Howard Kurtz: Hunter Biden laptop story 'nothing short of a major embarrassment' for media
Washington Post and New York Times authenticated Hunter Biden's emails in recent reports
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Sunday Night in America" addressed the sudden media interest in scandals surrounding President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Fox News host Trey Gowdy invited "MediaBuzz" host Howard Kurtz to discuss the fallout after The New York Times and Washington Post’s reports that the Hunter Biden laptop story is credible after the media at-large dismissed or underplayed the story during the 2020 election. Kurtz walked viewers through the extensive media cover-up when the New York Post first reported the story.
BRIAN STELTER FAILS TO ASK THE ATLANTIC JOURNALIST ABOUT THEIR CONTROVERSIAL HUNTER BIDEN COMMENTS
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Washington Post confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden's infamous laptop this week. ((Randy Holmes via Getty Images))
"Look at the way that most news organizations mocked or minimized or just plain blew off the Hunter Biden laptop story as reported by the New York Post in the end of the fall of the 2020 campaign and the way that Twitter blocked and even wouldn’t allow people to share information even in private messages…was nothing short of a major league embarrassment," Kurtz said. "So sixteen, eighteen months later, now New York Times and Washington Post say, guess what, we’ve authenticated the Hunter Biden laptop emails. I’ll give them one clap for getting in the game. They’ve advanced the story in certain ways. But you do have to ask the question what on earth took so long?"
Gowdy noted how former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe insisted the story was not part of a "Russian disinformation" campaign, but news organizations and Democrat officials continued to claim the contrary. Kurtz said now that Biden’s poll numbers are down, there’s less incentive to hide the facts that Hunter Biden currently faces a federal investigation.
President-elect Joe Biden embraces his son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Chase Center November 07, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
"If they have been silence on it all this time, they will look really bad. Also, I think there is a little bit of the blow back from what was once portrayed as just a right wing media crusade. I think that they got a little embarrassed in fact, if it was Donald Trump Jr. with similar allegations, of course they would have gone with it during the campaign. It just amounts to media malpractice," Kurtz said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kurtz called out the outlets that continue to dismiss the Hunter Biden story.
Hunter Biden and Joe Biden (Fox News)
"Some of them still have their blinders on. Some are belatedly recognizing the news value here. It is the son of the President of the United States, and I think when we look back this will be Exhibit A about why the media’s and social media’s credibility, in the case of Twitter just keep sinking," Kurtz said.
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