Conservatives zero in on Chuck Todd, BuzzFeed, Politico and Nate Silver as drivers of liberal media bias

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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The popular conservative blogger and CNN commentator Erick Erickson is out with a post today, attacking “conspiratorial media” elites.

“The BuzzFeed crew are mostly left of center, hang out with left of center reporters and pundits, and the media considers them and their cat GIFs the second coming of a supposedly objective Huffington Post,” writes Erickson at RedState.com.

He also takes on NBC News’ Chuck Todd, noting his connection to Democratic lawmakers, and Politico, noting that their “Chief Washington Correspondent, Jonathan Allen, left the Politico to work for Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then returned to the Politico.”

Erickson’s isn’t alone. In fact, there is an emerging sense among conservatives that — in the Twitter era — a new breed of youngish, establishment media elites have emerged and are now responsible for driving most of today’s liberal media narratives.

The list includes BuzzFeed Politics’ Ben Smith, NBC News’ Chuck Todd, New York Times’ blogger Nate Silver, and Politico.

I recently spoke to John Nolte, the Editor-at-Large of Breitbart News about this phenomenon. (Listen to our full conversation here.)

After a stint as a Hollywood screenwriter, Nolte has been at the forefront of attempting to debunk the bipartisan facade of the aforementioned media elites. Some might call what he does “Twitter trolling,” but Nolte believes he is simply pushing back against bogus media narratives — in the very online space where today’s narratives are formed.

“What I’m looking for are the narrative creators — are the people that help to set the narrative — and that the rest of the media use as a way to set the narrative,” Nolte tells me.

“[I]t used to be the New York Times — and it used to be the Washington Post — and they can still do that if they come out with a big enough story … But, for the most part, if you look at who’s creating the narratives … it’s really those four guys (Todd, Silver, Smith and Politico).

“The biggest lie they tell is that they’re not at war with conservatives,” Nolte says.

But Nolte insists that though he is at war with these media elites, he also respects them as worthy adversaries: “I have nothing but admiration for these guys. I’ve always called Ben Smith the Lex Luthor of narratives — he’s the evil genius behind all of this,” he says.

Matt K. Lewis