Longtime Congressional reporter Susan Ferrechio challenged CNN’s Brian Stelter during a testy exchange over the veracity of Hunter Biden’s emails.
During a joint appearance on the BBC’s “The Media Show,” Ferrechio argued the media was approaching the Hunter Biden story with a level of skepticism that had not been present when the stories were unflattering to President Donald Trump. Stelter pushed back, saying that ethics in newsrooms have not changed. (RELATED: Meghan McCain Challenges Brian Stelter On Cuomo Brothers’ ‘Comedy Routine’ — He Ignores It)
.@susanferrechio discusses the media’s treatment of the Steele dossier versus Hunter Biden’s emails
SF: “Now we have ethics? Ohh ok.”@BrianStelter: “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare act like newsrooms didn’t have ethics in 2017 & 2018.” pic.twitter.com/UNyqHfXRpd
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 21, 2020
Ferrechio began by saying that she had taken a number of the stories about alleged Russian collusion with a grain of salt because she knew the sourcing.
Ferrechio: “No one looked at the forest through the trees with the president… It’s always one sided… I didn’t discard the Mueller stuff. I was much more skeptical because I knew the sourcing…”
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) October 21, 2020
Ferrechio: “I knew where it came from on Capitol Hill, where I’ve stood in the building for the last few decades. I have real reason to doubt that stuff and I constantly did & it turned out a lot of it was a bunch of bunk.”
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) October 21, 2020
She then argued that if the emails implicated Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, they should certainly be taken seriously.
“This is serious, this is not last year’s news,” she said. “It’s whether or not his son was coordinating to get him to talk to these Ukraine oligarchs, and he was benefitting from it. This is — it’s really dirty.”
“I said it was last season, you’re saying it’s new,” the “Reliable Sources” host replied, adding, “I think the bottom line is we don’t know what is real and what is fake in these emails, if there is anything real in them—”
Ferrechio pushed back, saying that not knowing what was real or fake hadn’t stopped anyone who had run with reporting based on the Steele dossier and the Russia investigation led by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“I understand that you have a lot of resentment about that,” Stelter said.
“Now we have ethics,” Ferrechio said, “Oh, okay, now we have ethics, now that it’s a different —”
“How dare you — don’t you dare, don’t you dare act like newsrooms didn’t have ethics in 2017 and 2018,” Stelter interrupted.
“You can ‘don’t dare’ me all you want, Brian, I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Ferrechio shot back. “So say whatever you want, it’s my view and I have a right to say it.”
Donald Trump Jr. echoed Ferrechio’s point in a tweet aimed at CNN specifically. “CNN was peddling the Russia collusion hoax for months after it was disproven and won’t even touch Biden’s corruption & being compromised… they can’t lecture anyone on ethics as they have none. They’re nothing more than activists desperately pretending to be journalists,” he said.
CNN was peddling the Russia collusion hoax for months after it was disproven and won’t even touch Biden’s corruption & being compromised… they can’t lecture anyone on ethics as they have none. They’re nothing more than activists desperately pretending to be journalists. https://t.co/nARvIMX0km
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 21, 2020