'Media Buzz' on Biden vs. press in 2021

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Biden vs. the press in 2021

High expectations dashed by reality

This is a rush transcript from "MediaBuzz," January 2, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOWARD KURTZ, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): With huge headlines as new COVID cases here shatter all pandemic records, the press is going easy on President Biden as he beats a tactical retreat, and his CDC again is spreading more confusion.

The Washington Post reports that the CDC's abrupt decision to cut the recommended isolation period from 10 days to five was driven largely by concerns essential services might be hobbled by infected workers. CBS morning didn't even ask agency chief, Rochelle Walensky, about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: What we do know is about 85 to 90 percent of viral transmission happens in those first five days which is why we really want people to stay home during that period of time and then mask for the rest of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): OK, sure. And on the Today Show and CNN, Walensky dodged the questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN: So, from what you're saying, it sounds like this decision had just as much to do with business as it did the science.

UNKNOWN: Why should Americans trust the CDC?

WALENSKY: My job right now is to take all of the science and the information that we have and to deliver guidance and recommendations to the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): The jig was up when Anthony Fauci admitted on MSNBC that there was a strong economic motivation behind the move.

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: That might have a negative impact on our ability to maintain the structure of society, of all the essential workers that you would need if you keep them all out for a period of ten days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Look, there should be a media debate over these strategies. But whether it's mandates or masks, remember when the CDC said everyone had to wear masks outside before flip-flopping? The agency's ability to communicate to the press has been abysmal.

You want to take economic factors into account on quarantining? Fine. Just be honest about it. Who's to blame when it comes to COVID, most of the media is muting its criticism of the Biden administration compared to the former guy.

I'm Howard Kurtz, and this is the first Media Buzz of 2022.

As the Omicron surge dominates the news, the pundits clash over whether Joe Biden is now handing off the problem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Look, there is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level.

BYRON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: For President Biden to say there is no federal solution, that is the kind of thing he would have blasted president Donald Trump for saying, and now he's saying it himself.

NICOLLE WALLACE, HOST, MSNBC: You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. If they stuck with the 10 days, I think people would have accused them of trying to grind the economy to a halt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): And the president belatedly conceded that his plan to order 500 million COVID home tests came much too late.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: It's not enough. It's clearly not enough. If I'd known, we would have gone harder.

RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think that we could all agree that the White House was a day behind and a dollar short, day late and a dollar short when it comes to testing overall.

JASON MEISTER, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: I actually think this flip flip-flop by the media and the Biden administration, by the way, is very deliberate. I think they realize in polling that they're getting killed on COVID.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Joining us now to analyze the coverage, Gayle Trotter, who hosts the Right in D.C. podcasts, and Gillian Turner, the Fox News anchor and correspondent here in Washington.

Gayle, with a staggering 580,000 new COVID cases reported on Thursday alone, the CDC suddenly cuts in half the recommended isolation time and doesn't acknowledge the full story. Why are we seeing relatively little media criticism of the agency and the Biden administration?

GAYLE TROTTER, HOST, RIGHT IN D.C. PODCAST: Howie, everyone is sick of the coronavirus, and everyone is sick of the media's coverage of the coronavirus. It's clear that where the Trump administration was met with total skepticism by the media for everything they did and everything they said, the Biden administration's every action is met with mostly widespread acceptance by the media.

And this is yet another example of where the media is abandoning its professional ethics to go after and to really dig for the truth. And you said it at the very beginning of this segment, that it would be one thing if the CDC and the Biden administration admitted what was really going on, their motivation behind this.

And the media with Trump, they questioned every motive he had, they assumed that he had bad motives for everything his administration was doing, and yet we see just the opposite with the corporate media right now assuming the best of motives by the Biden administration.

KURTZ: Well, I agree with you people being sick of the virus, sick of the coverage. But nevertheless, these numbers are staggering even though, obviously, deaths are not up anywhere near as much given the fact it's the Omicron variant.

Gillian, maybe it's justified to cut the isolation time just to keep businesses open and planes flying, but there's no doubt in my mind if the CDC has done the same thing under Donald Trump, pundits would be coming on saying they're not following the science.

GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: I guess my question for the medical experts and the public health officials is if that was the calculation now, right, we're going to cut down -- I didn't -- by the way, I can't -- I didn't really see journalists ask this this week -- if they're going to cut down isolation period based on a wider variety of factors including the economy, why wasn't that a factor when we started the lockdowns a year and a half ago?

