Daily Wire ‘editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro was a guest of CNN’s  Brian Stelter to talk media bias on Sunday’s Reliable Sources. It was obvious that Stelter was unprepared for his interview with Shapiro, or for an interview of anyone with Shapiro’s intellect.

IMHO Stelter is the most biased of CNN reporters and the one who flings the most venom at President Trump.

Stelter whined that the right has been against the MSM for decades, and Shapiro explained logically why it’s justified.

Note transcript segments were taken from CNN

Stelter: Isn’t that partly because there has been a decade-long movement on the right to discredit the media, well before President Trump came along?

Shapiro: Yes, I would be surprised if it’s just a decade.

Stelter: Decades-long. Yes.

Shapiro: Yes, on the right for as long as I have been alive, there has been a lot of questions about media objectivity.

And I don’t think that those questions are ill-founded. I think this is why, as I have been saying, it’s really incumbent on the media to do as much reporting of the facts as possible and leave a lot of the hyperbole out of it. I know that’s really difficult at a time when the hyperbole seems to not only get ratings but also to jog people’s kind of amygdalas. But the fact is that the more the media underplays, I think the better they will do in terms of people trusting them, because at this time, what’s happening right now is everybody is breaking down into tribal affinity.

President Trump says fake news. A lot of his people say, OK, well, if the president says it, the media are fake on a lot of topics, or at least they are biased on a lot of topics, so why wouldn’t they be biased here as well? The media sort of need to bend over backwards to prove that they aren’t biased, especially in cases like the Russia investigation.

Again, I think what that the president has done this weekend is not normal. I think if the president were to fire Robert Mueller, it would precipitate some really devastating politics in the country, for sure. And it should.

But I think it’s important that the media hold their fire until the point where something really terrible has happened. I’m sorry, but the firing of Andy McCabe, for example, on Friday, that was recommended by the OPR. That is not something that is wildly out of bounds.

What is out of bounds obviously is the president talking about firing Mueller or if he would actually fire Mueller.

The host also asked Shapiro what he thinks the “most egregious media bias” is. And Ben immediately  turned to CNN Stelter’s own network:

“The coverage of the gun debate has been absolutely egregious. And I don’t want to single out your network, but CNN’s been pretty bad on this from a conservative perspective. The idea that when there’s a mass shooting that the media feel the necessity to put on TV not only survivors but specific survivors… and that they decide to single out certain events and not other events in order to make a particular case or they allow certain people to go on TV and suggest that folks like Dana Loesch or people at the NRA are evil, don’t care, they’re terrorists, and there’s no pushback from the anchors.”

This sort of thing makes a lot of people on the right feel that the media are really using this as an opportunity to push gun control, rather than objectively covering

Which led the CNN host to fire some gotcha questions like

  • So, your view is it should be 50/50? Even if most of the students are urging gun control measures, you want it to be 50/50 or…?
  • But is it political just to want fewer gun death?
  • You think the agenda that is being pushed is gun control by interviewing students who are scared to go back to school? Is that how you perceive it?

Stelter also challenged Shapiro on his perception that conservative critics are trying “tear things down” in the media instead of making things better, telling him, “Sometimes I feel like you’re just trying to get rid of journalism altogether.”  And follows up asking why people at the Daily Wire aren’t going to work at the NY Times to make things better?  As if moving to the MSM would be the pinnacle of their careers.

All in all Stelter thought that he would be able to hammer Ben Shapiro, but in the end, Ben took Stelter, the most anti-Conservative person at CNN to School.

Below is a video and transcript of the Segment.

 

 

Stelter: You have argued in the past the media shouldn’t go around pointing out how abnormal these circumstances are.

Why is that?

Shapiro: Well, I think it sort of depends.

This stuff over this weekend was not particularly normal, so it’s hard for me to argue the media shouldn’t be saying that the president is acting in non-normal fashion with regard to the Russia investigation.

That said, I think because the media had been saying not normal so often for so long, for over a year, for two years at this point, at a certain point, it becomes the boy who cried wolf. Even when something is not normal, as it has been this weekend, I think there are a lot of folks who go, well, that is just the media is spouting off. How are we supposed to trust them after two years of saying everything the man does isn’t normal?

Stelter: Isn’t that partly because there has been a decade-long movement on the right to discredit the media, well before President Trump came along?

Shapiro: Yes, I would be surprised if it’s just a decade.

Stelter: Decades-long. Yes.

Shapiro: Yes, on the right for as long as I have been alive, there has been a lot of questions about media objectivity.

And I don’t think that those questions are ill-founded. I think this is why, as I have been saying, it’s really incumbent on the media to do as much reporting of the facts as possible and leave a lot of the hyperbole out of it. I know that’s really difficult at a time when the hyperbole seems to not only get ratings, but also to jog people’s kind of amygdalas. But the fact is that the more the media underplays, I think the better they will do in terms of people trusting them, because at this time, what’s happening right now is everybody is breaking down into tribal affinity.

President Trump says fake news. A lot of his people say, OK, well, if the president says it, the media are fake on a lot of topics, or at least they are biased on a lot of topics, so why wouldn’t they be biased here as well? The media sort of need to bend over backwards to prove that they aren’t biased, especially in cases like the Russia investigation.

Again, I think what that the president has done this weekend is not normal. I think if the president were to fire Robert Mueller, it would precipitate some really devastating politics in the country, for sure. And it should.

