Hi, everybody. Cheryl Ackison here. Welcome to another edition of the Cheryl Ackison

podcast. Today, a special investigation. Many in media quickly claimed, without evidence,

there were no anomalies in the 2020 presidential election. Why were they so quick to close such

an important question in arguably the most irregular presidential election held in our time?

And what really happened in 2020?

I'm recording this podcast not long after the CNN Town Hall with presidential candidate Donald

Trump in which the host said something that just sort of set me off a bit in terms of journalism.

When President Trump was talking about fraud that he says occurred in the 2020 election campaign,

the host retorted, there were no fraudulent votes in Wisconsin as if she knew, as if she somehow

were omniscient and had access to how every vote in the state of Wisconsin was cast.

Now, I wouldn't have a problem with a journalist saying something like certain authorities say

that there were no fraudulent votes cast in Wisconsin or certain political figures say there

were no fraudulent votes cast. They can't really know that either, but at least as a journalist,

you're quoting somebody else's claim. But to take that a step further and to make a claim that

you couldn't possibly know about as a reporter, it's really unjournalistic, but isn't that the

story of today's media in so many cases? It used to be that we were taught in journalism school,

you have to attribute the things that you're reporting that other people say that you don't know

about firsthand. In fact, as reporters, there are very few things we know about a story that we

have observed firsthand ourselves. For example, if somebody shoots somebody else and the police say

they have a suspect in custody, you as the reporter, if you didn't see the shooting, can't say that

somebody shot somebody else. And I would even go so far as to say even if you think video tape

of something shows something you think you see, you still have to be very careful because

...