Batman v Superman: Jake Tapper Has Thoughts on Journalistic Integrity in the SnyderVerse

During an appearance on this week’s episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, CNN correspondent Jake Tapper took his colleague Dana Bash to task for biased on-air statements that she made in the 2016 blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In the Zack Snyder-directed film, Bash is one of a number of journalists, pundits, and academics who have brief cameos playing the DC Films universe version of themselves. While acknowledging that he totally would have taken the role if asked, Tapper joked that repeating anti-Superman talking points during a newscast likely would have hurt Bash’s (and implicitly CNN’s) credibility among viewers from Metropolis.

The conversation started when O’Brien brought up their mutual acquaintance Paul Rudd, which got the pair to talking about Rudd’s role in the Ant-Man movies. That led into Tapper admitting that he was binging Zack Snyder’s DC movies ahead of watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max.

“I’m watching Batman v Superman, becuase I wanted to see the Snyder Cut. I started watching it, and I go ‘oh, s–t,’ I need to watch Batman v Superman first, and I started watching Batman v Superman, and I’m like ‘oh, s–t, I need to watch Man of Steel first. But in Batman v Superman, they have CNN anchors that have cameos. I think Anderson [Cooper]’s in it, and Dana Bash is in it. And Dana…there’s a scene in which they frame Superman, it makes it look like Superman caused a terrorist attack on the Capitol….The point is, Superman is framed. He didn’t do this. But Dana, my colleague and friend, is in the movie, and she’s on television basically regurgitating anti-Superman talking points.”

He said that Bash told him she originally had a longer scene with Lois, which would have provided more context if it hadn’t been edited down for the film. Nevertheless, he claims to have told her that she could have changed the script if she wasn’t comfortable delivering fake DC Universe news.

Tapper said that he had waited for years to watch the Marvel, DC, and Harry Potter films because he was waiting for his kids to be old enough to watch with him. Now, he told O’Brien, the kids are 11 and 13, and they don’t have any interest, so he’s watching them by himself. He said that while he got caught up on DC to watch Zack Snyder’s Justice League, he has only made it as far as Captain America: Civil War.

New episodes of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend drop on Monday mornings on Earwolf.