But I think it’s important that the media hold their fire until the point here something really terrible has happened. I’m sorry, but the firing of Andy McCabe, for example, on Friday, that was recommended by the OPR. That is not something that is wildly out of bounds.

What is out of bounds obviously is the president talking about firing Mueller or if he would actually fire Mueller.

Stelter: Where do you see the most egregious media bias right now?

Shapiro: Well, over the last three weeks, obviously, the coverage of the gun debate has been absolutely egregious.

I don’t want to single out your network, but CNN has been pretty bad on this, from a conservative perspective. The idea that, when there is a mass shooting, that the media feel the necessity to put on TV not only survivors, but specific survivors, that there is a certain subset of survivors who make it on TV a lot, a lot, and there are certain other survivors who don’t.

And that they decide out single out certain events and not other events in order to make a particular case, or they allow certainly people to go on TV and suggest that folks like Dana Loesch or people at the NRA are evil, don’t care, they are terrorists, and there’s no pushback from the anchors?

This sort of thing makes a lot of people on the right feel that the media are really using this as an opportunity to push gun control, rather than objectively covering the legislative efforts that are going on in Washington, D.C.

Stelter: So, your view is it should be 50/50? Even if most of the students are urging gun control measures, you want it to be 50/50 or…

Shapiro: No, I think 80/20 would be fine. Anything but 95/5 would probably be a good thing, and I think it’s also pretty obvious that — listen, everybody — this is my opinion about journalism — everybody in journalism has their own political views.

We all vote, obviously, or at least most of but do. And it’s not a pleasant thing when people in the media pretend their political views are not influencing their coverage, when it’s so obvious that those political views clearly are influencing their coverage.

Stelter: But is it political just to want fewer gun death? That’s not political.

Shapiro: Well, obviously, it’s not political to want fewer gun deaths. Nobody wants more gun deaths.

I think that what is political is allowing certain people to go on TV, and without any sort of follow-up question say things like their political enemies don’t care about human lives.

Like, I remember CNN got very upset when Dana Loesch said at CPAC that people in the media didn’t care enough.

Stelter: CNN doesn’t get upset. Certain anchors or reporters may challenge something. That’s not a network-wide thing.

[11:45:02]

Shapiro: Well, OK, but reporters need to challenge.

But, again, the reporters are the representatives of the network. When I tune in and there is a reporter on CNN, and the CNN insignia is in the bottom corner of the crawl, there is nothing I can do, as an observer, but say, OK, well, CNN may have a bias here, especially if that bias all runs in one direction.

It’s not like some of the members of the CNN are pushing a particular agenda and some are pushing another agenda. There is always — if there is a bias, it is universally to one side, and that’s what people on the right are seeing.

Stelter: You think the agenda that is being pushed is gun control by interviewing students who are scared to go back to school? Is that how you perceive it?

Shapiro: NO. I think the agenda being pushed is gun control if there, again, is no pushback on questions that would be asked to any other guest.

I think the tragedy is obviously a terrible thing, but it doesn’t necessarily confer expertise. And that’s one of the big problems here.

(PHONE RINGING)

Stelter: You are very popular, Ben. Do you want to grab that?

Shapiro: Yes, exactly. Goodness gracious.

Stelter: It happens to all of us. Shapiro: Sorry about that.

Stelter: I wanted to ask you, though.

Your Web site, The Daily Wire, a lot of other conservative media sites that have criticism of the press, I sometimes worry you all are trying to tear things down, as opposed to make them better.

It’s one thing to critique and want journalism to be better, but sometimes I feel like you’re just trying to get rid of journalism altogether. Is that unfair?

Shapiro: Questioning the motive, I don’t think, is a useful thing.

If you can point out to me where the critique is wrong, I think that is one thing. If the suggestion is that the critique is invalid because the movie is invalid, that’s another. So, again, I think that if you don’t like the motive, then ignore the motive and take the critique, insofar as it’s effective. Right?

We all have motives. But the fact is, listen, I don’t want CNN to disappear. I don’t want “The New York Times” to disappear. I don’t “The Washington Post” to disappear. I want them to do what they say they are supposed to be doing.

I want them to perform objective journalism, if that what they say they’re going to do, and opinion journalism if they want to say that they are opinion journalists. That’s fine.

My problem is when — this is why my critique of, for example, “The New York Times”‘ op-ed page is far less than my critique of “The New York Times”‘ objective journalism. There’s a difference between op-ed and journalism.

It’s why my critique of MSNBC sometimes is a lot less strident, I think, than my critique of CNN, because CNN purports to be objective. MSNBC really does not purport to be objective in the same way.

Stelter: Part of me thinks that you and your colleagues at The Daily Wire should get try to jobs then at “The New York Times.” If you don’t like the coverage, try to be a part of the solution, as opposed to complaining about it.

Shapiro: I don’t know. Would you hire me? I really doubt that. And not only that, I’m not sure you guys would pay me. I will be frank with me. I make a lot of money, so…

(CROSSTALK)

Stelter: I wanted you as a guest for many months.

I was wondering. The Daily Wire has been growing. Your profile has been blowing up. There was talk about you maybe taking over Glenn Beck’s The Blaze? Can you tell us if that’s true and where you see your media company going in the future?

Shapiro: All I can say about that is that we’re always looking for opportunities to grow, and we are very much fans of what Glenn does.

Any opportunity we have to work with Glenn, like a lot of other folks, we’re happy to take.

Stelter: All right, interesting. Interesting tease.

All right, Ben, great to see you. Thanks for coming on the program.

Shapiro: Thanks so much.