CNN anchor Jake Tapper has certainly riled his critics, but he’s also considered by many to be a rare gem in the media space — a journalist who works diligently to hold people to account on all sides of the political divide.
And in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Tapper talked about his career in media, his favorite music (old-school rap) and, most notably, his coverage of the ever-contentious political world.
While some critics might charge Tapper with being “anti-Trump,” he noted that he was also quite often a thorn in the Obama administration’s side — and he said something about the media that’s sure to grab attention.
“A lot of people on the left didn’t like it before, and now they like it,” he said of his penchant for calling out falsehoods. “I don’t want to compare President Obama and President Trump on these issues because they’re different and the scale isn’t even remotely the same. But President Obama said things that weren’t true and got away with it more for a variety of reasons, and one is the media was much more supportive of him.”
Tapper added that the Obama White House found him to be a “huge pain.” At another point in the interview, he talked about being a “believer in transparency.” Additionally, he discussed the continued popularity of partisan media in the modern era as well as his belief in the importance of “straight news.”
“I do think there is a sort of confirmation bias that some media outlets feed and it does trouble me because I try not to do that,” Tapper said. “Look, there’s always going to be a place for idealogical and even partisan journalism. That’s been true as long as this nation has been around and I think that’s great, but I think it is great as a supplement to more straight news.”
In the end, Tapper said it is essential to take a stand for “facts, truth and basic human decency,” and that, when Trump crosses a line and says things that are false, he feels a responsibility to cover it.
Read more about what Tapper had to say here.
(H/T: Rolling Stone)