Bernie’s Weekly Q&A (9/13)

Election denialism, the presidential debate, whether there will be a rematch, and more!

Welcome to this week’s Premium Q&A session for paying subscribers. I appreciate you all signing up and joining me.

A quick reminder first

When submitting questions for the weekly Q&As, please limit your questions to just a few sentences (three or four tops). We’ve received complaints from subscribers about the length of these sessions. People don’t mind long answers so much, but they don’t like having to read through long-winded, often commentary-filled questions to get to those answers. Thank you, and we appreciate your help and understanding.

Let’s get started:

---

I’m not an "election denier”. I believe there were some issues with the last election, but I don't know if it impacted the results. I like some things about Trump and some I do not. That written, I do question why the media is so insistent that Republicans/conservatives reject questioning the 2020 election, while it has/had no issue with Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, many US Democrat Senators (who wanted to reject the electors in several states supporting Trump) and congress members who stated Trump is was illegitimate. Clinton says Trump stole the election with Russia’s help. Schiff claims he has "incontrovertible evidence" of collusion, yet he's never produced it (and the media never demands he do so). How are they able to escape the "election denier" label. — Scott B.

Read my book, Bias — about liberal bias in the mainstream media. It’s worse now than when the book came out in 2001, but the central premise holds, I think. And that is that there are too many liberal journalists in America’s newsrooms and not enough conservative journalists. And so they slant news to the left — either intentionally or otherwise — and there’s hardly anyone around to call them on it from inside the newsroom. It was bad when I wrote the book but as I say, it’s worse now — which explains why so few Americans, in poll after poll, say they trust the media to play fair.

Bernie, given your deep history with the established media, have you thought about a series of stories that simply deals with the question “whatever happened to curiosity” at the network level. We both know sides have apparently been taken in the struggles if bias, but what about deep digging visa vi the Mike Wallace’s of days gone by? Why does it take a divided Congress to ferret out the facts of the Afghanistan withdrawal? Why is the FBI and Secret Service allowed to sweep under the carpet or simply deny access to the facts surrounding school shootings, attempted presidential assassinations and the like? Why? Is it because the tools the media has, like fierce FOIA (freedom of information act) requests and simple intense digging, apparently aren’t be pushed by editors and producers and their ilk? There just doesn’t seem to be enough intensity out there except in the wild grandstanding of a few, elected officials. — Larry H.

Good question, Larry, but I’m not sure I have the answer. But I suspect partisan journalism might have something to do with it. Do liberals in the media really want to dig into something that might hurt their pals in the Democratic Party? Or maybe it’s simply that it cost too much to do that kind of investigative journalism in an age when a lot of journalism isn’t making all that much money. That’s the best I can do, my old WTVJ colleague.

What glee you two show going after your personal piñata, body language is YOUR giveaway, picking out fly specks about Trump, when the Cackler was a complete ninny NOT answering easy questions, redirecting herself to lying about Trump. You two are backing a socialist, condemning the US down the tubes. Bernie can see the Cackler as the President? He must need a new prescription (glasses or whatever). Maybe the Cackler was on the same stuff Biden takes? Bernie - don't tell me where to direct my anger! I'll direct my anger at you and John for continuing your conservative masquerade. John - maybe coding was your calling. Time to rename your podcast to 'THE BS ZONE'. — Bob R.