A political litmus test for Republicans: Fail it, lose your TV slotTime for a rapid test for the voter fraud delusionWashington Post, Dec 3, 2020, Matt Negrin
Almost a month has passed since Joe Biden won the election, and the Republican Party still refuses to acknowledge him as president-elect. With hardly any exceptions, Republicans in Congress support President Trump’s lie that imaginary voter fraud stole the election from him.
Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for this delusion. But journalists in the news business do have the power to stop the spread of this dangerous disinformation by quarantining this conspiracy theory to where it belongs — Fox News, Newsmax and One America News — rather than allowing it to infect viewers of real news outlets.
It starts with rapid testing. And unlike the coronavirus rapid tests, this test is 100 percent reliable.
Whenever Republicans appear on a news show, the first question to them must be: “Do you acknowledge that Biden won the election and that he is president-elect?†If the Republican politician doesn’t say yes, they’ve failed the test and are at risk of spreading disinformation. The host of the show has an obligation to viewers to stop the interview there and say goodbye.
If an interview subject is willing to lie about a fact so plainly obvious and integral to American democracy — “the election is real and it happened†— we have to assume they’re willing to lie about anything. Real news outlets don’t interview flat-earthers or Sandy Hook truthers like Alex Jones for this very reason: Platforming conspiracy theorists is dangerous and offering them airtime validates their beliefs. Why aren’t TV news networks applying the same approach to the Republican Party’s election truthers?
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/03/republicans-tv-voter-fraud/