Well, this explains a lot.
Jen Psaki, a woman who’s spent a good deal of the 21st century spinning lies to the American people on behalf of the Democratic Party, finally let slip this week with a damning truth that should wake every American up to just how cancerous the establishment media has become to the country’s political process.
And the backlash was fierce.
The moment came when Psaki was interviewed at a media summit hosted by Semafor, a news website founded last year by the same editor who decided the pack of lies known as the Steele dossier was worthy of publication before then President-elect Donald Trump was even sworn into office.
“Do you consider yourself a journalist?” former BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith asked her.
“I do!” Psaki replied with her usual perkiness.
“First of all,” she said, “journalism has changed dramatically. … To me, journalism has is providing information to the public, helping to make things clear, explaining things, having conversations with people people want to learn more about. So I think there’s a broad expansion of what that is.”
.@semaforben asks @jrpsaki if she considers herself a journalist:
“I do … To me, journalism is providing information to the public, helping make things clear, explaining things, having conversations with people that people want to learn more about.” pic.twitter.com/C8hL6666GZ
— Semafor (@semafor) April 10, 2023
For most Americans, the idea of “journalism” is probably a good deal narrower than that — a simple, more or less accurate recounting of the facts about the world, or the country, or the immediate community. If there’s explaining to be done, it’s not usually by the “journalist” but by the individuals the “journalist” interviews. It’s not simply a soapbox for anyone with an ax.
Psaki’s definition — her “broad expansion” — widens things considerably, to include “making things clearer” and “explaining things.” In other words, propaganda.
By Psaki’s definition, Joseph Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl would serve admirably as journalists. Heck, Baghdad Bob on his better days would fit the bill.
And so can Jen Psaki — portrayed in a sympathetic 2021 profile in Marie Claire magazine as a woman steeped in Democratic politics since she graduated college in 2000. She was a top official in the communications office of the Barack Obama White House and the John Kerry State Department who went on to become the public face of the Joe Biden White House during the disastrous first year of Biden’s disastrous presidency.
Now, Psaki is a mouthpiece for the Biden administration at MSNBC — and apparently thinks she’s been practicing “journalism” the whole time.
Considering the obscenely slanted “news” Americans are fed by the establishment media on a daily basis, most of the major network executives and newspaper editors in the country probably agree — though none would likely say so on the record.
Plenty of social media users understood her point though, and blasted back.
Jen Psaki is a propagandist for the Biden administration. She is not a journalist.
— meg (@jhosker01) April 10, 2023
She’s not a journalist, she’s a Democrat who identifies as journalist, which is 99% of our media today, sadly
— Eles (@douglas_sherrie) April 12, 2023
She’s a propaganda shill for the establishment narrative. She’s never met the truth.
— Sasha Valentino (@Sasha_VSV) April 12, 2023
Others, though, agreed with what Psaki was saying — and understood how damning that is for the profession of journalism.
As one user put it: “She lies with the best of them. So, I accept her characterization as a journalist.”
She lies with the best of them. So, I accept her characterization as a journalist.
— Louis Bushard (@LouisBushard) April 11, 2023
That one nailed it.
There’s nothing new about the prostitution of the journalism profession, of course. A major example — one that’s even worse than Psaki’s move to MSNBC — is George Stephanopoulos, the former spokesman in the Bill Clinton White House who masquerades as a journalist for ABC News.
(Anyone who thinks this kind of farce is so obvious that Americans are immune to its consequences might not remember how Stephanopoulos set off a bomb in the 2012 Republican primary campaign when he served as a debate moderator and posed a ludicrous question about alleged GOP plans to ban contraception.)
To the current day, Stephanopoulos remains a host on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” platforms he uses to serve Americans an unhealthy dose of Democratic talking points.
[firefly_poll]
What is new is Psaki’s openly claiming to be a journalist herself while not even bothering to drop the disguise of being a Democratic shill.
She knows her face is identified with the Biden administration. She knows her network caters to the left end of the American political spectrum. She knows her body of work is aimed exclusively at attaining and maintaining a progressive stranglehold on American politics.
And yet, in a career like that, she considers herself a “journalist”?
The sad part is this claim is being made in the United States of 2023, where anyone even casually following the establishment news media understands the chasm between the reality of the country and the vision that’s portrayed (i.e., conservative “insurrectionists” versus “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protesters).
The saddest part is, in this context, she’s probably right.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
