BROADCAST BIAS: Networks go from hiding Fauci diaries to defending him from Republicans

Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos weren't just interviewing Anthony Fauci during the pandemic. They were having dinner with him and texting him, according to his own diary. And now that this is public, the same networks that employ Tapper and Stephanopoulos have decided the real scandal is Republicans asking about it. That's not journalism. That's a union.

Think about what actually happened here. The country's most powerful health bureaucrat, a man whose guidance shaped lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates for millions of people, had personal relationships with the reporters covering him. That's the kind of thing that would lead every newscast if it involved a Trump official and a Fox host. Instead it sat buried until the diary surfaced, and now the coverage has pivoted straight to "why are Republicans still attacking Fauci," as if the diary itself never happened.

This is the pattern people have been pointing at for years and getting called paranoid for noticing. It's not that networks have opinions. Everyone does. It's that they cover for their own sources when the source is someone they like, and treat the same conduct as a five-alarm ethics violation when it's the other team. Fauci deserved scrutiny in real time, not retroactive protection from the people who were supposed to be scrutinizing him.

None of this requires believing Fauci was uniquely evil or that every scientist is corrupt. It just requires admitting that reporters getting cozy with the officials they cover, then running interference for them once it's exposed, is a conflict of interest. Trust doesn't come back by pretending the dinners never happened. It comes back by admitting they were a problem in the first place.