.”
Mayes’ confusion underscores his astuteness. ABC News made certain the debate was about nothing, an opportunity for Harris to perform her carefully rehearsed and scripted words and ensuring that she didn’t go into unexpected territory and be held accountable for Biden administration policies she supported these past three years. I believe Tulsi Gabbard’s speculation that Harris took acting lessons in preparation for the debate. Former FOX and NBC News anchor Megyn Kelly did an excellent job explaining how Muir and Davis abetted Harris’s performance, as did Victor Davis Hanson.
As an example of how Harris escaped accountability, addressing climate change has been one of Biden’s signature initiatives, and imposing aggressive EV mandates the lynchpin of his program. EV adoption in America has been an unmitigated disaster, in large part because of the lack of a reliable national charging network. Harris owns that failure.
On December 13, 2021, the Biden/Harris administration announced its “electric vehicle charging plan,” laying the foundation “for a nationwide network of EV charging infrastructure to provide a reliable, affordable, convenient, seamless user experience that is equitable and accessible for all Americans.” Nearly three years later, Americans still suffer from “range anxiety,” as well as “charge anxiety” because with the exception of Tesla’s network, many EV chargers remain unreliable and their pricing akin to the “Wild West.”
Biden has expressed concern about China’s EVs having software that could spy on Americans and possibly violate their privacy but has stated no objections or concerns about Ford’s red-hot Lincoln Nautilus or GM’s Buick Envision, both of which are manufactured in China and are among the best vehicles Ford and GM manufacture. Harris presumably has some thoughts or positions.
Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, haven’t been held accountable for their conflicting and misleading statements. Trump says he opposes a battery plant in Michigan owned by a Chinese company with known communist party ties, but says he’d welcome China’s EV manufacturers to build their vehicles in the U.S. It’s well known that all Chinese companies are beholden to their communist government.
Vance recently told a Michigan rally that China “unfairly subsidizes” its auto industry when Ford and GM are among America’s biggest corporate moochers. For all Trump’s MAGA talk, its Honda and Toyota that are most red, white, and blue. I’m doubtful that Trump even knows that.
On foreign policy, the debate moderators could have thrown Harris a curve ball and asked how she feels about Trump’s decision to move America’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and his decision to assassinate Iran’s military leader Qassem Soleimani. Democrats at the time said Trump’s decisions were reckless and would destabilize the Middle East. I’m sure Harris would have served up a delicious word salad if asked these questions.
Then there were the myriad lies that Harris was allowed to get away with, such as claiming that Trump wants to increase sales taxes. She was referring to his proposed tariffs, which do ultimately raise prices for consumers, and Joe Biden once opposed and has since followed.
Notably, neither Trump nor Harris was asked about taking measures to close the loopholes allowing private equity firms to shield $1 trillion of income. Harris criticized Trump’s proposed tax cuts for benefiting the rich but wasn’t called on to explain why CEO pay in 2023 rose at the fastest rate in 14 years.
Of course, these are serious issues, and the debate was performance art, with Muir and Davis pretending to be serious journalists and Trump and Harris pretending to be capable and qualified leaders. The biggest losers of last night’s debate were most Americans, who likely didn’t appreciate that regardless of whether Harris or Trump wins in November, the one percent will continue getting much richer while the remaining 99% will continue getting poorer.