NBC’s Lester Holt took a moment away from reading news headlines to say that fairness in news coverage is overrated. The NBC Nightly News anchor went on to say that there are certain things that are certain, such as the sun setting in the West and that any view opposing such certain things should not be given any airtime. Holt made the leap from a provable, observable thing as the direction in which the sun sets to other things that are very popular in the news that he declined to mention. Lester Holt’s overall point was that certain narratives and viewpoints should not be given any airtime because they are baseless.
The problem with what Lester Holt said is multi-layered. To deny another “side” or “view” when it comes to news stories is to deny the public the ability to make decisions for themselves on matters of opinion. Much of the news on cable television (and also print) is based at least somewhat on the opinion of the publication and/or source.
NBC News and Fox News could report the same story with the same facts and come away with two different narratives. One station may leave certain key information out and another station may emphasize certain information while neglecting others. The viewer and/or reader at home should be encouraged to look at multiple sources to find the pure, unbiased truth. Listening to Lester Holt on NBC as one’s only source of information is tantamount to living in a cave or… in this case… an ivory tower.
Much of the mainstream media is obviously left-leaning and they do not necessarily make attempts to hide it. While Lester Holt and his colleagues on NBC and other similar networks may not say that they are leftists, their actions most certainly prove that they are. The only station on television that is not leftist is Fox News, and they are not necessarily completely right-wing. So when Lester Holt says that differing points of view aside from “facts” should not be given airtime, the obvious question here is who is the grand arbiter of these “facts”?
Mainstream media has declared that there was no election fraud in the 2020 election and if there was, it was not enough to sway the outcome of the election. This is a far cry from 2016 and even up to now where the media attacks Russia for meddling in the 2016 election and possibly costing Hillary Clinton her presidency. Hillary Clinton herself has gone on NBC sister station MSNBC to complain about the 2016 election and how future elections can be “stolen” from other Democrats. Same thing with failed 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Abrams made complaints about the integrity of the 2018 election and stated that it was stolen from her. Those comments are allowed on social media and mainstream media such as NBC, but when people on the right do the same thing then those comments are seen as “dangerous” and “insurrectionist”.
Lester Holt’s comments, and the clear hypocrisy of them, underline the reason why normal people are leaving the mainstream media. Aside from viewership dropping due to cord-cutting, there is also a general lack of trust in the mainstream media. Believing anything on television from the alphabet-letter news outlets is, at this point, a joke. And when people like Lester Holt get on television and make ridiculous, tone-deaf statements that basically say “we are the authority”, the general public’s distrust of the media is nothing but confirmed and validated.
SOURCES:
NBC’s Lester Holt Urges Journalists to Ditch Objectivity: ‘Fairness Is Overrated’ | National Review
Lester Holt’s ‘Fairness Is Overrated’ Rant Accents Journalism’s Corruption
NBC’s Lester Holt says we don’t need to hear both sides to define truth: ‘Fairness is overrated’ | Fox News
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