As part of its undeclared role as a mouthpiece for President Biden and his administration, NBC News is trying to whitewash the FBI’s arrest of a Blaze Media reporter for covering the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol.
After the FBI informed him early last week of its warrant for his arrest, Blaze investigative reporter Steve Baker surrendered himself to federal authorities in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, and was charged on four counts related to his coverage of the Jan. 6 riot. As The Federalist previously reported, Baker has been at the forefront of counter-narrative reporting on the events that day.
Rather than highlight the Vladimir Putin-like behavior of the Biden administration arresting a journalist for exercising his First Amendment rights, NBC’s “news” division attempted to delegitimize Baker by referring to him as a “libertarian writer” and “musician,” who “led a David Bowie tribute band” and just so happens to write for The Blaze.
“Musician and libertarian writer who works for ‘The Blaze’ arrested on Jan. 6 charges,” the NBC News headline blared. The article’s author, NBC News justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly, waited until the 22nd paragraph to inform readers that Baker is the first Jan.6 defendant “who was working for an established media company at the time of his arrest.”
Before disclosing facts showing the Biden administration arresting journalists who report facts the government dislikes, Reilly undercut Baker’s role as a journalist during the Jan. 6 demonstrations by claiming “[o]ther Jan. 6 defendants have tried to avoid convictions by pointing to their media ties.”
Regime-Approved Media Doing Its Job
For Reilly and NBC News, Baker’s arrest is nothing to get upset about because no reporter who works for an outlet that questions the government party counts as a journalist.
According to corporate media outlets like NBC News, you’re only a real journalist if you push debunked hoaxes like those claiming Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election; or characterizing Brett Kavanaugh as a serial gang rapist, who was able to get away with his horrific crimes for years without anyone knowing about it. The objective isn’t to report the news but to manipulate it in a way that advances the Democrat Party narrative.
NBC News’ whitewashing of Baker’s arrest and obvious disdain for news organizations and reporters who hold government agencies accountable for their barbaric behavior isn’t all that surprising, either. As Tristan Justice previously wrote in these pages, the outlet admitted in 2020 to colluding with a foreign leftist disinformation group to pressure Google into preventing The Federalist “from profiting off ads generated by the company’s search engine.”
The U.K.-based, Center for Countering Digital Hate, was sued by X owner Elon Musk in July for “scaring off advertisers with allegedly baseless claims of rampant ‘hate’ speech on the platform, otherwise known as content with which left-wing censors disagree,” Justice reported.
For all their pearl-clutching over Republicans’ criticisms of the media’s propaganda for Democrats and hyperbolic rhetoric about how “democracy dies in darkness,” corporate “journalists” don’t care about ensuring freedom of the press. They only care about carrying water for Democrats, even as Democrats mimic authoritarian countries in abusing government power to squash free speech and dissent across the globe.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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