Meaning, it should equally have been a consideration then as it is now. To me, it undercuts the failures in the decisions that they made a year and a half ago. I haven't seen anybody ask Dr. Fauci or Walensky that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: I was wondering that as well. Maybe the guidance has been wrong for a year and a half. Gayle, President Biden did get some media pushback for this incredible miscalculation of not ordering enough at-home tests, now they're ordered 500 million but we're not even going to see those for some weeks.

Incredibly long, lines, people are going crazy trying to get these tests. He said it wasn't a failure, then he admitted, as we saw, had a we known, we could have gone much harder, and the press just kind of moves on.

TROTTER: Yes, we see that over and over again. And like the clip you had about Dr. Fauci who's been the chief flip-flopper on everything related to the pandemic during our experience with this, Fauci didn't acknowledge that there could be different rules for essential workers.

So, yes, cut it down to five, and maybe five days is even too much given the fact that Omicron is highly contagious and yet it's not very debilitative to people. We're not seeing a huge rise in hospitalizations or deaths, and the data from other countries is showing that too.

But why didn't Fauci have the idea that maybe you could have a different rule for essential workers than the rest of America? And the fact that the media is not pressing him on this shows that, as I said, they're just accepting what this administration is doing instead of the sort of antagonistic play that you saw with the Trump administration where you saw got you questions in every daily press briefing that the Trump administration was having. And, of course, where's Biden for his questioning?

KURTZ: Yes. Well, of course, the impact of the virus very much depends on whether you've been vaccinated. But, Gillian, is this a case of the media pulling punches? Because Joe Biden talked about in the campaign, we need more testing. He said it a couple months ago but didn't actually make it happen, and now everybody acknowledges it's kind of too late, by the time the test arrive the Omicron peak may have already passed.

TURNER: Yes. Richard Fowler said in a clip we play off the top that, you know, the president is a day late and a dollar short. But that really undercuts the severity of the problem.

To me, the media's biggest failing maybe of the last two years is in failing to grasp the severity of the testing shortage which is now a full- blown nationwide crisis in this country, the headline topping every news show this week, fronting every front page should have really been Americans wait hours in line to get access to tests. Sometimes they're charged hundreds of dollars for those tests, and now we're waiting days in order to get the results.

This is the wealthiest nation in the world, the most technologically and medically advanced nation in the world. It's outrageous that at this point we are here. This is not happening many western Europe. It's not happening in most participants of Asia. Even in most parts of the Middle East. It's a shortcoming that is very unique to the United States right now, and the media is not covering it as such.

KURTZ: Yes, you know, that's a great point. If there had been more of a media drum beat about the lack of tests, which of course didn't -- wasn't as big a deal until you get these incredible numbers maybe there would have been more pressure on the White House and the whole political system to do something about it just in case. And everybody knew there would be more surges we just didn't know the nature of it.

Gayle, when President Biden said earlier this week there was no federal solution to the COVID crisis, that's sort of true that most of this is handled at the state level, but that's not what candidate Biden and President Biden had been saying since the campaign and earlier this year when he was acting like, especially with mandates, that there was, Washington was going to take the lead.

TROTTER: That's so true. You might remember candidate Joe Biden's quote about if anybody was responsible for this many deaths, he should not remain president. And yet we've seen far more families shattered in deaths from coronavirus during Biden's administration than the previous administration. And he was out there saying there's no federal solution.

Some people said that the media were not questioning him about this because he was trying to give the state governors more credit for what they were doing, more responsibility. And yet we see a terrible federal policy right now pushed by OSHA requiring vaccines of businesses that have 100 or more employees.

This is being challenged in the Supreme Court right now. There's a stay that's going to be heard in January on this. So, it kind of undercuts Biden's message that there's no federal solution when he's trying to do a federal solution that impinges people's freedom.

KURTZ: You know, there was a media uproar in 2020 when President Trump said he had absolute authority over states on this and then he kind of took a step back and said the governors would be calling the shots.

Gillian, I'm so struck by this. The Washington Post, New York Times doing big pieces on this question about whether there's an undercount, because you do have some at-home tests. People are testing positive, but the authorities have no way to track that.

And so some journalists and scientists are now suggesting we should just stop the daily counting. That it's pointless, it doesn't really tell us anything since it's an incomplete number. But if that happened and the media went along, wouldn't that be sort of a political gift to Joe Biden by defusing the focus on the surging number of cases?

