On Monday, NBC News host Chuck Todd wrote an article calling on the media to “fight back.”
The “Meet the Press” host lambasted conservative icons like Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge, but repeatedly targeted Fox News.
“The American press corps finds itself on the ropes because it allowed a nearly 50-year campaign of attacks inspired by the chair of Fox News to go unanswered,” Todd wrote. He said the founder of Fox News, the late Roger Ailes’ “sustained assault on the press created the conditions that would allow a president to surround himself with aides who argue for ‘alternative facts,’ and announce that ‘truth isn’t truth.’ Without Ailes, a man of Trump’s background and character could never have won. Roger Ailes was the godfather of the Trump presidency.”
Todd also said he’s faced threats, but called for the press to “fight back.”
“For me, idle death threats are now the norm. (I don’t take them seriously, because if I did, I’d never feel at peace.) But forget the personal animus or safety issues reporters now face. American democracy requires a functioning press that informs voters and creates a shared set of facts. If journalists are going to defend the integrity of their work, and the role it plays in sustaining democracy, we’re going to need to start fighting back,” he wrote.
Fast forward two days. On Wednesday morning, a man was arrested after intentionally crashing his vehicle into the side of the Fox News building in downtown Dallas. The man, identified by police as Michael Chadwick Fry, 34, also ranted about high treason.
FOX 4 Reporter Brandon Todd said, “Originally when he was in the bed of the truck he was yelling out ‘High treason! High treason!’ “
The attack on the Fox News building came as the Senate broke down into chaos over President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the Supreme Court. In the first two days, nearly 150 protesters were arrested, most for interrupting the Senate hearing.
CNN’s Jim Acosta, who has repeatedly accosted Trump, said in July, “I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy.”
But Acosta only meant the liberal media that attacks Trump nonstop. He didn’t say a word on Twitter after the attack on the Fox News building. Neither did Todd.