Jordan Chariton and the Impending Collapse of Mainstream Media
Chariton’s meltdown on TYT Live signaled the beginning of the end for America’s corrupt legacy media.
BY ZACH HALLER | MAY 7, 2017
Last Friday, highly incriminating court transcripts were released following a hearing in which lawyers for the Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz argued for a Motion to Dismiss a massive class action lawsuit filed against them. The lawsuit seeks damages on behalf of Bernie Sanders donors, Democratic party donors, and Democrats as a whole following leaked emails that exposed illicit collusion that favored a Clinton nomination.
The transcripts reveal numerous damning revelations about the way the Party views its obligations in conducting the primary nominating process. In defending their Motion to Dismiss in the hearing, the DNC has told the Court, America, and the world, that the party views itself as effectively too big to jail: despite the guarantee of impartiality assured in the organization’s Charter, the DNC has asserted that they see themselves as having no legal obligation to actually run the primary impartially, so they could have favored a candidate (but they didn’t).
It’s a confusing show, and a humiliating display for the Democrats, who now have backed themselves into a corner with the duplicity of their argument: If they “win” and the case is dismissed, voters will lose all incentive to participate in any future Democratic nominating processes. If not, the case moves forward into a Discovery phase, and the crimes of the Democrats cement themselves further into Federal Court record and indisputable history.
The Democrats in Checkmate
Unless the Motion to Dismiss is granted, which seems unlikely given the numerous issues raised by Federal District Judge William J. Zloch in the hearings, the case will proceed to identify the classes owed damages and prepare for depositions. The list of parties that could be called to depose (testify) is a laundry list of the Party’s most powerful: In addition to Wasserman-Schultz, Attorneys for the Plaintiffs could–and should–seek to depose Clinton herself, campaign manager John Podesta, disgraced DNC Interim Chair and ex-CNN employee Donna Brazile, DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda, all senior leadership at the DNC and Clinton campaign, and every superdelegate that pledged unwavering support to Clinton, will of the voters be damned.
Beyond this impending earthquake set to rattle the political establishment at any moment, the depositions implicate more than 38 influential anchors, reporters, and editors exposed in the Wikileaks releases who may have abetted this fraud in their development of a strategy of controlled opposition to elevate Donald Trump as a “pied piper” candidate and in facilitating the DNC’s strategy to “muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC” before a single American cast a primary vote.
This bears emphasis: The Democrats decided Hillary Clinton would be their nominee without any idea of how many people would actually vote for her. At off-the-records meetings, the Party, Clinton’s campaign, and the media elite designated her to be the Party’s nominee before the first Americans cast their primary votes in Iowa on February 2, 2016.
The below memo was circulated by the Clinton campaign in April 2015, emphasis added:
To: The Democratic National Committee
Re: 2016 GOP presidential candidates
Date: April 7, 2015
Friends,
This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have > regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field. Clearly most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is > already doing. This exercise is intended to put those ideas to paper.
Again, we think our goals mirror those of the DNC. We look forward to continuing the conversation.
If or when Wasserman-Schultz is deposed, Plaintiff’s attorney Jared Beck will have the opportunity to confirm this strategy memo that circulated nearly a year before primary contests began is authentic. Until then, since the Democrats have not denied its authenticity and Wasserman-Schultz herself resigned her position as DNC Chair in disgrace as an acknowledgment of the wrongdoing exposed in these emails, it’s safe to presume that it is.
Once confirmed authentic, the implications begin to unravel. Should Judge Zloch determine the DNC breached its Charter and conducted Party operations favoring Clinton, the Party will need to reconcile this against the testimony of voters who donated under the understanding the Charter respected the democratic process that is the basis of our constitution. Worse, how would the Party ever expect voters to participate in future nominating contests knowing the Party sees no duty to its members, and that the nominee may be predetermined behind the scenes once again?
The Mainstream Media’s Admission By Silence
Since the release of these court transcripts, media observers have been struck by a glaring absence of coverage reminiscent of the “Bernie blackout” that occurred during the primary season in which Clinton and Trump dominated mainstream media coverage. With the exception of a singular tweet from Jake Tapper, the mainstream media has remained in an ominous blackout of reporting on the massive implications of the positions the Party has now taken in Federal court.
And who can blame them? Here’s the American Democratic Party, flailing to preserve Barack Obama’s legacy as revelations exposed in the recent release of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign show just how close Clinton was to blowing it all, despite her coordinated and institutional advantages. The party now naively asks a Federal court judge to dismiss a fraud lawsuit filed because the Party views itself too big to jail, less than one year after Clinton skated through an ethically ambiguous FBI investigation and with Americans looking on in horror as Obama accepts $800,000 in Wall Street thank-yous for affording them this very impunity.
In broad daylight, the corporate media has been exposed for playing an active role in advancing the DNC and Clinton Campaign’s joint agenda with the flagrant ethical abandon that defines the rotting American justice system. Despite the implications of fraud, and despite the media’s theoretical obligation to hold the powerful accountable on behalf of the greater good, the all-powerful American media aided and abetted a major political party in its strategy to ensure the nomination of a candidate before the candidate would even enter the race, before a single primary contest was conducted, and disenfranchised millions of engaged citizens in the process. Without a clear messaging strategy following the incoherent and contradictory arguments of Bruce Spiva, the approach will be to avoid and downplay coverage as long as possible.
The Fault Line Exposed: The Young Turks Fail When It Mattered Most
Following the initial waves of citizen journalism and independent media commentary on the revelations of the hearings and the arguments presented, The Young Turks featured a panel discussion on the lawsuit in which panelists John Iadarola, Michael Shure, and Mark Thompson brazenly failed to take a firm stance against any possible fraud or malfeasance, despite having positioned themselves as a progressive-leaning corruption-busting organization.