TURNER: I mean, maybe, but I would argue that the political optics is less important to the underlying reality which is that how many Americans are getting sick from COVID, how many Americans are getting COVID. Those are the numbers we need. Public health officials use those daily case counts in order to formulate policy, and the media, by the way, uses the daily case count to paint a picture of COVID in this country and around the world.

If that's no longer going to be the metric, then people have to come -- public health officials need to tell us pretty quickly what the metric is going to be. Some folks have been arguing -- to be fair, conservative pundits have been arguing for months now that the metric should be hospitalizations and death rates, we should move away from daily case counts even before home testing was prevalent. Maybe that's the answer, I don't know, but the public health officials need to tell us pretty quick.

KURTZ: Yes. I -- I'm sympathetic to the arguments, but I sort of feel like if we don't have the numbers to give us the overall trend, we're sort of flying blind. By the way, before --

(CROSSTALK)

TROTTER: Howie, it's probably the case that some numbers are better than no numbers, you know?

KURTZ: Yes, right. Even though we acknowledge that they're incomplete because, look, we want more people to test at home. People are going crazy trying to get this test because they want to know if they're carrying the virus, especially if they've been exposed to somebody.

Before we go to break, Gillian, you -- I was on your show yesterday minutes after we learned that Betty White Had died. We're going to put up this People magazine cover. It's so sad she didn't make it to 100, but 99.

And so, we talked about, you know, what an amazing career this woman has had, how she touched so many generations beginning in radio, and then with the golden girls on the Mary Tyler Moore show, and then being on Saturday Night Live, I never heard anybody say anything bad about her. She was a very likable and genuine person. Didn't make the gossip columns with negative news, and so happy to have a chance to talk to you about that.

Let me get a break. When we come back, how the media are handling President Biden and his avoidance of the press corps over this past year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): President Biden began 2021 with the press comparing him to FDR and LBJ, but now the coverage is very different after mistakes and missteps caused his approval ratings to plummet.

And joining the panel is Kevin Corke who covers the White House for Fox News. Kevin, Joe Biden is certainly getting more negative press now than he did early in his term, but as somebody who covered the Trump White House, would you say the coverage today is still largely sympathetic?

KEVIN CORKE, FOX NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No question about that, Howie. I think the White House would acknowledge that while the press generally has been compliant in getting their message out, I think they would also acknowledge that when you have misstep after misstep, it's not going to be easy to sort of control the narrative.

I mean, you can talk about crime, Afghanistan, the struggling economy and, yes, the COVID response. But I think what White House sources have told me repeatedly is listen, Kevin, this can all be summed up in a single sentence, it's a moving target. It's sort of like whack-a-mole, if you will.

And so, while they recognize that things may not all get better at once, they're hopeful that the press will be fair in acknowledging when things do get better. Of course, whether or not the political damage is lasting or not remains to be seen, Howie.

KURTZ: Yes. the presidency is always confronted with moving targets.

CORKE: That's right.

KURTZ: Gayle, Joe Biden was never going to be FDR because he's got a 50-50 Senate. Would you say the media jacked up expectations way too high in part because he wasn't Donald Trump?

TROTTER: Yes, because they had decided as the New York Times said in the 2016 campaign that they were abandoning objectivity to cover Donald Trump, and the press is being soft on President Biden right now because all these supposed negative stories have a positive spin.

And it's like Ross Douthat of the New York Times said, it's like the good guy is flailing, and we'd like to stop seeing him flailing. And you had an excellent piece on this talking about the coverage of President Biden and responding to the Washington Post columnist who said that there is more negative coverage of Biden than there has been of Donald Trump which is patently absurd, and anyone with eyes can see.

And the study that he used, this columnist for the Washington Post was completely flawed. And I think you have to understand that the tone with Biden as Ross Douthat said is that he's a good guy who's flailing, and we want to stop seeing him flailing. But the tone that the press always took and continues to take with President Trump is that he is an authoritarian menace. So, you can see that the press coverage of these administrations is vastly different.

KURTZ: Well, the Times newspaper didn't say it was abandoning objectivity, it was a media columnist --

(CROSSTALK)

TROTTER: They printed it.

