Disney Boss Says No Political Bias at ABC News and
ESPN, Complaints ‘Completely Exaggerated’
by Brian McNicoll 9 Mar 2017
Robert Iger, CEO of
the Walt Disney Company, said Wednesday that
ABC News has been “extremely fair” in its coverage of the 2016 election and the
Trump administration and that complaints of left-wing political bias on ESPN
are “completely exaggerated.”
Disney, which owns both ABC News and ESPN,
held its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, where Iger responded to a
question about the leftwing political bias at the networks by Justin Danhof of
the National Center for Public Policy Research.
Iger insisted
that ABC News has been entirely on the level in its coverage of the 2016
campaign and President Trump. He said:
ABC News has reported to me, directly or indirectly, for
almost 25 years. I’m an expert on ABC News, and I can stand here today, look
you in the face, and say I’m proud of the efforts of ABC News.
I respect ABC News, and I believe they work very, very
hard to present news in an extremely fair way. There are always going to be
people – yourself included and perhaps the president – who are going to believe
that it is not being presented in a manner that’s consistent with their own
beliefs. There’s an indictment made about the press simply because some of the
press do not necessarily tow the line with positions being taken by others.
Danhof, whose organization buys stocks in firms so it can
attend shareholder meetings and ask tough questions, pointed out that Iger
sidestepped the toughest parts of his query on Wednesday. The CEO
simply ignored the part of his question that dealt with George Stephanopoulos,
the former Clinton White House aide and now ABC News personality.
Stephanopoulos was found in the Wikileaks hacks of the
Democratic National Committee to have colluded with the Clinton campaign on
story ideas, editing questions and lines of attack on Peter Schweizer, who wrote the book Clinton
Cash a New York Times bestseller that detailed
conflicts of interest and other misdealings by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Danhof said of Iger:
How he lined up his response was telling. He wouldn’t
address the question. He was sticking his head in the sand. His response was
that I was making this up. But this has reached a nexus. Will his network
continue to ignore or mock the millions of Americans in flyover country, or
will we work to make his networks more inviting to other points of view? Right
now, he’s saying he doesn’t want us as customers.
Iger was even more determined when it came to ESPN, the
sports giant that has announced in recent days it plans another round of
layoffs because of massive financial losses that some attribute to its sharp
leftward ideological turn.
In his questioning, Danhof mentioned an exchange between
two on-air personalities for the network about how, if they said, “Coming up,
why Donald Trump is awesome,” they would “not last until the first commercial.”
Iger insisted the network exhibited no bias.
“The charge that ESPN is exhibiting significant political
bias in its programming is just completely exaggerated,” Iger said. “One small
communication and blowing it up into something that sounds a lot larger than it
is. Watch ESPN and you’re not going to see political bias at ESPN.”
Critics say there is, in fact, a lot of bias at ESPN.
They point to Caitlyn Jenner winning the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, the
network’s endorsement of Black Lives Matter at the ESPY Awards, ESPN-W’s
aggressive coverage of the Women’s March on Washington in January, and the
firing of Doug Adler — a tennis commentator — after he referred to the
“guerrilla effect” of Venus Williams moving closer to the net on second serves
at the Australian Open.
There is also daily bias from commentators such as Michael
Wilbon and Tony Kellerman. And then there is Kevin Blackstone, an
African-American sportswriter who appears on ESPN talk programs and once
referred to the Star Spangled Banner as a “war anthem.”
Curt Schilling, the former big league pitcher who was fired
in April 2016 after he tweeted out support for the North Carolina law that
required people to use the bathroom of their anatomical sex, scoffed at the
notion ESPN is unbiased.
“We recognize Abby Wambach and her stance on the gay
lifestyle in the sports world, but not Milo Yiannopoulos and his gay
perspective as a victim of molestation,” Schilling said in an email to
Breitbart News. “We recognize that every issue Stephen A. Smith has in sports
is based on black and white, not talent. But we don’t recognize Ben Carson, a
conservative man from the worst of the worst backgrounds who never allowed
color to taint his world perspective.”
ABC
ABC
Inc. is a majority owner of ESPN.
Note: ABC News is a
subsidiary of ABC Inc.
Robert A. Iger was
a president & COO for ABC Inc.,
is married to Willow Bay, and the chairman
& CEO for the Walt Disney Company.
ABC
Inc. is a subsidiary of ABC.
Willow
Bay was a news correspondent for ABC,
and is married to Robert A. Iger.
Walt Disney
Company is a subsidiary of ABC Inc.
Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP was a lobby firm for the Walt Disney Company.
Vernon E. Jordan
Jr. is a senior counsel for Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a
director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg
conference participant (think tank).
Valerie B. Jarrett
is Vernon E. Jordan Jr’s great niece, the senior
adviser for the Barack Obama
administration, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution
(think tank), the Aspen Institute
(think tank), the Robin Hood
Foundation, and the International
Rescue Committee.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society,
is the founder of Soros Fund Management,
and Jonathan Soros’s father.
Sheryl K.
Sandberg was a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and
a director at the Walt Disney Company.
John
S. Chen was a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), is
a special adviser for Silver Lake,
and a director at the Walt Disney
Company.
Silver
Lake Kraftwerk Fund is a fund for Silver
Lake.
Soros Fund
Management is a partner with the Silver
Lake Kraftwerk Fund.
Jonathan Soros
was the deputy chairman for the Soros
Fund Management, the vice chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and is George Soros’s son.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution
(think tank), the Aspen Institute
(think tank), the Robin Hood
Foundation, and the International
Rescue Committee. For
Sheryl K.
Sandberg was a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and
a director at the Walt Disney Company.
John
S. Chen was a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), is
a special adviser for Silver Lake,
and a director at the Walt Disney
Company.
Michael D. Eisner
is a trustee at the Aspen Institute
(think tank), and was a chairman & CEO for the Walt Disney Company.
Walt Disney
Company is a subsidiary of ABC Inc.
ABC
News is a subsidiary of ABC Inc.
Diane Sawyer was
an anchor for the ABC News, and a
director at the Robin Hood Foundation.
Clifford S.
Asness was a leadership council member for the Robin Hood Foundation, supported same-sex marriage in New York, and is a director at the International Rescue Committee.
Kati
Marton is an overseer for the International
Rescue Committee, a director at the New
America Foundation, and was the Bonn bureau chief for the ABC News.
ABC
News is a subsidiary of ABC Inc.
ABC
Inc. is a majority owner of ESPN.
Robert A. Iger was
a president & COO for ABC Inc.,
is married to Willow Bay, and the chairman
& CEO for the Walt Disney Company.
ABC
Inc. is a subsidiary of ABC.
Walt Disney
Company is a subsidiary of ABC Inc.
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