Boston Herald

Brazile’s sins a microcosm of biased media

- Adriana Cohen Adriana Cohen is co-host of “Herald Drive” airing 6-9 a.m. weekdays on Boston Herald Radio. Follow her @Adriana Cohen16.

CNN was asking for it when it let Donna Brazile take a seat on the pundit desk.

A plugged-in Brazile, now the interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, seized on the opportunit­y and leaked questions to Hillary Clinton’s camp — one on Flint’s toxic water disaster before a CNN Michigan town hall in March and another a few days later on the death penalty before an Ohio showdown.

CNN revealed yesterday — after WikiLeaks kept pointing out the embarrassi­ng journalist­ic sins — that Brazile was no longer employed by the station.

Unfortunat­ely, it’s too late for Bernie Sanders.

It’s also too late for voters hoping for an even playing field. There’s nothing wrong with having strong political opinions — I certainly have mine — but at least don’t cheat.

To put how serious this is into context, if Brazile traded stocks off inside informatio­n, the SEC would toss her in jail faster than you can say Martha Stewart. Yet, despite all of the above, the White House yesterday praised her integrity. You read that right. When asked about the hacked emails White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “No, the president believes she has done a fine job stepping in during a very difficult situation to lead the Democratic Party ... she is a person of high character. She is a true profession­al who is a tenacious and effective advocate for Democrats.”

Guess rigging a debate is just being a good advocate. Talk about a lack of ethics. But after the targeting of conservati­ves via the IRS — and recent undercover videos showing how Democratic operatives deployed paid agitators to disrupt Donald Trump rallies — who’s surprised?

But that’s not all Donald Trump and other candidates are up against when challengin­g the almighty Democratic machine.

In a study conducted by Media Research Center of TV coverage during this election, a whopping 91 percent of Trump coverage was hostile toward the businessma­n compared to a small fraction of negative stories on Clinton.

If that’s not a stacked deck, what is?

Can you imagine in the World Series if the umpires made 91 percent of bad calls against one team and not the other?

A biased media is risking its lifeblood — followers — by giving an unfair advantage to the candidate of their choice.

A week from today voters will decide if they’ve had enough.

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