KURTZ: Well, sure. It was published as a column. And certainly, you could argue that what's happening in recent years. But Kevin, you know, Biden has drawn pretty sharp media criticism on Afghanistan, on the border, on inflation, now with COVID again out of control. So, it's hard to argue that the press is giving him a total pass, but perhaps it depends on the issue.

CORKE: Yes. I think that the key there, Howie, was tone. I think that was a perfectly made point. Again, you have to cover the news, and if the news is bad, the news is bad no matter how you spin it. It's going to be unfavorable.

However, tone does matter in the way that some of the coverage has happened. But again, I think the sources that I talk to -- and I try to stay in contact with the White House at least on a weekly basis, sometimes several times during the week.

What they will tell you is no matter what you think about the press coverage, you have to understand that they're still looking for fair. And sometimes they don't feel like they get a fair shake whether that may be media outlets on the right or maybe it's in talk radio. They're still looking for this ideal coverage that maybe they saw in the Obama years when the press was, I think you could argue, fawning.

They're not going to get that especially with things struggling the way they are right now and particularly with the economy.

KURTZ: Yes. I also remember Obama people not being happy with some of the coverage.

CORKE: True.

KURTZ: Gayle, if economy rebounds, if COVID subsides, can President Biden get better coverage in 2022, or given that he's 79 and what's happened in this past year do you think the political damage has been done?

TROTTER: Well, he campaigned that he would restore normalcy to Washington, D.C. Joe Biden is of the swamp, by the swamp, and for the swamp. And I think that's why he expected the mainstream media would give him nothing but absolutely glowing coverage.

And yet, you mentioned two things that have weighed down his administration. But what about what's going on with China and Taiwan? What about the Afghanistan debacle? What about the military servicemembers who were murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan?

What about all the challenges that we see with Russia and Ukraine with NATO, and yet we don't see the wall-to-wall 24/7 coverage of all these things by the mainstream media. And that's why Joe Biden, I think is load into thinking that he's doing better than he is doing.

KURTZ: Right.

TROTTER: But the 2022 elections I think will draw that to a close.

KURTZ: Well, it was a wall-to-wall for few weeks during the Afghanistan debacle. Kevin, I've got about half a minute. I've always said that President Biden needs to engage the press more and be more of a communicator --

CORKE: Yes.

KURTZ: -- and have driven the news agenda but as you know very few interviews last year. Do you think I have a point, and do you think the White House approach may change?

CORKE: You have a point, and they absolutely not. They just can't afford it. The risk is too great even in favorable settings the president remains gaffe prone. I think the strategy remain the same and that too is his detriment, I think politically, Howie.

KURTZ: All right. Kevin Corke, Gayle Trotter, happy New Year. Thank you for joining us this holiday us this holiday weekend.

(CROSSTALK)

TROTTER: Happy New Year, Howie.

CORKE: Happy New Year.

KURTZ: Good to see you.

Up next, why The View can't seem to find a conservative woman. Dr. Oz embarrassing phone call and disturbing allegations against another CNN producer. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): Time to race the clock on the Buzz Beater. Go.

The View is having a hard time replacing Megan McCain, and that's after trying out the likes of Mary Catherine Ham, S.E. Cupp, Eboni Williams, Condoleezza Rice, Carly Fiorina, Mia Love, Morgan Ortagus, and Ana Navarro.

Politico quoting sources as saying the liberal hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, and Sunny Hostin are fed up with the endless shuffle of contenders, but here's the thing.

The View wants a female conservative who doesn't deny the election outcome or embrace the capitol riot, who doesn't flirt with fringe conspiracy theories in the GOP but who has credibility with Republicans who still support Donald Trump, and the person can't be too friendly with the Whoopi crowd because the producers want a lot of fighting.

In other words, a unicorn as an ex-staffer told Politico. Maybe this theoretical woman would be put off by complaints of mistreatment by Megan, Abby Huntsman and others who have held that seat.

Mehmet Oz the celebrity doctor now running from the Senate in Pennsylvania, did not want to talk to a New York magazine reporter. When Olivia Nuzzi called, the house Dr. Oz's likely to hang up on her but accidentally switched the call to another device, so Nuzzi heard Mrs. Oz call her this f-ing girl reporter and Republican candidate used similar language and saying one of their friends should not have talked to her. Life lesson here, if you want to blow off a blanking reporter, make sure the phone is hung up.

