It's so sweet, isn't it, the love fest between the Bushes and Jonathan Karl?
But it begs the question: why is Jonathan Karl considered as a legitimate part of the ABC News team and not the conservative propagandist and GOP fluffer he clearly is?
It's not just the softball cooing questions of the former president (especially when the current president was in Africa at the same time--purportedly the justification for the interview). It's not just that he's been shown to be a partisan hack for his Benghazi coverage, his regular contributions to the unabashedly conservative Weekly Standard, or his egregious use of Coulter as a source to interview politicians. Jonathan Karl is literally a mole for the GOP embedded into ABC News:
Karl came to mainstream journalism via the Collegiate Network, an organization primarily devoted to promoting and supporting right-leaning newspapers on college campuses (Extra!, 9-10/91)—such as the Rutgers paper launched by the infamous James O’Keefe (Political Correction, 1/27/10). The network, founded in 1979, is one of several projects of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which seeks to strengthen conservative ideology on college campuses. William F. Buckley was the ISI’s first president, and the current board chair is American Spectator publisher Alfred Regnery. Several leading right-wing pundits came out of Collegiate-affiliated papers, including Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, Michelle Malkin, Rich Lowry and Laura Ingraham (Washington Times, 11/28/04).
The Collegiate Network also provides paid internships and fellowships to place its members at corporate media outlets or influential Beltway publications; 2010-11 placements include the Hill, Roll Call, Dallas Morning News and USA Today. The program’s highest-profile alum is Karl, who was a Collegiate fellow at the neoliberal New Republic magazine.
After a stint at the New York Post, Karl soon found his way to CNN, but he was still connected to ideological pursuits; he was a board member at the right-leaning youth-oriented Third Millennium group and at the Madison Center for Educational Affairs—which, like the Collegiate Network, seeks to strengthen young conservative journalism. After moving to ABC in 2003, Karl contributed several pieces to the neo-con Weekly Standard, such as his April 4, 2005 article praising Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as out to “make her mark with the vigorous pursuit of the president’s freedom and democracy agenda.”
Karl’s high profile at ABC demonstrates that conservative messages can find a comfortable home inside the so-called “liberal” media.
Look at the resume. Why the hell would ABC News lend legitimacy to such a clear partisan hack under the guise of journalism?
And why should ABC News be trusted for any of its reporting ever again?
