'Morning Joe' panel hits media bias: ‘Report the facts’

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday that the press should be more careful to avoid bias.

While discussing President-elect Donald Trump’s feud with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Brzezinski asked: “Why is it that we can explain any Democrat, and explain a statement that’s maybe untrue or inappropriate, and explain it away and finally understand and translate for them, and yet we cherry-pick Trump’s statements?”

Brzezinski continued that she sees a “real difference” between how the press treats Republicans and Democrats, noting: “We decipher Democrats and make them sound great, and we make Republicans sound like complete — the word that we won’t use.”

BBC reporter Katty Kay said that Trump had faced scrutiny because the job of the president of the United States “demands a certain standard of behavior.”

“I agree, that’s his job,” Brzezinski interjected. “I’m talking about ours.”

Scarborough said that it is not mutually exclusive to note that “John Lewis is a hero for our time” due to his work during the civil rights movement and that “what he said about Trump being illegitimate because [of] Russia was actually not borne out by the facts, the objective facts.” He continued:

There’s a lot of cherry-picking going on right now, and the press just needs to do their jobs. And stop writing sanctimonious op-eds about what the press should do … no, just do your blanking job. And just give people the facts, and stop feeling like you are on a crusade. Do your job. Report the facts. Provide context. Provide history, and let voters decide, let the people decide, let your readers decide.