BBC News is apologizing for its handling of the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell who was found guilty of sex trafficking in the recruiting of young girls sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

The network booked Alan Dershowitz but didn't bother to mention that he's a former Epstein lawyer who's been accused of sexual misconduct by allege victim Virginia Giuffre which Dershowitz has vehemently denied.

The move did not meet the BBC's editorial standards as Mr. Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst the network says. But Dershowitz told viewers as he did in the Fox interview in which he was properly identified that the government's failure to call Giuffre as a witness undermine the credibility of her accusations against him and Prince Andrew, Dershowitz rightly says he made full disclosure.

CNN senior producer Rick Salibi has resigned the network confirmed after Project Veritas alleged that he had solicited sexual photos of his fiancee's 15-year-old daughter. Police in Virginia's Fairfax County confirmed that Salibi is under investigation by the child exploitation unit.

The departure of Salibi who worked for The Lead follows the firing of CNN producer John Griffin who's been charged with pursuing unlawful sexual activity with minors, no indication that either case involves their work at CNN.

And Keith Olbermann once the caustic voice of MSNBC liberalism is taking flak for a nasty comment on a family photo of Mitt Romney, we see it there, who has five children, 25 grandchildren. Olbermann said of the Utah senator's clan, somebody gift these people some vasectomies. Does Olbermann have something against large families, or is this just the level he has sunk to?

Next on Media Buzz, four days before the anniversary of the capitol riot, that dark day has intensely partisan media coverage everywhere. A look at the press and January 6th in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): We're now days away from the first anniversary of January 6th, one of the darkest days in American history. The coverage has gotten far more polarized, but when protesters stormed the capitol, the condemnation was pretty consistent across the media spectrum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, HOST, CNN: It's pretty clear, it seems to be President Trump who is encouraging a mob an insurrection to storm the capitol.

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think there's much doubt, Bret, that the president's actions and his entire conduct post the election are what led us to this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): But things have changed pretty drastically since then. Gillian Turner joined our earlier discussion on the subject along with Fox News contributor Guy Benson, host of Fox's Guy Benson radio show.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Guy Benson, how is it after that awful attack on American democracy that we are mired in partisan media sniping about what happened, what the meaning was -- of it is and was it really that bad?

GUY BENSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Because that's what we do in this country and in this media environment, we snipe at each other, and we go to our own corners in a lot of cases. And whatever the story is that benefits your side or your tribe, that's what people tend to fall into.

I think as January 6th unfolded before our eyes. It was horrifying to virtually everyone who watched it. It was a national disgrace. We all sensed it in that moment. It was covered that way briefly, and then all the spin wars began. And you have some people over on the left who I think correctly identify it as a national disgrace, but obsess and fixate over it.

If you watch some of the coverage, it's like it's the only story in America, which is crazy. It's about the former president and what happened, you know, almost a year ago at this point. And then on the other side, you have some people who insist that it really wasn't so bad, and it was just kind of like a tourist event gone wrong, and they downplay what happened which I think is wrong, absolutely, on the merits.

We should be able to understand and hold these thoughts in our head that this was a very terrible thing that can never be allowed to happen again. We can talk about why it happened without making it this overarching, number one story in the country forever and ever.

And it's a very sort of a strange thing, I think, to watch for a lot of people who are just in the middle who kind of agree with a little bit of both things that I just said. And yet, the media environment remains that polarized that it's sort of like a lot of people are just getting one silo or the other, neither one of which, I think, really reflects reality.

KURTZ: Gillian Turner, I know everything in our world and our coverage gets wrapped up in partisan politics, but do you think that the media are fueling hyperpartisanship as we have covered the fallout and the investigations after January 6th?

GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: It surprises me, Howie, that some networks today continue to cover the attacks of January 6th now nearly a year ago as if that story is still driving the news cycle now.

They seize on every detail, every development, every subpoena from the January 6th committee and everything that's sort of going on behind the scenes on Capitol Hill as if that is where the news begins that day. And I think that's in the state, we're in the middle --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: On some channels, on some channels it is driving the news agenda every single day.

TURNER: It is, it really is.

KURTZ: But you say it's a mistake. Go ahead.

TURNER: It's a mistake because there's a lot of other things happening in the world. There is a new president. Since that time. There is a -- the pandemic is continuing to surge. There's been a withdrawal from Afghanistan where U.S. forces were fighting for 20 years. There's a lot of things to cover, and there's these high-profile trials, excuse me, high-profile trials, say that five times fast, that we've been talking about.

