Jen Psaki, Model of First Amendment Hostility, Honored by News Association
“It’s a slap in the face to every American.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki fired a warning shot at Elon Musk in April 2022 following news reports Musk was considering buying Twitter. Psaki “mentioned the threat to social media companies to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, linking these threats to social-media platforms’ failure to censor misinformation and disinformation,” according to US District Judge Terry A. Doughty. The judge’s remarks were in his July 2023 preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri (originally filed as Missouri v. Biden).
The court case centered on Biden Administration demands that social media platforms censor content that did not align with the administration’s narratives regarding covid and elections. Psaki threatened “legal consequences” such as a “robust anti-trust program” for social media platforms that didn’t toe the line. “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” she warned in in July 15, 2021 White House press conference.
In Murthy v. Missouri, Psaki was identified as one of several administration officials who insisted the government had the right to censor speech. The Supreme Court will hear the case during the 2023-24 session.
Psaki’s personal role in threatening speech on social media platforms is why last month’s decision by the Radio-Television Digital News Association to honor Psaki is so shocking. Psaki was named master of ceremonies of RTDNA’s grandest annual event, the First Amendment Awards ceremony to be held in Washington, DC on March 9th.
RTDNA claims it’s the “world’s largest professional organization devoted exclusively to broadcast and digital journalism.” Further, it “defends the First Amendment rights of electronic journalists.”
In a phone call, RTDNA president and CEO Dan Shelley told me his staff thought it was important MSNBC be represented at the awards ceremony and requested the cable channel pony-up a name to be emcee. Psaki was the personality they were offered.
“You would be hard-pressed to find someone more hostile to the First Amendment than Psaki,” I told Shelley. He disagreed. “I don’t think her actions while working in the White House have any bearing on this,” he replied. “Besides,” he continued, “she hosts a show on MSNBC. Granted it’s an opinion show, but that should count for something.”
Shelley claimed that although RTDNA (of which I am now a former member) supported the First Amendment it was important “we work together to stop ‘disinformation’” because it is “so dangerous.” Shelley didn’t believe censoring “disinformation” was incompatible with supporting the First Amendment. “Although maybe it shouldn’t be the White House leading the effort,” he conceded. “Doesn’t it worry you that what constitutes ‘disinformation’ may change with every administration?” I asked. I was met with silence. Significantly, Shelley’s logic doesn’t even scratch at the surface that we are learning much of what was labeled as “disinformation” by the Biden administration regarding covid was, in fact, accurate.
Missouri Attorney-General Andrew Bailey, whose office was a lead plaintiff in Murthy v Missouri, told me in an email statement: “It’s a slap in the face to every American that [Psaki] be named as master of ceremonies at any event involving the First Amendment.” US Senator Eric Schmitt, Bailey’s predecessor who filed the original lawsuit, called honoring Psaki “utterly hilarious and is the epitome of hypocrisy.”
(This column first appeared in the American Spectator.)
Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, Post, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.
His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).
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