Great Interview, Incurious Journalism | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

CNN+ host Chris Wallace and 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones had a mutually warm and respectful discussion on the latest episode of the CNN+ series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, but it was also a conversation that Wallace himself described as “a little heated” at times.

They covered a lot of ground in the interview. At one point, the host and guest went at it over Hannah-Jones’ claim that the “Greatest Generation” was also culpable in “brutally suppressing democracy” for Black people.

Much of the interview centered around Hannah-Jones’ essay and book on the 1619 Project, including one passage that Wallace particularly objected to.

“Without the idealistic strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different. It might not be a democracy at all,” Wallace read. “We like to call those who lived during World War Two, the Greatest Generation, but that allows us to ignore the fact that many of this generation fought for democracy abroad, while brutally suppressing democracy for millions of American citizens.”

“Again, I am in no way minimizing our terrible racial legacy. But in some of these things, aren’t you overstating?” Wallace asked.

Hannah-Jones did not agree, and told Wallace “if you have half of the country, where it’s in some states majorities, in many other states pluralities, 25% of the population, 40% of the population cannot vote, have their vote violently suppressed, where they’re a single one-party, one-race rule in a region where about 30% of the population is Black. Would you consider that democracy?”

Wallace cited the period during which women were not allowed to vote, and Hannah-Jones said “We weren’t a democracy, then either — half of the population can’t vote. I don’t know how you define democracy. But I don’t define that as democracy.”

“I agree with that. I’m just not sure that I would say that if it weren’t for Blacks, that wouldn’t be a democracy at all,” Wallace said.

The entire interview was a veritable clinic on what a political interview should be. Both participants were warm and respectful, but firm and engaged.

Wallace held nothing back in pressing Hannah-Jones about controversies surrounding her Pulitzer Prize-winning project, and the author was emphatic and expansive in her responses. Both professed to having enjoyed the interview repeatedly, and Wallace summed it up best when he said “this is exactly what we want to do.”

“We’re here to have a conversation that shed light, not heat, although it got a little heated at points,” he said.

“It should,” Hannah-Jones agreed.

Yes, it should.

Journalist and author Anne Applebaum dismissed a question Wednesday about the influence Hunter Biden’s laptop may have had on the 2020 election, saying it is  “totally irrelevant” and she’s not interested.

At the University of Chicago’s Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference on Wednesday, Applebaum was asked about suppression of the story by most of the media prior to the 2020 election.

David Axelrod sat across from Applebaum, and he called on University of Chicago Student Daniel Schmidt during a Q&A. Schmidt is also the editor of the school’s student newspaper.

The student reminded Applebaum that in 2020 piece for the Atlantic, she wrote off the potentially damning scandal, writing 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 recited her quote and asked if she and others had acted prematurely in dismissing the laptop scandal. “Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation?” he asked.

Applebaum replied that does not find it “interesting” that a laptop containing alleged illegal activities by the president’s son’s was abandoned.

“I think it’s totally irrelevant,” she said. “I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation… I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be President of the United States.”

“I don’t find it to be interesting, I mean, that would be my problem with that as a major news story,” she said.

It would be easy to play the “other guy” game and hypothesize how the media would react to such a story about a Donald Trump family member or associate – or to cite how they did react to stories exactly like that for four years – but it’s not some notion of parity or tit-for-tat that makes the loser column here.

It’s a question of the motivation Applebaum admits in dismissing the story for herself and the media at large. She literally claimed a lack of curiosity over even the potential news that the son of a major party candidate could be involved in shady overseas dealings or attempted to peddle influence.

What’s more, when she stated it shouldn’t have “anything to do” with who might be elected it was tantamount to a confession of dodging the story because people might care about it.

Is it the job of the press to withhold reporting or even attempt to discredit it with wild disinformation theories simply to prevent it having a deleterious affect on one party’s electoral prospects?

Hopefully, that is a rhetorical question.