To pretend that this attack of a year ago doesn't matter is a mistake, but to pretend that it is the story every single day now is also a mistake.

KURTZ: Guy, there's no question that the Democrats are trying to pump up this committee investigation because it plays to their base and it damages Trump. Do you think -- let's just get to the question of why. Are the media, those outlets that are acting as if January 6th is the most overrunning important story in the universe, are they doing it because they also want to damage the former president?

BENSON: Yes, I mean, of course, right? And I think that he deserves a lot of criticism for what happened on January 6th. I think he was principally responsible for what happened there, driving the election lies that he did. I think it is fair to stand up and tell the truth about that. And also, scuff.

I actually saw some media criticism from the left, Howie, in the last couple days that the real problem with the media on January 6th is that they have not covered it enough which is sort of a wild thing when it's the lead story allegedly on some of our competition virtually every day.

KURTZ: Every hour.

BENSON: So, yes, it kind of feels like we're in this twilight zone where you have some friends of ours on the right saying, you've got it all wrong, what you saw didn't really happen that way, forget about it, and some of our friends on the left saying how dare you not think about this, dream about this, wake up screaming about this in the middle of the night every day or else you don't love America or something. It's very strange.

KURTZ: Yes, at the same time, Gillian, I mean, you do have this legal battle where Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon are defying lawful congressional subpoenas, whatever one thinks of the investigation, is covering that. Doesn't -- does that necessarily mean that the media are favoring the Democratic-controlled House January 6th committee?

TURNER: No. It's totally fair game to cover these developments. They matter not just to our politics of the past, but to our politics of the future, right? Donald Trump may very well imminently declare that he's going to run for president again in the next election cycle, so it's important to know what his cabinet appointees and senior advisers were up to on that day and what their role was.

Again, I come back to it's how you cover it, it's how much time you devote to it, it's how much time you devote to the outrage surrounding it, and some networks have just gone way overboard and lost sight of the forest for the trees.

KURTZ: Yes. Some newspapers as well. Let's touch on the question of hypocrisy, which is always one of my favorite issues talking about politics. Guy, when Republicans were running Hill investigations, let's say the Benghazi hearings, there were -- many in the media were a lot more sympathetic to Democrats who were resisting the hearings and the probe as too partisan.

BENSON: Well, and they were pretending that Benghazi really wasn't a thing, and it was a fake scandal is what the Obama administration called it, and much of the media just picked up that ball and ran with it because many people in the media, and journalists kind of take their marching orders and their signals, certainly, from the Democratic Party.

I mean, we can play the hypocrisy game all day long because it exists every single day, all day long. The Democratic Party is generally supported by our news media establishment, the Republican Party is not. The media is hostile towards Republicans by and large and generally supportive and helpful toward the Democrats because most journalists are liberal Democrats.

KURTZ: Gillian, whether it was Benghazi or the fast and furious investigation or the investigation of the IRS, it seemed to me the media were a lot more critical of the Republican investigators in the Obama years than they are -- of the Democratic investigators now, the Bennie Thompson committee now that the target is Trump.

TURNER: I think that that's fair. But it's also true, Howie, that the party is going to rage on. Politico got hold of a memo that Congressman Kevin McCarthy sent out to his party earlier last week. It laid out plans to retake the House and then set up their own standing committees to investigate the Biden administration.

They're already looking at subpoenaing witnesses for things like the COVID origin scandal, Hunter Biden. So, you know, this kind of jockeying here is, unfortunately, just a new feature in the political landscape, and we're going to have to get used to it. I don't think these types of, you know, --

KURTZ: Yes.

TURNER: -- end all, be-all investigations are going anywhere. They're only wrapping up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BENSON: But those investigations will be bad, of course, right. The Democrats' information are righteous and good and necessary, and the Republican ones are bad and partisan and nasty.

KURTZ: Well, the one thing I can say for sure is --

TURNER: That's right, Guy.

KURTZ: The one thing I can say for sure is the story is not going away with the anniversary and, of course, the hearings coming up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: And in a Washington Post poll today, 40 percent of Republicans and 23 percent of Democrats say violence can at times be justified against the government. I find those numbers chilling. Seventy percent of Democrats in this survey, only 26 percent of Republicans say the capitol protesters were mostly violent.

