Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman bashed the state of mainstream media in a recent interview, calling most of the major cable news networks “just commentary.”
In an interview with the Daily Beast, Freeman offered his thoughts on the media coverage surrounding the violent protests that have erupted in Baltimore since the death of 25-year-old African-American Freddie Gray earlier this month.
“Look at MSNBC, Fox News and CNN,” Freeman told the outlet. “Go between those three. There’s a take, there’s a take, and there’s a take. It’s just commentary. CNN wants to be pure news, but the others are just commentary. They’re just commenting on things.”
Despite the criticism, Freeman said the media did a better job painting “more of a whole picture” of the riots in Baltimore, as opposed to its biased and one-sided coverage of the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown last summer.
“Baltimore seems to be coming up with a different scenario in the background,” Freeman said. “People are saying, ‘You were not all there when we were just talking and trying to make a point, but if we set something on fire, all of a sudden you’re all here. Why is that? What’s the difference?’ And some young reporters are listening. That sort of observation is very useful.”
However, Freeman apparently wasn’t keen on discussing the media for too long.
“Anyway, off the media,” he said later. “F*** the media.”
Freeman recently discussed what he calls the “human nature” of bigotry in an interview to promote the sixth season of his Science Channel show Through the Wormhole, which premiered Wednesday night.
Read more of Freeman’s interview with the Daily Beast.
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