Is this the 'most trusted name in news'?
"Joe Rogan's use of the n-word is another January 6 moment," writer John Blake claimed in a CNN analysis piece about a video of Rogan that includes clips from as long as twelve years ago.
The piece likened the podcaster's use of a slur to the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill and the Rwandan genocide.
"Rogan breached a civic norm that has held America together since World War II," the article reads. "It's an unspoken agreement that we would never return to the kind of country we used to be. That agreement revolved around this simple rule: A White person would never be able to publicly use the n-word again and not pay a price. Rogan has so far paid no steep professional price for using a racial slur that's been called the 'nuclear bomb of racial epithets.'"
Blake adds: "Once we allow a White public figure to repeatedly use the foulest racial epithet in the English language without experiencing any form of punishment, we become a different country."
He suggests "allowing" Rogan to use the n-word means to "accept the mainstreaming of a form of political violence that's as dangerous as the January 6 attack."
After significant backlash, CNN rewrote the headline to read: "Why shrugging off Joe Rogan's use of the n-word is so dangerous."
Meanwhile, CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter used his perch not to inform, but to propagandize while discussing protests against Canada's Covid-19 vaccine mandates, asking an incredibly leading question during a conversation with correspondent Donie O'Sullivan.
"What you have seen in Canada is others are fearful of these protesters who are arguing for freedom. Right? Because some of the fringe rhetoric . . . ," Stelter says of the truck drivers protesting at several border crossings and in the capital city of Ottawa, before cutting to a clip from The Daily Show.
While CNN had no issues publishing a piece comparing Rogan's use of a slur with an insurrection or a genocide, Stelter and the correspondent mocked a Canadian for comparing the country's mask mandates to the situation in Nazi Germany.
The Daily Show clip featured footage of an interview O'Sullivan did with one Canadian protester.
O'Sullivan asked the man if there is "stuff" he can't do in Canada now because he is unvaccinated.
"Well basically if you want to compare Canada to anything, it's like Hitler's Germany and we're like the Jews," the Canadian man says.
The clip then cuts to Daily Show host Trevor Noah declaring, "You see, this is why we shouldn't be banning books."
Stelter says: "I can't say it better than Trevor Noah."
O'Sullivan calls it a "terrible historical, inaccurate comparison." So the talent at CNN can see the problem; they're merely farsighted.
Brittany Bernstein is a news writer for National Review Online.
Isaac Schorr is a media and enterprise reporter for National Review.
Comment: Apparently some want to skip the creeping restrictions on the unvaccinated: