Back in early February, the newly inaugurated President Trump alleged that America's mainstream news media does not give adequate coverage to terrorist attacks.
"It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported, and in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it," he said at MacDill Air Force Base. "They have their reasons, and you understand that."
Naturally, the media was incensed. NBC News countered by noting that it reported on 57 of the 78 terror attacks that the Trump Administration later said were under-covered (notice that it did not cover more than 20 of them at all, proving Trump's point).
CNN was even more righteously indignant, devoting a lengthy report and huge panel discussion of the accusation on Anderson Cooper 360.
The tone of the media's coverage of Trump's comments was clear: He was very obviously lying. Of course the media gives proper coverage to terror attacks and does not ignore them or minimize them or relegate them to the back pages because of its biases and/or desire to advance a narrative.
That may have been believable...until last night, when both MSNBC and CNN proved Trump right by dropping coverage of an ongoing terror attack in order to devote more time to stories attacking Trump.
A bomb exploded outside of the Manchester Arena at about 6:00 Eastern time and, according to The Daily Caller, the first reports of the extent of the damage hit FOX News by about 6:50. At that point, it was painfully, tragically clear that this was a major attack that had caused significant loss of life.
Making the story even more massive (as if that would even be possible), the incident happened outside of a concert by Ariana Grande, one of America's biggest pop stars.
In other words, this had wall-to-wall coverage written all over it.
Except CNN's Outfront with Erin Burnett didn't even lead with it when it went on the air at 7:00 Eastern. Instead, it focused on a report that President Trump asked a pair of intelligence officials to publicly say that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia ahead of the presidential election.
Wait, what?!?
That's right: CNN--which was so indignant about Trump's suggestion that it doesn't cover terror attacks adequately--essentially ignored a terror attack so that it could lead with a hit piece on Trump.
Eventually, Outfront did cover the attack, so its producers could plausibly claim that they simply didn't know how big the Manchester attack was, but MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews has no such excuse.
As the screams of concertgoers echoed in the background, Matthews abruptly cut away from images of the devastation to lead his show with...the very same Trump hit piece that CNN led with!
What possible reason could there be to cut away from what any viewer could plainly see was a significant event playing out right before their eyes? Does any objective person really think that an anonymously sourced story about Trump asking intelligence officials (who, by the way, still have not found any evidence of collusion) to publicly state that they have not yet found any evidence of collusion is more important than important breaking news?
The only explanation that makes sense is that Matthews (and, by extension, MSNBC) were punting on terrorism coverage so as to continue to advance the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
And even if one would try to argue that two of the biggest news networks in the United States somehow didn't immediately recognize the magnitude of the Manchester bombing (a near impossibility), then how would one explain CNN's programming at 11:00 Eastern, when it was confirmed that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens more injured?
As WISN listener Brock noticed, CNN Special Report with Jim Siutto and Pamela Brown stunningly devoted just 15 minutes of its hour to the bombing...and the remaining 45 minutes to Trump-Russia coverage!
The single most devastating terror attack in the world in at least a year was just hours old. Parents were frantically still looking for their children missing since the bomb exploded. The victims were as young as eight...but CNN devoted just 15 minutes of an hourlong show to it?
How else but overwhelming bias and an overpowering need to advance a narrative could one possibly explain this?
As someone said back in February, "the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report" on terrorist attack. "They have their reasons, and you understand that."