Politics

‘I Don’t Find It Interesting’: Journalist Coldly Dismisses Student’s Question On Hunter Biden Laptop

[Twitter Screenshot, The Chicago Thinker]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum dismissed a question about Hunter Biden’s laptop during a University of Chicago conference, video posted Wednesday to Twitter shows.

While speaking at the university’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference, freshman student Daniel Schmidt asked Applebaum about the laptop.

“So, in 2020, you wrote ‘those outside the Fox News bubble do not, of course, need to learn any of the stuff about Hunter Biden,’ referring to his laptop, of course,” Schmidt began. “A poll later found out that if voters knew about the contents of the laptop, 16% of Joe Biden voters would’ve acted differently. Of course, we know a few weeks ago The New York Times confirmed that the content is real.”

“Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russia disinformation and what can we learn from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation and not reality?” he continued.

“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop I think is totally irrelevant,” Applebaum said. “I mean it’s not whether it’s disinformation or, I mean, I didn’t think the Hunter Bidens business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States, so I don’t find it to be interesting, that would be my problem with that as a main news story.”

Applebaum wrote in a 2020 piece that a new cache of emails purportedly belonging to Hunter’s business partner Bevan Cooney was, “on the grand scale of misdeeds committed by politicians and their relatives,” the “kind of thing [that] barely registers.” (RELATED: ‘Had It Wrong’: Chris Christie Calls Out The New York Times And Washington Post Over Misreporting Hunter Biden’s Laptop)

Applebaum alleged the email story was a Republican attempt to “undermine Joe Biden’s most important electoral asset: the impression, shared by even those who don’t like the former vice president, that he is a fundamentally decent person.”

She then alleged Fox News and other “right-wing conspiracy bubble” members will “dip into the email caches to keep their followers focused on an alternate reality in which Joe Biden is a secret oligarch, his son is an important figure in the Chinese mafia, and LOL nothing matters.”

The New York Post broke the story of the laptop in October 2020 after Hunter Biden abandoned it at a Delaware repair shop a year prior. Content on the laptop revealed international business deals that mentioned Biden. In one email verified by the Daily Caller News Foundation, Burisma advisor Vadym Pozharsky thanks Hunter for “inviting” him “to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together.”

The story was suppressed on Twitter less than a month before the election, with several outlets calling it “unsubstantiated” and ignoring it.

Both The New York Times and The Washington Post admitted the authenticity of the laptop in March.