Mainstream media publications that gave wall-to-wall coverage of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 have not given any coverage on the woman who came forward last week and accused Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexual in the early 90s.
On March 24, The Intercept reported on the sexual allegations from former Biden staffer Tara Reade against then-Senator Biden in 1993.
The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC have not reported the allegation in the six days following The Intercept’s story.
By contrast, when Ford accused Kavanaugh in a report in The Washington Post on September 16, 2018, those same four news organizations gave wall-to-wall coverage on the allegation in the six days following The Washington Post’s report.
A brief review by The Daily Wire of The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC found that Ford and Reade were mentioned the following number of times by the publications in the first six days after the allegations were made publicly:
- The Washington Post:
- Christine Blasey Ford: 100+
- Tara Reade: 0
- The New York Times:
- Christine Blasey Ford: 90+
- Tara Reade: 0
- MSNBC:
- Christine Blasey Ford: 100+
- Tara Reade: 0
- CNN:
- Christine Blasey Ford: 100+
- Tara Reade: 0
Dan Gainor, Vice President for TechWatch, business and culture at the Media Research Center, told The Daily Wire that the media blackout surrounding the allegation facing Biden stems from the media’s desire to protect him.
“The news media are desperately avoiding anything negative about Joe Biden, especially the allegations of sexual assault,” Gainor said. “If they propped him up any more he could be replaced by a department store mannequin.”
“Biden gets loving coverage on ‘The View’ and an irresponsible but softball question from NBC’s Chuck Todd asking if Trump has ‘blood on his hands,'” Gainor continued. “It looks like the press has embraced the strategy that Alex Wagner proposed. In her words, ‘Democrats need little from the front-runner beyond his corporeal presence.’ The news media seem determined to deliver just that and nothing more.”
In a podcast, Reade outlined her allegation against Biden:
During the interview, Reade alleged the following about Biden. She said that a supervisor called her into the office and said, “I want you to take this to Joe, he wants it. We want you to bring it, hurry. It was a gym bag. She called it an athletic bag. She said he was down towards the Capitol, and he’ll meet you. I went down, and I was heading down towards there. He was at first talking to someone.. and then they went away. We were in like the side, like the side area, and he just said, ‘Hey, come here Tara.’”
She continued: “I handed him the thing. He greeted me. He remembered my name. And then we were alone. It was the strangest thing. There was no like exchange really. He just had me up against the wall. I was wearing like a skirt, a business skirt. I wasn’t wearing stockings. It was kind of a hot day that day, and I was wearing heels…I remember I was wearing a blouse, and he just had me up against the wall. And the wall was cold. It happened all at once…his hands were on me and underneath my clothes. Yeah, and he went down my skirt but then up inside it, and he penetrated me with his fingers, and he was kissing me at the same time, and he was saying something to me. He said several things. I can’t remember everything he said.”
She added: “I remember a couple of things. I remember him saying, first as he was doing it, ‘Do you want to go somewhere else,’ and then him saying to me when I pulled away. He got finished doing what he was doing, and I pulled back and he said, ‘C’mon man, I heard you liked me,’ and it’s that phrase stayed with me. I kept thinking what I might have said…I can’t remember if he said I thought or heard. He implied that I had done this. For me, it was like everything shattered in that moment because I knew we were alone, it was over, right, he wasn’t trying to do anything more, but I looked up to him. He was my father’s age. He was this champion of women’s rights in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it was happening. It seemed surreal. I felt sick because when he pulled back he looked annoyed, and he said something else to me that I don’t want to say. And then he said, I must have looked shocked. He grabbed me by the shoulders… and he said, ‘You’re OK, you’re fine.’ And then he walked away.”
Halper pressed Reade on the thing she didn’t want to reveal. She then revealed that Biden allegedly said, “You’re nothing to me. You’re nothing.”
Ford could not remember when or where her alleged assault happened; her family did not back her up; and there is no proof that Ford ever even met Kavanaugh.
By contrast, Reade claims that her alleged assault happened in 1993; her brother says that she told him at the time about it; and she used to work for Biden when Biden was a senator.