Journalists who are afraid to “tell it like it is” when it comes to Trump are normalizing white supremacy, according to former CNN host Soledad O’Brien. The journalist, who is now the CEO of her own company, Starfish Media Group, and will soon host a political show Hearst Television, appeared on-air at her old stomping ground in a segment about the upcoming presidential election.
“If you look at Hillary Clinton’s speech where she basically pointed out that what Donald Trump has done — actually quite well — has normalized white supremacy,” O’Brien told CNN host Brien Stelter. “I think she made a very good argument, almost like a lawyer. Here is ways in which he has actually worked to normalize conversations that many people find hateful.”
Throughout the election Trump has been called out many times for his sexist and racist statements, yet news organizations have continued to report these statements as though they’re as normal jabs taken by presidential candidates, which they are not. O’Brien detailed exactly how journalists take part in normalizing these comments.
“And then Donald Trump will say, ‘Hillary Clinton, she’s a bigot.’ And it’s covered, the journalist part comes in, They trade barbs. ‘He said she’s a bigot and she points out that he might be appealing to racists.’ It only becomes ‘he said, she said.’ When in actuality, the fact that Donald Trump said she’s a bigot without the long laundry list of evidence, which if you looked at Hillary Clinton’s speech, she actually did have a lot of really good factual evidence that we would all agree that are things that have happened and do exist. They are treated as if they are equal.”
To make matters worse, these statements are backed by interviews from supplemental “sources.”
“I’ve seen on-air, white supremacists being interviewed because they are Trump delegates,” O’Brien told Stelter. “And they do a five minute segment, the first minute or so talking about what they believe as white supremacists. So you have normalized that.”
O’Brien believes that journalists are failing by trying to make their reporting seem fair, when the facts are the facts — Trump is a known bigot. Though journalists have a duty to be objective, should they really be sweeping known truths under the rug?
Watch the full video below:
