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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe politicians who tried to overturn an election -- local news team that won't let anyone forget it
The politicians who tried to overturn an election and the local news team that wont let anyone forget it
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/the-politicians-who-tried-to-overturn-an-election--and-the-local-news-team-that-wont-let-anyone-forget-it/2021/05/01/cc8764f6-a91e-11eb-8d25-7b30e74923ea_story.html
The journalists at WITF, an all-news public radio station in Harrisburg, Pa., made a perfectly reasonable decision a few months ago.
They decided they wouldnt shrug off the damaging lies of election denialism.
They wouldnt do what too many in Big Journalism have done in recent months: shove into the memory hole the undemocratic efforts by some Republican elected officials to delegitimize or overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Too many Sunday news shows repeatedly book the likes of Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson without reminding viewers how these members of Congress tried to undo the results of the election and encouraged the Trumpian lies about election fraud that led to the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol less than four months ago. A rare exception is CNNs State of the Union, which hasnt booked a single member of the so-called Sedition Caucus since January.
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Months before the election, the stations reporters and editors were already deeply alarmed by what they saw unfolding. We could see the disinformation really taking hold, this idea that the only way President Trump could lose is if the election were rigged, Tim Lambert, the stations news director, told me last week.
The pro-Trump media world peddled the lies that fueled the Capitol mob. Fox News led the way.
The deadly culmination of that anti-democratic lie, the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, solidified their thinking. In late January, the station whose newsroom includes six reporters and two editors posted an explanatory story stating that they would be regularly reminding their audience that some state legislators signed a letter urging Congress to vote against certifying the Pennsylvania election results, and that some members of Congress had voted against certifying the states election results for President Biden, despite no evidence to support their election-fraud claims.
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Midnight Writer
(21,795 posts)The mob came very close to trapping Congress in their Chambers. If that had happened, I have no doubt a massacre would have ensued.
MyOwnPeace
(16,937 posts)many of those facing entrapment and possible bodily harm are now opposing and fighting against a true, thorough investigation of the insurrection!
usaf-vet
(6,207 posts)peggysue2
(10,839 posts)Republicans want the electorate diving into an amnesia pool or buy into the fabulist's version of things: January 6th was a 'festive, family affair' (RonJon) or 'let it go' as one Republican legislator said the other day.
No! On all counts.
The Republicans must be held accountable for what they provoked, supported and cheered. This was a violent insurrection. Republican members have extended the Big Lie and thoroughly brainwashed their own supporters.
The pathology is infectious, Arundhati Roy said recently. She was talking about Modi's disastrous reign in India. But the same applies to Trump and Trumpism, a political virus that has infected a swath of the American electorate. Trump supporters will deny it in the same way they've denied the dangers of Covid-19.
If repetition is the key to the Big Lie, then truth and facts would be the antidote, told repeatedly from every venue and rooftop:
January 6th was a violent act of sedition.
January 6th was encouraged by Donald Trump, a pathological liar.
Donald Trump lost the 2020 election; Joe Biden legitimately beat Trump like a drum.
Repeat endlessly, fearlessly, with gusto.
Because these endless lies cannot stand!