Bernie’s Weekly Q&A (1/5)

Fox News caving to Trump's town hall demand, Dan Rather vs. Jesse Helms, and the real Javier Milei.

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

Let’s get started:

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When can we start a petition to end public funding for NPR as they make it a point to trash half the country on a daily basis. If you hate us so much why take our tax dollars or use us to send your privileged children to college? —Ejg315

Good question. But don’t hold your breath when it comes to ending NPR funding. Probably shouldn’t have funded them in the first place.

If the race were down to two candidates, say Trump and Haley, I do not believe Trump’s current percentage would grow a lot. I believe a huge percentage of DeSantis and Christie supporters are anti-Trump. If I am right, the race would tighten up considerably. What say you, Bernie? — lensattic

Yes, if it were Trump and Haley with everyone else out of the race, it would certainly tighten up. Whether Haley could overturn Trump’s massive lead is the question. We won’t know unless DeSantis and the others drop out, leaving Nikki alone to take on Donald.

I remember in the 80s Jesse Helms took issue with CBS and particularly Dan Rather.... who just took over for Cronkite. "CBS IS RATHER BIAS" bumper stickers were all over NC. I believe some of his beef was also with local CBS affiliate WRAL (I believe at that time). This was during your tenure with the network and before the term "woke" was even thought of. Was the Dixiecrat just playing to his base then and CBS actually "fair and balanced" then.... or was it slowly changing as later described in your book? I believe the vast majority of citizens still long for trusted media.... without an agenda. You are our only hope Obi-Wan Goldberg. — Chris J.

Actually, Chris, one of the many reasons Rather was angry at me for writing about liberal bias, first in the Wall Street Journal, then in my book “Bias”, was because he was somehow thinking I was the latest incarnation of the right-wing Dixiecrat Jesse Helms. If it even needs to be said, I had nothing to do with Helms, nor did I want to be in the same zip code as him. But Helms sure got under Dan’s skin. To your question: CBS News had a liberal bias but it was nothing like the liberal bias on cable news — or the conservative bias on Fox. Network bias existed but it was subtle compared to the kind of transparent bias we witness all day long on cable news.

Bernie: At Donald Trump’s insistence, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum agreed to host a Fox News town hall event for Trump airing at the exact same time as CNN’s GOP primary debate in Iowa (featuring Trump’s opponents who he has refused to debate). Another word for this is counter-programming. I’d expect this type of thing from Sean Hannity, but Baier and MacCullum are journalists. Aren’t they caving to a politician’s demand, as part of that politician’s calculated political strategy, by agreeing to do this event at the exact time it’s going to help that politician (and hurt his opponents) the most? This doesn’t feel like the proper role of journalists. What do you think? — Ben G.