On his Fox News show last night, Tucker Carlson ripped Mika Brzezinski for quoting, on yesterday’s Morning Joe, unflattering things that Kellyanne Conway allegedly said about Donald Trump in private, off-the-air conversations.
Tucker cited Mika as an example of journalists who have “degraded and humiliated themselves” out of their anti-Trump “hysteria.” Tucker: “TV anchors almost never reveal what their guests have said off-camera, and for good reason. People come to TV studios so they can speak on TV. They do not come with the expectation that their private conversations will wind up broadcast to the country.”
Tucker’s broader point was that the normal rules of journalism have been suspended: “because with Trump, all bets are off. Many journalists believe it’s literally impossible to be unfair to Donald Trump or the people who work for him. Extremism in the pursuit of Trump is no vice. That’s the view in newsrooms.”
TUCKER CARLSON: In covering Trump the way that they have, many journalists have degraded and humiliated themselves. There are countless examples of this, but watch this one, as an anchor from another network describes a conversation she had last year with Kellyanne Conway.MIKA BRZEZINSKI: This is a woman, by the way, who came on our show during the campaign, and would shill for Trump, in, um, extensive, um, fashion, and then she would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken off, and she would say, “blechh, I need to take a shower.” Because she disliked her candidate so much.TUCKER: Now, I have no idea if Kellyanne Conway actually said anything like that. I do know that TV anchors almost never reveal what their guests have said off-camera and for good reason. People come to TV studios so they can speak on TV. They do not come with the expectation that their private conversations will wind up broadcast to the country, especially when they are not present to defend themselves.In more than 20 years of working in TV, I have never seen that happen. And trust me, I’ve heard a lot of weird things on and off the air. Television networks don’t have hidden cameras in their bathrooms for the same reason. Even in media, there is a zone of privacy, those are the rules, or they were the rules. That was before NBC videotaped Donald Trump without his knowledge and then leaked that tape 11 years later to the Washington Post in an effort to destroy his presidential campaign.That was not news coverage. It was political activism committed by news outlets. But none of the usual media watchdog types said a word about it, then or now, because with Trump, all bets are off. Many journalists believe it’s literally impossible to be unfair to Donald Trump or the people who work for him. Extremism in the pursuit of Trump is no vice.. . .All the times I’ve had someone sit on the set, you’ve seen it a million times, a Democratic member of congress say something nasty about his own party or give a more nuanced view of something. I would never even consider revealing that on the air because it’s a private conversation.
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