MSNBC's Joy Reid says media 'doesn't want to be at war' with GOP, 'wants to treat both sides the same' but shouldn't
MSNBC host Joy Reid and political analyst Matthew Dowd pleaded with the media to not treat Republicans and Democrats equally but instead warn viewers that Republicans are a "threat" to the country.
On MSNBC's "The ReidOut" Monday night, liberal host Joy Reid and her guest suggested the media were too neutral in their reporting on the Republican Party, and needed to amp up the hostility because both sides were "not the same." They urged reporters to "tell voters" that the GOP was a "threat" to democracy and freedom.
"[The media] doesn't want to be in a war with the Republican Party. Let's just be clear. In general, the media does not want to be at war with the Republicans. They want to treat both sides the same but both sides are not the same, right?" Reid stated.
She wondered to MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd how the media could "get out" of this "‘both sides’ trajectory."
MSNBC host Joy Reid and political analyst Matthew Dowd said the media shouldn't "both sides" Republicans and Democrats, on "The ReidOut" June 20, 2022. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Dowd advised the media to behave as if they were living in a society that wasn't free and treat Republicans accordingly.
"Part of democracy is freedom of the press and the media has to — I actually thought of one thing I thought that the media should do a better job of, which is how do people in the media conduct themselves in an autocratic country? The ones that believe in free media. We need to think more like that in the media and less like this is just A and B and let the voters decide. That's the point we have to give up," he began.
Instead of "letting voters decide," the MSNBC analyst urged journalists to report that Republicans were a "threat" and "assault on democracy."
NEW YORK - JULY 19: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Joy Reid during Mondays July 19, 2021 show. ((Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images))
"We have to tell the voters what the threat is just like we do, Joy, we tell them about inflation and we tell them about job growth and we tell them about a hurricane and we tell them about tornadoes and we tell them about wildfire, we have to treat this assault just like we have to tell them about the assault on democracy," he said.
While Reid suggested the media were too soft on Republicans, in an interview over the weekend, she claimed the press was too harsh on Vice President Kamala Harris. "Most of the media is still White and male. And their take on Kamala Harris becomes the take. It becomes conventional wisdom," she told The Root.
Earlier in the program, Dowd connected pro-life legislation like Texas’s SB8 or "fetal heartbeat law" to the January 6 Capitol riot, saying the GOP had lost control of their party and have let the "crazy far right" take over.
Reid also claimed that the GOP wanted "apartheid" in this country after Texas Republicans pushed for a referendum to vote to secede from the United States, at their state convention.
She has previously called Republicans the "pro-rape, pro-child marriage party."
CNN host Don Lemon says journalists cannot "pretend" both sides are equal in reporting on Republicans and Democrats. (CNN/screenshot)
CNN host Don Lemon made a similar plea to the media on his network last week. He pleaded with fellow journalists to not treat Republicans and Democrats, "equally."
"We cannot have a false sense of equivalency about what is happening when it comes to politics in our country. There is one party, right now, that is not operating in fact. That has been misleading the American people and that is the Republican Party...[W]e cannot pretend as journalists, that it is equal. It is not," he said.
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