After the break, Frank Luntz weighs in on the media's vaccine debate and the contrast in coverage from Trump to Biden. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): It's a been a few tumultuous years for the media and the dominant issue at the beginning of 2022 is the same as it was at the beginning of last year and that's the coronavirus. I spoke with Frank Luntz, the veteran pollster who's been working on the controversial subject of vaccines.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Frank Luntz, welcome.

FRANK LUNTZ, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Thank you.

KURTZ: Donald Trump got hammered by the media over COVID-19. It probably cost him the election. About 400,000 more Americans died this year from the virus, more than in 2020. Is President Biden drawing the same kind of media criticism, in your view?

LUNTZ: I don't think so. But Biden has handled it very differently. The language that he's used, the presentations. Trump used combative press conferences, and Biden has been making speeches about it. I think Biden's language has been better, and I was particularly happy listening to Joe Biden actually credit Donald Trump, acknowledge that he got a booster shot and talk about the previous administration getting people the availability of the vaccine for people.

And so, I think that there's been a double standard, but there's been a double standard, Howie, in every aspect of presidential leadership which isn't fair to the former president. But I'm not going to give Joe Biden bad marks on it, at least on the communication of it, because in the end it is the Trump voter themselves who are making the decisions not to get vaccinated, and I think it's the wrong decision.

KURTZ: Well, on that point, about 40 percent of the country remains unvaccinated, and as you well know, that group tends to skew about three to one Republican. Could the media with all of their own partisanship over this have done better in 2021?

LUNTZ: Absolutely. And I think this is the time to reflect back. Some of the cable networks used the lack of vaccination as a political weapon to beat Republicans over the head, and that's not helpful. Putting Anthony Fauci who's simply not trusted by Republicans on the air so much is not helpful.

If you truly believe, as they should, that they have a public service to the country to get people to do the right thing when it comes to vaccines, they should leave the politics off the air and focus on whatever it takes to get people to make the right decision.

I'll give you an example. Very often the media would use critics within the medical community. People would come on and use their time on air to bash the Republicans. That's not helpful. Don't insult the people you're trying to influence. These people who have made the decision came to that decision for whatever reason.

KURTZ: Yes. Calling them reckless and dumb, I think, has been counterproductive. But if you think that putting Anthony Fauci on as the chief spokesman on medical issues for the White House is not helpful, people on the right, who would you put on instead?

LUNTZ: I'd be bringing on doctors who are going to respect the decision, that it is a personal decision, it is a decision that's based on whatever criteria that they use. I want to challenge that decision, but I desperately wanted to do so in a respectful manner.

When it comes to life and death, you don't condemn people. You try to influence people. And that's not what, that's not what too many in the media have done.

KURTZ: The media are again covering the virus very aggressively, especially with this Omicron surge. Aren't lots of people out there regardless of political persuasion sick of the pandemic, sick of the coverage of the pandemic, tuning it out and in some cases blaming the press for spreading fear?

LUNTZ: Well, it's a legitimate thing when it is spreading so quickly. It's legitimate to focus on something -- 85 people were lined up at one testing station. There must have been a half dozen of them in Times Square, and I walked through it yesterday with. There were 85 people in one of these lines before 9 a.m.

The American people are nervous about this because some people have been vaccinated and have gotten the new variant. And that doesn't tell me that it's not an excuse to get vaccinated, it tells me that it's going to be less severe, you're less likely to end up in the hospital, you're less likely to die, and the media has been communicating that.

I think they have to tell this story. I think that's a good decision by them. But don't beat up on people. Convince people.

KURTZ: You look at the panoply of issues, inflation, the border, Afghanistan, COVID as well, there are a lot of reasons that Joe Biden started to slide in the polls and hasn't recovered from being in the low 40s. Is the press starting to portray him as less than competent, or is he unpopular despite pretty sympathetic news coverage?

LUNTZ: I think it's real life that's having an impact. You can't tell the American people that it's 1929 and happy days are here again if you're in the middle of a depression. There is no impact, economic impact stronger than the rise in prices and costs. And, by the way, I don't call it inflation. If you call it inflation, it's an economic term. When you talk about paying more at the pump that's real life.

KURTZ: Let me jump in because I want to get this last question, we've got about half a minute. Would President Biden do a better job of driving the news agenda if he did more interviews and engaged the press more because, clearly, he mostly avoids the press?

LUNTZ: And that's the big difference between him and Donald Trump. I think that Biden avoiding the press actually helps him because he has communication trouble just as Donald Trump would have done better if he'd have avoided the press because he talked too much.