Anyone expecting the Young Turks would do progressive justice to this historic lawsuit would go on to be appalled by the sloppiness of the panel’s discussion. Either uninformed, unprepared, or uninterested in matters of election integrity, the panelists drop the ball time and time again in their discussion, failing to identify how the merits of the DNC’s argument vary among the three classes of citizens claiming damages, failing to mention the collusion central to the lawsuit took place before Americans voted in the primary, and recklessly smearing the Plaintiff’s attorneys Jared Beck and Elizabeth Lee Beck as “opportunistic” lawyers.
Shure would go on to apologize for his thoughtless remarks, but the damage was done. When the American public deserved diligent and ethical reporting, the Young Turks provided no such thing. Presented with an opportunity to show leadership by soberly addressing eyebrow-raising conflicts of interest that are common knowledge to progressives and take a stand where other media is not, The Young Turks couldn’t be bothered to present factually accurate commentary on the issue, much less commentary that is morally unambiguous. If anything, the purpose of the panel appeared to be a continuation of the DNC-Clinton strategy of “muddying the waters.”
Jordan Digs Them Deeper
In the aftermath of the Young Turks panel, an uproar of criticism erupted in defense of the merits of the lawsuit and the gravity of the damages claimed by the millions of Americans disaffected. Onlookers were quick to observe TYT’s refusal to roundly denounce even the allegation of fraud, demonstrating Americans’ low-to-zero tolerance for hearing media personalities dismiss the corrosive influence of money in politics at a time when trustworthiness of media is hitting rock bottom.
In response to this legitimate criticism of reporting on a lawsuit that will have profound and historic consequences for Americans of all party affiliations, TYT reporter and journalist Jordan Chariton took to the TYT Politics Facebook page to issue a cringe-inducing diatribe exposing the hypocrisy of someone who claims to support independent journalism while “punching down” on the very independent journalists whose cause he claims to champion.
In his video, Chariton baselessly blasts independent journalists H.A. Goodman and Tim Black in a dishonest and disgraceful tirade slandering two popular and refreshingly credible up-and-coming media personalities related to their rightful criticism of TYT’s mediocre reporting. The video features an ironic and repetitive defense of the indefensible TYT founder and financial overlord Cenk Uygur in which Chariton demonizes progressives who have issued justified critiques of the network in an attempt to hold them accountable for the hypocrisy and conflicts of interest on display.
While the original video has since been removed, an eviscerating commentary posted by YouTube user Hard Bastard itemizes falsehood after falsehood in Chariton’s tirade in a brutal yet well-deserved 52-minute take-down. History will look back at Chariton’s meltdown as a flash point in the war between the decaying corporate media and the rising power of a defiant anti-corporate independent media, borne out of the media blackout the Democratic establishment instituted to favor Clinton, obscure Sanders, and elevate Trump.
Chariton, an accomplished network journalist with indisputable and well-deserved progressive credentials, straddles corporate and anti-corporate media more than any other journalist in America. Beyond his unassailable dedication to the woefully ignored crises at Standing Rock and in Flint, Michigan, Chariton set the bar for holding the powerful accountable with his unforgettable badgering of Donna Brazile following the exposure of her participation in this very scandal. It appears the principled Chariton seen in this video is, now, nowhere to be found.
Democracy Demands the Truth
To many, Chariton has lost his credibility in this episode that exposed that, at a make or break moment in history, his allegiance to corporate media was greater than his allegiance to true progressivism. Those who have followed his work in the field may have expected the most from Chariton based on the excellence, candor, and gusto that has defined his reporting to date. Unfortunately, Chariton could not be counted on as a leader to demonstrate a clear vision of morality in the wake of the DNC’s slimy posturing in court. At this writing, he has yet to issue an apology for his distasteful conduct. He would be wise to do so urgently and sincerely.
While partisan Republicans and many Democrats may support the Citizens United ruling, true progressives unbound by partisan conventions understand defeating money in politics means defending the liberal justices’ opposition to the ruling. For activists, this demands a continuous and fearless interrogation of all establishment figures to mitigate the corruption that currently thrives in the gray areas left in the ruling’s wake. Here, both Chariton and his TYT counterparts leave much to be desired.
And so, the fallout has begun: the Americans most finely in tune with the events unraveling at this moment in history see Chariton as the flash point between corporate and anti-corporate media. He and all journalists will have their trustworthiness further examined as new independent media personalities continue to emerge in the vacuum for truthful reporting created by the establishment media’s conglomeration in support for Clinton’s candidacy. Any refusal by a journalist to hold those in power accountable will expose a journalist who has taken the side of the corrupt, conglomerated, predatory media establishment.
A coincidental benefit enjoyed by any and all media analysts peddling the sober truth is that facts, as presented in tandem, create a consistent messaging strategy across party lines and ideologies. As the anti-corporate media movement gains steam in this era of grand media distrust, the truth will continue to be the hottest commodity and the new standard by which storytellers will be evaluated for trustworthiness.
The truth sirens most in tune with the truth as is will become the new champions of the anti-establishment media movement until the goal of overturning Citizens United is achieved. Alongside the whistle-blowers, any and every aspiring journalist can yield the truth as a weapon to confront head-on the corrupt corporate actors in American media that are running from it. These citizen journalists may not be paid well, or at all. To them, nothing is more invaluable than the truth. ∎
This article was originally published on Medium on May 7, 2017. In March, 2019, Medium permanently suspended my blog for violating its "Trust and Safety" standards. I am an independent writer, activist, and everyday American based in Seattle, Washington. If you enjoyed this, please upvote it, share it with your networks, and/or donate to my paypal.