David Wright’s suspension and the failure of media ‘democracy’
Written by: Daniel Xie
On Feb. 26, 2020, ABC News suspended Emmy award winning Journalist David Wright after he was covertly videoed by the right wing group Project Veritas; said video being shown on twitter. In that video, Wright identified as a socialist and decried ABC news. He talked about many topics including:
● Not holding Trump’s feet to the fire by directly attacking his policies, as well as failing to give him credit for policies that may make some sense. This may indicate that Wright, while believing that the media should be more critical of Trump’s policies and the impact of said policies, feel that the media has focused on fully condemning him for superficial reasons, or attacking him from a nationalistic lens (ie: focusing on attacking him as a “Russian puppet” for being too diplomatic or supposedly wanting better ties with Russia, even when diplomacy would more sense).
● Being a self-promotion vehicle for it’s parent company, Disney, which has been using ABC news to promote the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie or having Disney princesses appear in Good Morning America
● Not focusing on practical issues that people should know of, such as a weak social safety net along with economic inequality, as well as policies that could effectively tackle these issues
● Believing that corporations should be reigned in and there should be universal healthcare for all
Project Veritas, the organization behind the expose, has previously conducted undercover “stings” of journalists it considers aligned with “liberal” or “left wing” causes. Their operatives lull potential targets into talking with them and then record videos which they use to prove the supposed “liberal bias” in journalism.
In response to Project Veritas’ video, ABC News suspended Wright and added that they will re-assign Wright away from any political coverage so his supposed “bias”, hinting that they will marginalize him before his democratic socialist perspective and critique of ABC’s news coverage could affect how he covers things. This move has been condemned by many progressives and leftists, with many condemning ABC news’ shameful behavior in capitulating the right wing pressure or making the jab that “had Wright expressed support for capitalism”, he would not have been fired.
Significance and Context
ABC’s response to David Wright’s condemnation of pro-corporate or superficial media coverage shows the shortcomings of liberal democracy. In a liberal democracy, we are taught, we have the freedom to express ourselves and the press serves the populace, not an untouchable elite. In reality however, most of the press in American “democracy” is controlled by a handful of companies--including the aforementioned Disney.
In turn, these companies can decide what sort of information media can deliver to us and how media such as news media can be used to promote their brands. This means that something like ABC promoting the next Marvel movie or hypothetically having Star Wars characters appear on air lines, works perfectly with any plans Disney may have to promote the brands they own.
Journalists such as David Wright, who may go against this corporate agenda, are sidelined as soon as anything comes out that indicates that they could compromise corporate interests, an example of this being support for socialism, or an opposition to war. We have seen the sidelining of “opposition” voices before with the Donahue show on MSNBC, which was owned by General Electric.
On Feb. 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled the show, and a leaked memo reveals that it had everything to do with his opposition to the Iraq War and that he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war". Donahue himself would express the fact that they had one liberal guest for every two conservative guests and he was counted ultimately as an “extra” liberal to be discarded.
The far-right, whom claim to “defend” freedom of speech against “leftist intolerance”, hypocritically remain silent, and are even defending this move as a triumph for democracy. Project Veritas itself after all, has the goal of “calling out” supposed “leftist” biases in media. This is done through tactics such as manipulating supposed left leaning reporters to express their political views, to then post videos of these views as a means to discredit and marginalize said reporters.
Of course, this hypocrisy is not new for the far right, whom have made efforts to silence any freedom of speech or freedom of association by leftists while hypocritically defending “freedom of speech” whenever someone calls out their actions(or even using the boogieman of “free speech suppression” to suppress the left’s freedom of expression).
Ultimately this incident demonstrates the pitfalls of discourse in liberal societies. While media in democracy has been highlighted as serving the people rather than an untouchable elite, the monopolization of media by corporations has converted media outlets into little more than mouthpieces defending capitalism while promoting right wing viewpoints and corporate brands. Those who challenge this orthodoxy are either dealt with using the most bad faith arguments possible or in the case of David Wright, silenced completely and pushed out of any sociopolitical discourse.
The “free” media that is held up as a staple of “democracy” is a sham media ultimately subservient to corporate interests, and promotes their agenda while suppressing anyone that goes against the views that corporate interests expect the media to have, and only by undermining that corporate authority can we actually push for a genuinely “free” media.
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