MSNBC Anchor Calls 2 Segregationist Senators 'Republicans,' But There's One Major Problem
Maybe this is why they call it “fake news.”
MSNBC, one of the liberal champions of the #Resistance media, has never exactly been Republican-friendly territory.
But the network’s Kasie Hunt took bias to a whole new level Wednesday when she rewrote the history of the 1970s to suit the Democratic narrative of 2019.
While teasing an upcoming segment about a speech by former Vice President Joe Biden at a fundraiser, Hunt turned the liberal snark up to 10 with a reference to two former senators Biden talked about:
“Still to come, Joe Biden references his relationships with two former Republican colleagues at an event in New York City,” Hunt said. “The only problem? They were both segregationists.”
Actually, the “only problem” was that Hunt was exactly wrong about the two senators — Herman Talmadge of Georgia and James Eastland of Mississippi.
They were both Democrats – members of the party that championed American slavery, brought on the Civil War, and kept Jim Crow laws operating for more than a century after that war’s end.
They were the men Biden was referring to in his speech about his early days in the Senate of the 1970s, in which “civility” supposedly ruled.
Of course, it could have been an innocent mistake – Republican, Democrat. Why should a national news correspondent know the difference anyway?
But as Mediaite’s Caleb Howe pointed out, Hunt didn’t correct the error when she came back on the air. In fact, she might well have compounded the problem.
“In the full segment, Hunt did not correct herself, but instead referred to the two men as Biden’s ‘colleagues’ and “lawmakers,’” Howe wrote. “Biden surrogate Anita Dunn likewise had multiple opportunities to make the correction, or to even identify the two segregationist Senators as Democrats without correcting Hunt, but did not.
“In fact, the two repeatedly related the positions held by the two Democrats, as well as the necessity of working with them, to Republicans in Congress today and Democrats having to work with them. It only reinforced the earlier identification. Just like those Republicans then, Biden is talking about working with Republicans today, was the essential argument.”
To be fair, Hunt did finally get around to posting a correction on Twitter much later Wednesday — but only after it was public knowledge (and after Howe had posted his criticisms).
Earlier today, I inaccurately said Sens. James Eastland & Herman Talmadge were Republicans. They were, of course, both Democrats. We regret the error. We’ll make sure to correct it on the show tomorrow, but wanted to correct the record here in the meantime.
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) June 19, 2019
The remorse comes dripping through, doesn’t it?
Twitter users weren’t buying it. As many pointed out, when these kinds of “errors” show up in the liberal media, they almost invariably end up making Republicans look bad — almost like that was the point.
If MSNBC mentioned their party affiliation in all reports, you would know it by today midday, but since MSNBC didn’t mention it and since you think Republicans are racists, you claimed that they were GOPers. The error is a result of ignorance and MSNBC’s bias on this story.
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) June 19, 2019
I’m sure that wasn’t on purpose. Tell me Ms Hunt, what’s the last reporting error you made where a Democrat looked bad?
— Loren (@LorenSethC) June 19, 2019
Do these things happen on purpose? Cuz it happens a lot. Kind of uncanny considering there’s a 50% chance you get it right
— Kansas LawDog (@ZakA77ack) June 19, 2019
And then there was this classic helpful hint for Hunt, MSNBC and all their liberal media brethren:
Just a bit of advice for future reporting. If the politician was racist, anti semitic, or a serial abuser, it’s best to err on the side of caution that they were likely a democrat.
— Ordy’s Amish School of Coding (@OrdyPackard) June 19, 2019
The reality is that the arch-segregationists Biden was bragging about getting along with on Tuesday were dyed-in-the-wool Democrats — members of the party that seems to find “racism” in every Republican utterance today.
Naturally, Democrats also accuse Republicans of anti-Semitism, yet their party supports Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, one of the most virulently anti-Semitic figures in American life.
The “problem,” as Kasie Hunt might put it, isn’t that journalists make mistakes — everyone does.
The “problem” is that when liberal journalists make “mistakes,” their audiences are invariably left with a bad impression of their ideological opponents.
Those are not innocent mistakes. It’s also not journalism.
Maybe that’s why it’s called “fake news.”
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
