A few days ago, The Atlantic magazine organized their "Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy" conference at the University of Chicago.  The stated purpose of the conference was to talk about countering disinformation and preventing the erosion of democracy.

The speakers and panelists were mostly Democrats, such as Barack Obama, Amy Klobuchar, and David Axelrod.  The forum also featured Democrat cheerleaders in the media such as Brian Stelter and Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic.  Anti-Trump putative Republicans Jonah Goldberg and Adam Kinzinger were present, but no one from the 90% of the GOP supporting Trump was present.  

It is important to understand that when liberals use words such as bias, partisanship, disinformation, distortions, and spin, they are exclusively directed at right-leaning media.

Prominent members of conservative media such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and the late Rush Limbaugh have adjectives such as "right-wing" or "far-right" or "Alt-Right" or "Putin apologist" prefixed to their names.  They are even called propagandists.  However, the likes of Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper are called journalists; no adjectives are applied.

Fox News will be called a right-wing news network, whereas MSNBC or CNN is merely called a news outlet.

For anybody who wishes to study liberal echo chambers, the Disinformation Conference is the ideal forum.  There was not even a pretense to conceal biases.  The diversity is restricted to skin color, sexual orientation, nationality, and religion.  The most important principle of diversity — i.e., diversity of ideas, is not welcomed.  The views expressed are not similar, but identical.

Their sanctimony has caused such levels of delusions that they think of themselves as the sole custodians of facts, truths, and taste.

Inevitably, a few contrarians manage to infiltrate the echo chambers and challenge the groupthink.  There were two such instances at the Disinformation Conference.

The first:

This occurred during the Q&A segment of a session with Anne Applebaum and David Axelrod.

WATCH The Atlantic’s @anneapplebaum refuse to answer @RealDSchmidt's🔥🔥 question about Hunter Biden’s laptop during @UChicago’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference! pic.twitter.com/1OgXBBiiI0

— The Chicago Thinker (@ThinkerChicago) April 6, 2022

A student Daniel Schmidt, who is also an editor of the school's conservative student newspaper, The Chicago Thinker, reminded Applebaum that she dismissed the scandal related to Hunter Biden's laptop in her October 2020 piece for The Atlantic, claiming that "those who live outside the Fox News bubble and intend to remain there do not, of course, need to learn any of this stuff." 

Schmidt asked Applebaum if she and the media had erred in dismissing the scandal as Russian disinformation, considering that the New York Times verified its existence.  Schmidt also cited a poll that 16% of Biden voters would vote differently had they known of Hunter's laptop.

Applebaum was unremorseful and dismissive, claiming that the story about the laptop containing proof of illegal activities by the president's son wasn't "interesting" to her.  She also rejected the premise that Hunter's laptop influenced the outcome of the 2020 election, stating that it was "totally irrelevant."

This was a shocking admission by Applebaum, merely dismissing inconvenient facts as irrelevant or claiming not to be interested.  

Applebaum should stop calling herself a journalist because a journalist has a function to follow the facts irrespective of biases or interests.

Now for the second instance of discord.

This occurred during the Q&A segment of the session where CNN's Brian Stelter was a panelist.  It was first-year college student Christopher Phillips's turn to challenge mainstream media bias.

Philips listed various instances where CNN had carried fake news, such as the Russia-Collusion hoax, the Jussie Smollett hoax, the smearing of Nick Sandmann as a white supremacist, the smearing of Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and the dismissal of Hunter's laptop story as Russian disinformation.

Philips also called out mainstream corporate journalists for being apologists for the (Biden) regime.  He wondered why all errors committed by CNN swung only in one direction: benefiting  Democrats.  He wondered if this was merely a coincidence, or was there something more?

At @TheAtlantic’s #Disinfo2022 student Christopher Phillips confronted @BrianStelter about how CNN is a “purveyor of disinformation” and “all the mistakes of the mainstream media, and CNN in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction.” Stelter quipped: “Time for lunch” pic.twitter.com/jnJsFWMOLG

— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 (@BrentHBaker) April 7, 2022

Stelter began his response by rejecting the premise of the questions:

There's a clock that says 30 seconds, but I think my honest answer to you, and I will come over and talk in more detail after this. I think you describing a different channel than the one that I watch.

Next, he discredited the questioner:

I understand that that is a popular right-wing narrative about CNN.

Then he resorted to generalities:

I think it's important when talking about shared reality and democracy, all these networks all these news outlets have to defend democracy. And when they screw up, admit it.

Finally, Stelter pivoted to CNN assisting Fox News in Ukraine following the deadly attack on the Fox News team last month to claim that news outlets "work together."

Stelter went back to fabricating, attempting to suggest that CNN is an equal opportunity offender:

And with regards to the regime, I think you mean President Biden? The last time I spoke with a Biden aide, we yelled at each other. So that's the reality of the news business, that people don't see, that people don't hear.

Stelter did accept some blame, not for his lies, smears, and propaganda, but for not adequately being able to show their war and educate the people about their profession.  The blame implicitly once again was placed on the audience.

Hence, both Applebaum and Stelter dodged the core of their respective questions by just dismissing the premise.

Now imagine that instead of students who usually aren't allowed to cross-question panelists, someone such as Bill O'Reilly or Hannity or Tucker Carlson were asking the questions.  They wouldn't have allowed Applebaum and Stelter to dodge and fabricate.

But the goal of this forum was never to learn any lessons or initiate remedial measures.  The goal is to merely have their biases confirmed by attacking or blaming conservatives.

Both student questioners will most probably face backlash for their remarks.  They may be branded as right-wingers (as Stelter did) and white supremacists.

The forum and the utterances from Stelter and Applebaum prove what conservatives have known for a long: the mainstream media are the propaganda wing of the Democrat party.

There are adept wordsmiths and disinformation strategists within the Democrat leadership who provides the media with buzzwords and talking points for the day which they meticulously follow.  This explains why they have identical views and use identical words such as "insurrection" and "collusion" for any given occurrence.

The Disinformation Conference demonstrates that there never will be any course correction simply because the propagandists do not think they have erred in any way. 

This truly is an erosion of democracy.

Photo credit: Twitter video screen grab.