April 2, 2024 (EIRNS)—An event at Columbia University’s School for Journalism attracted the attention of Kynan Thistlethwaite, a member of the LaRouche Youth Movement, on April 1, 2024. The event featured a who’s who of mainstream press editors and journalists from the New York Times, Politico, Vox, The Atlantic, and The Guardian.
The topic of the event was, “Democracy on the Brink: Is the Press Up to the Task?” The main subject of the event was the looming November election, and how the mainstream media would need to restore the public’s confidence in order to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President. One of the “distinguished” panelists, Garrett M. Graff, is the author of #1 national bestsellers, such as “The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller’s FBI,” which praises the disgraced former director of the FBI for his role in “combatting” terrorism during George W. Bush’s War on Terror.
In the middle of the panel’s discussion, Kynan Thistlethwaite got up and interrupted the speakers, asking, “Can we actually talk about something real now?” Thistlethwaite continued by referencing the recent UN resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan. The official Biden Administration response to the resolution, Thistlethwaite noted, was to refer to it as “non-binding.” Craig Mokhiber, a former UN official who headed the New York office for Human Rights, noted that, “The U.S. has shown itself willing to tear down the entire international legal framework to defend one genocidal, apartheid state distorting humanitarian law.” Thistlethwaite asked the panel, “Is that why ‘democracy’ is on the brink?”
Thistlethwaite then asked if the press has gotten anything right on the Russia-Ukraine conflict since the beginning of the special military operation. He noted that French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement to unilaterally send French troops to the conflict area meant that the world was on the verge of World War III, and therefore, thermonuclear war. The panelists, who were taken aback, told Thistlethwaite that they were not there to discuss those questions, and refused to answer.
Eventually, the dean of journalism at Columbia told the crowd that they would be having a “5-minute break.” Thistlethwaite was told by security to leave the premises.
So far, the intervention has accumulated 13,000 views on Jose Vega’s X account. It attracted favorable replies from some notable figures, including Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former jurist and Judge of the New Jersey Superior Court. The intervention was also covered by Kit Cabello of Hard Lens Media.
