Jake Tapper and Chuck Todd Prove (Again) Why Media Trust is So Low

Written by Peter Heck

When Gallup released the results of their recent Coronavirus crisis trust poll, I can’t help but think there were several jaws that hit the floor in America’s newsrooms. Having asked the American people whether they approved or disapproved of the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by a host of various leaders and institutions, there was only one that found more disapproval than approval, on average.

President Trump? No, by a wide 22 points, Americans approved of his leadership.

Governors? An even wider approval of roughly 80%. Ditto that on hospitals, schools, and employers.

So it had to be Congress, right? They are always underwater when it comes to public opinion, after all. But actually, when it comes to this crisis, Americans are pleased with their leadership by a 59-37 margin.

No, as it turns out, the only institution in America that citizens are vigorously disgusted with is the media and its sensationalist, hysteria-driven, panic-inciting, and painfully politically motivated coverage of a serious crisis.

Besides inexplicably offering shameless cover for the Chinese communist thugs who precipitated this pandemic and whose lies spread a deadly contagion all over an unsuspecting world, even those media figures who historically attempted to maintain some standard of dignity and objectivity to their reporting have seized upon this as the silver bullet to take out their mortal enemy in the White House.

A perfect example is CNN’s Jake Tapper. Respected widely as the closest thing the embarrassing network can offer as a credible journalist, Tapper has seemingly abandoned any effort to maintain that reputation.

Days ago when he interviewed socialist U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the chatty Congresswoman repeated a now widely discredited falsehood about President Donald J. Trump calling the coronavirus a hoax. Tapper knew it was a lie, even acknowledging as much later, but still willfully chose to let it go unchallenged:

I guess that’s the problem with a politician who lies so often; while I agree that Democrats are mischaracterizing what he said, what he did say was also false so it’s tough to justify taking the time for a fact check when it’s not taking a stand defining the truth.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 22, 2020

Wait, it’s “tough to justify” being truthful yourself because you think someone else isn’t? What kind of integrity or professionalism is that?

Then, days later, Tapper was at it again:

Nancy Pelosi sat in California for a week while Schumer & McCinnell had negotiated a bill, then flew back to DC, blew the bill up and delayed another 4 days for her own widely criticized bill – none of which she got. 10 days.

Jake Tapper didn’t question her on any of that. https://t.co/WQatHjH0y2

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 29, 2020

Nor did Tapper find any interest in asking Pelosi if she was “downplaying the severity” of the coronavirus when she called the President’s now-prescient looking travel ban from China, “un-American discrimination.”

Couple Tapper’s conduct with NBC’s illustrious Chuck Todd actually peddling the nonsensical and completely irresponsible rhetoric that Trump has “blood on his hands”:

Chuck Todd: “Do you think there is blood on the president’s hands considering the slow response?”

Biden: “I think that’s a little too harsh” pic.twitter.com/T0olK7Ctcu

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 29, 2020

Keep in mind, these are not NBC and CNN’s equivalents of Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham. These aren’t supposed to be “opinion journalists.” These are the faces of their networks’ objective news divisions.

Given that reality, the only thing shocking about the disparity between the large number of people who disapprove of the media and the small number that approve is that it isn’t far wider.

This article was originally published at TheResurgent.com.