I don't know the percentage of American citizens who are politically and socially conscious. That is, I'm not sure the number of those who know and care about what is happening in the larger culture and world around their busy bubbles of work deadlines, family obligations, and their favorite TV streaming series. My guess is it is vanishingly small. But for those of us inhabiting that fairly small portion of our population, I don't think any of us are confused by who and what CNN has become.
Examples abound, but for those capable of stomaching galling double standards, the most recent was pretty funny. When the current president strains the limits of his constitutional authority, here's CNN:
When the previous president strained the limit of his constitutional authority, here was CNN:
It's too funny not to laugh, particularly when it's all accompanied by the haughty pride of the network's goofy news staff who strut and crow about the "serious journalistic work" they do on behalf of the American people.
But with as funny as their self-evident activism-wrapped-in-self-congratulatory-puffery is, this kind of exploitation is anything but:
To be clear about what I mean regarding exploitation, I'm not suggesting that CNN coordinated the whole thing as a stunt. I mean that as a for-profit news corporation, CNN has a vested interest in scaring people, in keeping panic and fear alive, in fanning flames of division, because all of that generates attention, viewers, and online clicks.
That's bad enough when they're sensationalizing missing Malaysian airplanes or documenting the summer of shark attacks. It's simply unacceptable when they actively participate in scaring young children like this rather than counter the girl's needless concerns with reality.
The last numbers to be reported show that 7 kids under the age of 16 have died "from COVID" in the last two years, and those may well have had co-morbidities. Not a single child was reported to have died due to pediatric transmission of COVID in an un-masked classroom last year, not just across the state of Florida, but across the entire nation.
The risk of this young girl or her young brother contracting COVID at school and becoming seriously ill from it is infinitesimally small. It's been overstated and overplayed, but it is still true that the girl and her brother are hundreds of times more likely to die in a car accident on the way to or from school than they are to die of COVID. The only way to prevent either of those things would be to lock them in their home permanently. If CNN would not recommend that as a prudent course of action in order to save them from a potential automobile death, why is the network suffering this kind of anti-mathematical, anti-statistical, anti-scientific fear-mongering related to COVID?
Let's not pretend that we don't grasp CNN's ulterior motive. Besides just keeping the COVID panic alive and profitable, they also ran this story to be a hit piece against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a man who represents a clear and credible threat to the failed leadership of President Biden.
CNN is first and foremost, as documented above, a propaganda arm of the modern Democrat party. DeSantis is a threat to that party's continued grip on power, so pitting him against "the children" is a political strategy.
And that's what I meant when accusing CNN of exploiting children. It's craven, it's crass, it's gross, and civilized people should collectively – regardless of politics – renounce it.
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P.S. Now treat yourself a quality brain break with our latest video about a psychotic deer rescuing a rabbit by stomping the life out of a dang hawk:
