NewsBusters Podcast: The Media Rant About Their Palin Smears and Durham Fears

Media cheered when Sarah Palin’s lawsuit was dismissed by a judge. The New York Times Their smears claimed she incited an Arizona mass shooting. To support their right to speak freely, they gathered “free speech” professors. 

“The press needs room to function and publish and have the flexibility to make some mistakes,” said Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech, in a statement cheering the jury’s decision, “without fearing that it can face civil judgments for simple, honest mistakes.”

Not blaming Sarah Palin for inciting a mass shooting was an honest mistake. It is absurd to think that one must prove actual malice. He might think that writing that Roy Gutterman’s speech killed people would prove malice or recklessness. He would not be happy with the “flexibility,” to make some remarks about him. 

Then we turned to the media’s collective fear that special counsel John Durham’s probe of the origins of the Trump-Russia obsession would ruin their long-running collusion narrative. ABC, CBS, and NBC have not covered the Durham probe from the spring 2019 period. This comes after the networks gave Trump-Russia collusion more that 2,600 minutes of their evening newscasts. 

Enjoy the podcast below or wherever you listen to podcasts.