How Legacy Media Got Played by Republicans in Congress & Steve Bannon

It started more than a decade ago...

Let’s start at the beginning.

In 2010-11, then House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) founded “The Media Fairness Caucus” because he believed that “the greatest threat to democracy today is the [left-wing] media bias we are seeing right now because if the media refuses to give the American people the facts, the American people can’t make good decisions. And when the American people can’t make good decisions, that’s when we lose our democracy.”

For years, I have watched the so-called establishment media twist itself in knots, trying to shake off the yolk of perceived liberal bias.

When I was working as the spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), this sensitivity made it all the easier for our press operation to, quite frankly, use the credibility of the mainstream media to legitimize and broadcast our partisan investigations targeting the Obama Administration (just google Fast & Furious, Louis Lerner, Benghazi, etc.).

Why leak a document or email to Fox News (who will cover our work anyway) when you could give it to the New York Times?  Because if they run with it, everyone in the mainstream media will follow. On the off chance the Times passes on the pitch, well, it becomes Exhibit A of how they’re protecting the Obama White House.

And if any reporter dares to question the motives of our investigation, we’ll just accuse them of doing the White House’s bidding, leading them back down, or at the very least, temper their instincts and produce a more sanitized piece that doesn’t put the thumb on the scale too heavily one way or the other. That effort to maintain what some may call balance or objectivity was the mechanism that allowed us to present our purely partisan investigations as substantive, nonpartisan, good-government efforts on behalf of the American taxpayers. This became the playbook we used to build Chairman Issa into the political powerhouse he became during that time.

A few years later, I left Capitol Hill and began consulting for a conservative outlet called Breitbart News (this was in the wake of the unexpected death of the platform’s namesake). The person at the helm was a man I had never heard of…Steve Bannon. His vision, as stated to me at the time, was to create a news platform that harnessed the energy of the Republican Party grassroots that had become The Tea Party movement. Bannon believed, as did I, that the mainstream media had no clue how to chronicle what was actually happening within the GOP. That it was much more reflective of the Jeff Sessions (Senator from Alabama at the time) and Sarah Palins of the world than it was the John Boehner or Eric Cantors.

But despite all his bluster about the mainstream media, what Bannon wanted most of all was legitimacy and credibility.  A “win” was when a piece of Breitbart content was cited or highlighted by the mainstream/political media. Case in point: using the New York Times to roll out the Bannon-produced book/documentary (and error-filled) “Clinton Cash.” The Times piece immediately legitimized the book, never mind that the publisher, Harper-Collins, would go on to issue a number of corrections.  The damage was already done.

I remember sitting on conference calls with Bannon as the media rush on “Clinton Cash” took shape, and he absolutely relished how they had fallen for it. He was almost in disbelief at how easy it was to get them to do his bidding. He wasn’t wrong. It was a playbook I had seen (and used). Bannon believed that journalists have this thing that makes them feel like their profession is a true calling, that it is virtuous and noble, and because of that, any potential smear or stain on that virtue is terrifying to them. It is their Achilles heel, their pressure point. And so you apply pressure and watch them squirm. Before you know it, the words being written on their stories or coming out of their mouths are actually your words, not theirs, and you’ve won.

And that’s how easy it has been for Republicans to successfully work the refs and turn the mainstream media that they shit on every single day into their own personal news launderers.

And that was BEFORE Donald Trump ever came down that escalator. It only got worse after that.

In early 2016, I quit working for Bannon/Breitbart. I left the Republican Party. I became a Democrat. Started appearing on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. I began writing for the HuffPost, USA Today, NBC News THINK, and the LA Times. I consulted for the DNC and the DCCC and began advising Democratic members of Congress. I got to see the vantage point from the other side. I got a better understanding of how they work, how they see the world. And much to my dismay, it became crystal clear how and why it was so easy to beat them when I was a Republican.

From what I’ve seen, it’s no surprise that the right-wing extremists have successfully hijacked the conversation about fact and truth. That the legacy media was ill-equipped for this strategic and well-executed assault. That rather than maintain a bias towards fact and truth, the legacy media surrendered, withdrew, and leaned into the safe harbors of “both sides.” Don’t believe me?  This wholesale surrender was on full display this week during a Vice Presidential debate that the national media moderators agreed not to fact check.  If that’s not waiving the white flag, I don’t know what is. We might as well dispense with debates altogether and just run campaign ads.

My Substack is a conversation about this dynamic – how we got here, where we are going, and what we can do to stem the tide before it’s too late. What I write here is informed by my years working for both Republicans and Democrats, of being in close proximity to the right and the left, to the Breitbart’s and the MSNBC’s. But also, what I write/post in this space will hopefully become a place where those of us who are still committed to this fight for fact and truth can congregate and discuss how to win this fight. How to turn the tables on the bad-faith actors and beat them at their own game. I hope you’ll join me in this conversation.