If Biden talked more and Trump had talked less, we might have had a different outcome in 2020, and I really believe that. I understand why Joe Biden's avoiding the press. It makes sense but --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: Why does it make sense?

LUNTZ: Because he doesn't have a great story to tell. Not on immigration, not on crime, not on prices, not on just about anything that matters to the American people. He's struggling right now, and I don't know how he's going to defend it.

KURTZ: All right. Frank Luntz, candid as usual. Thanks very much for joining us.

LUNTZ: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Still to come, can the media win back the country's trust in this New Year? Plus, my thoughts on the late, great John Madden.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ (on camera): So here is my question, I'll be giving this a fair amount to it. Is there any possibility -- we all beat up on the media a lot, particularly on this program -- that the mainstream media as a whole could become less polarizing and less distrusted in 2022, and what would it take for that to happen? Guy?

BENSON: No is my short answer. I don't think they're capable of it. I don't think they want to do it even if they have a financial incentive to do it because their audiences are shrinking, and people don't trust them. I think many of them are so committed to the project that they can't help themselves, they can't resist.

What it would take, hypothetically, is for the media, I think, to take their zeal and enthusiasm for diversity that they talk about all the time and apply that to the way people think in their newsrooms. Those are high minds of leftism for the most part, and if they really want to get serious about intellectual diversity, that would go a long way. I just don't expect it.

KURTZ: Well, you know, Gillian, maybe the thing is that the incentives in the business are all toward what we have now because you can build your audience because some audiences really flock toward partisanship, and particularly a lot of people who want their own opinions reinforced. Maybe too many organizations -- and I'm not excluding anybody play to that sentiment.

TURNER: The problem is that really, Howie, that the bubbles are only getting tighter and more restrictive, and the voices that are getting amplified in the media and on social media are becoming more and more extreme.

So not only are, you know, voters being polarized by all of this, but the media is actually polarizing itself at this point. So if you really want to get to the root of the problem here, you'd have to nip some of that momentum in the bud, and the for-profit media world that we live in, unfortunately, is not built for that.

KURTZ: Yes, I'd like to be more on the optimistic, but unfortunately, given the performance of the last half dozen years it's increasingly hard to do so. A little bit of a reality check. Thanks very much.

TURNER: I would like to just quote my stepfather who says "there's a lot of hope but no chance."

KURTZ: Let me write that down. Guy Benson and Gillian Turner, thanks so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: The sports world is awash with tributes to John Madden, the fabulously successful NFL coach who won a Super Bowl with the Oakland Raiders, but the reason his death at 85 has struck such a chord is what Madden did afterwards. His long, colorful, sometimes zany postgame career working football games for four networks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MADDEN, FORMER NFL COACH: And, boom, the ball is there, right again between the eight and the nine. Is he happy?

UNKNOWN: Football coaches now are much more slick CEO types, and ultimately, very boring. You never said that about Madden.

NICK WRIGHT, FOX SPORTS CO-HOST: John Madden is responsible for the growth and popularity of football than any other single human being of his lifetime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): High praise. When the fledgling Fox Sports outbid CBS for NFL rights back in 1993, it was the hiring of Madden that gave the operation instant credibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDEN: I wasn't a guy when I was coach that would say I want to go out and be a broadcaster.

DICK STOCKTON, FORMER SPORTSCASTER: Hello, everyone. I'm Dick Stockton along with John Madden.

VIN SCULLY, FORMER SPORTSCASTER: I'm Vin Scully along with John Madden.

MADDEN: But I knew after I did the first couple games, that that's what I wanted to do. This is it. I embraced it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ (on camera): Beyond his 16 Emmy Awards, beyond the incredible popularity of his football video game, John Madden brought passion and humor to covering the sport he came to define.

That's it for this edition of Media Buzz. I'm Howard Kurtz. A happy and healthy New Year to our loyal viewers. I appreciate you're keeping this program number one for the eight years I've been in this chair. We are very grateful for that.

I hope you'll take a look at our Facebook page so we can continue the conversation on Twitter, and check out my podcast, Media Buzz Meter, you can subscribe at Apple iTunes, Google podcast or on your Amazon device. Looks like we're in for another packed controversial year dealing with the media. We'll be here every Sunday and we'll see you next Sunday with the latest buzz.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END

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