By Becket Adams
Sunday, March 08, 2026
In 2017, NBC fired host Matt Lauer following multiple
allegations of sexual misconduct.
What came next was a Matryoshka doll of hokey gimmicks by
the network, including its decision a few years later to appoint an all-female
panel to moderate a Democratic presidential primary. In praising the network’s
supposedly progressive choice, then-anchor Brian Williams, himself once the
subject of a journalism scandal, marveled at the announced moderators’ elite
credentials, noting that three-quarters of them
had been educated on the East Coast.
Besides unintentionally highlighting the panel’s
near-identical experiential and regional limitations, Williams also reminded
everyone of that unfortunate truism: that journalism is a country club, where
membership is select and pedigree is everything.
Little has changed since Williams’s remarks that evening
in 2019. The industry at the mainstream level remains as insular and
self-important as ever, which is amusing considering we were handing out Pulitzers not that long ago for a story whose main subject
didn’t exist (at least Janet Cooke had the decency to return her award for
“Jimmy’s World”).
We were reminded of the country club attitude this past
week after CNN’s Brian Stelter lamented that reporters from right-leaning and
right-wing networks had been called on at a Pentagon briefing.
“Most of the questions at the Pentagon briefing came from
right-wing outlets like the Daily Wire and LindellTV that have little
experience covering the military,” he remarked. (It’s worth noting that among
those authorized to attend the briefing were “respectable” outlets like CNN,
the New York Times, and the Washington Post.)
Stelter’s myopic focus on the “who” of the questions
rather than the “what” misses the point. Had he bothered to listen, he would
have heard that the questions were thoughtful and useful insofar as they served
the public interest. And that’s what should matter to media outlets — serving
the public interest.
For instance, Mary Margaret Olohan of the Daily Wire asked about a
recently eliminated Iranian officer, whom the U.S. government claimed had
plotted an assassination attempt on President Trump. She also inquired whether
NATO’s downing of an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Turkish airspace
could “trigger NATO’s Article 5” and whether it was the United States that
downed the missile.
These are good questions! What’s the problem? That the
“right” person didn’t ask them?
Ah, but let’s not beat up on Stelter too much. After all,
he’s just a creature of the machine. He’s certainly not the chief engineer. His
reaction is typical, almost automatic by now, like a host rejecting a foreign
body.
Recall that journalists and pundits reacted similarly in
2019 after CNN announced that it would add Sarah Isgur, the former chief
spokeswoman for the Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions,
to its news division.
“Corporate chickensh**!” was the rallying cry.
“Very glad to work in a newsroom that never in 100 years
would hire a political operative of either party to help ‘guide’ or
‘coordinate’ coverage of a presidential election,” bragged New York Times reporter
Trip
Gabriel.
Never mind that Isgur is a longtime political figure
whose years of experience could benefit a newsroom that has struggled to
understand recent political shifts in the U.S.
Never mind, too, that the industry has a long record of
“political operatives” who’ve made the jump from press shop to newsroom. George
Stephanopoulos ricocheted between Democratic representatives Ed Feighan, then
Dick Gephardt, then Michael Dukakis and the Clinton White House before securing
a $15 million to $17 million anchoring position with ABC News. Tim Russert went
directly from serving as an aide to New York Governor Mario Cuomo to covering
the news at NBC. CNN’s Jake Tapper served as press secretary to former
Representative Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. CNN chief national security
correspondent Jim Sciutto was an Obama appointee to the State Department.
Journalists never squawked about Russert. Quite the
opposite, in fact.
No, the negative reactions are reserved exclusively for
people like Isgur; that is, those who are not part of the club.
Let’s also remember that ignoble moment of media
gatekeeping from 2013, when reporters recoiled at the sight of a Daily
Caller intern asking a question of then–White House Press Secretary Jay
Carney. The intern, 16-year-old Gabe Finger, asked Carney whether the Obama
administration planned to assist in the security measures for the recently
acquitted George Zimmerman.
The subtext was clear: Did President Obama, who had waded
into the matter by imagining that his nonexistent son might have looked like
the black teenager whom Zimmerman shot and killed, feel any responsibility for
the hostility directed at the man who was found not guilty? If so, did the
president plan to offer help?
Carney hated the question. So did members of the press,
but not so much because of what was said; rather, because of who said it.
“Out of the mouths of babes” apparently comes with terms
and conditions.
Lastly, let’s consider a more recent example, and recall
last year when political activist Laura Loomer asked during a Pentagon press
briefing whether the Trump administration, after designating the Muslim
Brotherhood as a foreign Islamic terrorist organization, still
planned to send F-15 fighter jets to Qatar.
That’s a good question! Many wanted to know the answer —
and that’s the purpose of journalism: asking meaningful questions that produce
meaningful answers.
A country clubber would’ve missed it, though.
My two cents: I’ll take a single decent question from an
internet weirdo over 1,000 safe and soft questions from an over-credentialed,
overeducated reporter with a bachelor’s from Harvard.
The internet weirdo might at least notice certain things
“missed” by the so-called legitimate press, such as whether the president of the United States is mentally
or physically incapable.
It’s not the who. It’s the what.
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