We Already Have a Disinformation Governance Board: Media Decides What You Can and Cannot Hear From RFK Jr.
BY ROBERT SPENCER
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Old Joe Biden’s handlers tried and failed to establish their own little Ministry of Truth, the Disinformation Governance Board, but they were likely not devastated by the ignominious failure of this initiative. That’s because they already have plenty of Disinformation Governance Boards: they’re known as “news outlets.” The mainstream media happily carries water for the establishment line, as we saw again this week with ABC’s censorship of its own interview with a Democrat presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., because his views on vaccines dissent from the establishment line.
Linsey Davis of ABC began by warning viewers not to support this man; she introduced Kennedy as “one of the biggest voices pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric, regularly distributing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, which scientific and medical experts overwhelmingly say are safe and effective based on rigorous scientific studies.” The network then proceeded to cut Kennedy’s own words about the vaccines, not allowing him to make his case.
Numerous viewers found this disturbing. The problems with it were succinctly articulated by an unlikely voice: Bruce Pearl, Auburn University’s basketball coach, who tweeted Monday, “How is this Ok? How can the media simply edit or censor what a candidate has said about a topic, in this case, COVID, because ABC says that it’s dangerous or misinformation? Isn’t it our job to hear a candidate and determine that for ourselves?”
It is, or at least it was. Davis was upfront and unapologetic about the network’s censorship of the video, explaining that “during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines.” She claimed that “data shows that the Covid-19 vaccine has prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths from the disease.” She detailed other supposedly false claims that Kennedy made and concluded, “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.”
Yet Davis’ own claims were unproven at best. Kennedy’s website, The Defender, features an April 14 article with the headline, “45 Times as Many Deaths After COVID Shots in Just 2 Years Compared With All Flu Vaccine-Related Deaths Since 1990, Data Show.” The subtitle: “The authors of a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of national and international COVID-19 vaccine adverse events during the first two years of the rollout said their findings highlight the importance of reevaluating public health policies that promote universal mass injection and multiple boosters for all demographic groups.” Did Davis offer any specific refutation of these claims? Of course not. The guardians of acceptable opinion don’t have to defend themselves.
The same imperiousness showed through in the part of the interview that did air. According to the Daily Caller on Friday, Davis challenged Kennedy “over his claims that there is a correlation between vaccinations and autism.” Davis asserted that what Kennedy was saying had been “debunked.” Kennedy asked, “Wait a minute, who debunked it?” Davis replied, “We have not seen any kind of scientific connections from the CDC, the World Health Organization…” Kennedy said, “They’re captured agencies.” Davis didn’t bother to explain why this wasn’t so.
Related: I Love This Guy: RFK Jr. Slams Dems for Rigging the System
After the interview, Kennedy charged that what ABC did was actually illegal, noting that “47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates.” He stated, “I’m happy to supply citations to support every statement I made during that exchange,” and naively added, “I’m certain that ABC’s decision to censor came as a shock to Linsey as well.” This is unlikely. Censorship is the hallmark of the contemporary Left.
In a certain sense, however, ABC’s censorship of Kennedy is encouraging. It demonstrates that Leftists are not at all confident that people will end up agreeing with them if they hear opposing viewpoints. But of course, once Leftists realize this, they turn to the forcible silencing of those opposing views. ABC demonstrated that it thinks the people who are unfortunate enough to watch the network are too stupid to think for themselves or evaluate truth claims on their own. It also showed that it thinks Leftist “news” outlets properly have the authority to determine what the American people see and hear and what they do not.
RFK Jr. is a lone voice on the Left standing against this trend. But will our moral superiors even allow Americans to hear what he says?