Republicans vs. The Media

For years, I have been begging Republicans to stand up to the mainstream media. The left has dominated the media for as long as I’ve been alive. Yet Republicans have consistently granted leftists in media the patina of legitimacy: they’ve appeared on their programs, answered their questions without quibble, and allowed the audience to believe that the questions themselves spring from a place of objectivity rather than a desire to harm Republicans.

The political damage has been near incalculable. In 2012, Clinton and George Stephanopoulos singlehandedly redirected the presidential election narrative by asking Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney about banning contraceptives — a policy that no Republican had advocated at any point during the campaign. A few months later, CNN’s in-house Barack Obama serviceperson Candy Crowley won the second presidential debate by wrongly telling Romney that Obama had labeled Benghazi a terrorist attack.

So why haven’t Republicans fought back? Because Republicans have had a collective action problem. For each Republican willing to label George Stephanopoulos a political hack, there’s a camera-loving John McCain willing to grant Stephanopoulos the premise of neutrality for a bit of airtime. For every Republican willing to ask CNBC moderators about their history of leftist questioning, there’s a John Kasich willing to praise the moderators as open-minded and fair.

More