CNN copies Stacey Abrams’ talking points on Twitter
September 8, 2021
As the credibility of the media continues to slide in the U.S., CNN provided a case study on why Americans lack trust in the reporting of the cable network.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R.) signed into law reforms that reflect the worries that last year’s COVID-inspired measures on elections made elections less secure. Meanwhile, CNN’s Twitter opted to practically copy and paste the talking points from Democrat Stacey Abrams as the basis for reporting on the event.
▪︎ Bans 24-hour and drive-thru voting
▪︎ New vote-by-mail ID mandates
▪︎ Bans officials from mailing unsolicited mail-in ballot applications
▪︎ Empowers poll watchers
▪︎ New requirements for assisting voters
▪︎ Monthly voter roll checks https://t.co/BhfZ6Q3fTa— CNN (@CNN) September 7, 2021
“The restrictive voting measure adds Texas to the list of Republican-controlled states that have seized on former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud and clamped down on access to the ballot box this year. Already, Florida, Georgia and other states have enacted new voting laws,” says CNN’s partisan take about the bill.
CNN basically copied and pasted talking points from that Stacey Abrams 'sToP JiM cRoW 2.0' website. lololololol pic.twitter.com/twL19ctWqP
— Meara (@MillennialOther) September 7, 2021
Democrats have painted the bill and others like it as if they were modern-day Jim Crow laws, preventing Black people from voting, because they ban drive-through voting, require some ID, ban 24-hour voting, require the state to remove non-citizens from voting rolls and stop mailing of unsolicited mail-in ballots, among other reforms.
Behind the trend, as CNN points out, is the fact that the Democrats have lost control of state legislatures even as they captured Congress and the White House.
“In part, because Democratic inattention to state-level races has allowed Republicans to build majorities in legislative chambers in many otherwise competitive states, Democrats have proven unable to mount a forceful response this year to the tide of voting restrictions in GOP-led statehouses,” CNN reported.
Democrats were counting on a blue wave of legislative victories at the state level to take advantage of once-a-decade redistricting to remake American election laws at the state level, however the Democrats could reimagine.
But because that didn’t happen, they must rely on CNN to cover for them as Republicans enact election reform at the state level, the way Republicans imagine.
That leaves CNN and its big-media allies to try to rally public opinion, calling Republican laws “restrictive” and “exacerbating the marginalization caused by more than a century of discriminatory practices.”
Thus CNN is forced to copy and paste from the websites of Democrats like Abrams, who are the most active partisans in the fight.
Is it any wonder then that a recent study found that misinformation, as labeled by the mainstream media, is more readily believable by users than the disinformation put out by so-called reputable news media?
“Misinformation on Facebook got six times more clicks than reputable news sites during the 2020 election, according to an upcoming peer-reviewed study from researchers at New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France,” says CNET.com.
But instead of reflecting on the growing divide between those who consume information and those who create misinformation and disinformation, CNN just copies pastes the talking points of Stacey Abrams hoping that only the Democrats will notice.
And the damage to the reputation of these so-called reputable media is ongoing.
A study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford this year showed that just 29 percent of Americans agree that they can trust news most of the time, the lowest on record.
Perhaps it’s time for the media to reimagine their own reputation.
They should start by understanding that the bad reputation they have with 71% of Americans isn’t imaginary.