Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Unacceptable Is The New Inconceivable



Brian Stelter is one of the very few rays of hope in the blighted Beltway media hellscape.

That said, this is hilarious:
Trump ditches the press pool again

By Brian Stelter & the CNNMoney Media team

This is unacceptable. Donald Trump's press secretary Hope Hicks told journalists that there was a "lid" on Tuesday night -- but then Trump took his family to the 21 Club for dinner. A small group of political journalists, the "press pool," would have been ready to travel with him -- but the pool was not notified. A Bloomberg staffer dining at the restaurant spotted Trump and tweeted a picture, and that's how we all found out where he was...
Until it was far too late, the Beltway media dealt with the rise of an explicitly racist and fascist candidate the same way the dealt with every other Republican atrocity over the last 25 years: by scampering ever deeper into their richly appointed False Equivalence bunker and chalking the whole thing up to The Extremes on Both Sides and the K'rupt Duopoly!

By throwing up their hands, sticking thugs like Corey Lewendowski and con men like Newt Gingrich across the table from a people who are not flagrant, lying lunatics and telling their viewers "You figure it out".

But now that Trump is threatening their privileges and their traditions -- which I agree are very important -- well that is a bridge too fucking far.

Sorry, but no.  You were supposed to be our sword in the darkness. You were supposed to be democracy's watcher on the walls. You were supposed to be our shield that guards the land of the free.

And every time you offered us frauds and madmen and gibbering Both Siderists because ratings, you betrayed us.  And every time you stayed silent while your colleagues offered up frauds and madmen and gibbering Both Siderists -- every time you sat across the desk from a monster and looked him in the eye and bit your tongue and refused to say the word "monster" because your employer would be displeased -- you deserted your post too.

And speaking of your bosses, I was moved by Chris Hayes' and Rachel Maddow's plea that journalism is now under threat and we need to come to its defense.  Mr. Hayes and Ms. Maddow are two more rays of light in a dark world, and I appreciate their positions, but (in yet another question in a long line of them that Mr. Hayes and Ms. Maddow will never answer) I wondered why they were asking us for help.


Shit, Rachel, your bosses at MSNBC are sitting on staggering, unprecedented profits from playing footsie with monsters --
Third-ranked MSNBC, which falls under the larger NBC News umbrella, will have projected earnings of $279.6 million this year, according to Kagan. MSNBC is growing faster in percentage terms than its two much-larger competitors: Its projected profits reflect a 19 percent growth rate over 2015, compared with 14 percent for CNN and 11.3 percent for Fox, according to [SNL Kagan, a media research company]...
-- as are the executives running CNN:
According to people intimately familiar with CNN’s finances, the network and its related media businesses will approach $1 billion in gross profit in 2016, a milestone unseen in its 36-year history...
So before you ask someone like me -- a terminally under-employed nobody who goes through the sofa cushions every week to come up with the scratch to feed his family -- to leap to the defense of your profession, I have to know, when exactly are you planning to take that long walk up to the NBC or CNN executive suites, camera in hand, the ask the men who profited so obscenely from this fiasco what the fuck they are planning to do to defend your profession?

15 comments:

Fiddlin Bill said...

Oh, you might ask Ms Maddow what happened to Melissa Harris-Perry (who used to appear on her show frequently and even substituted for Maddow now and again), or Crystal Ball, who asserted that Mrs. Clinton was a weak candidate and shortly thereafter vanished into oblivion. There's also Ed Schultz (member him?) and of course The Rev., who used to have a whole hour each night devoted more or less to black political issues.
Ms. Maddow meanwhile became a fookin' star, featured in ads for MSNBC which ran in the New Yorker, no less. Oh, the mysteries. One thing that's not a mystery: today Frank Gaffney became part of the Trump Administration, and is hard at work on a Registry for Muslims.

RUKidding said...

What? Is Rachel Maddow worried about loosing her multi-million dollar per year salary?? Boo de effen hoo. I gave up on MSNBC quite a long time ago, around when they pushed out Keith Olberman and Maddow agreed to be on a leash.

Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas. If Maddow hasn't saved up enough moola to see her through a VERY comfortable life, then that's her problem. She could get another job somewhere else, but not for the big old buckeroonies & all the adulating fame whore attention. So which is it, Rachel? Money or truth? Because the way I see it, in the world of what passes for "journalism" these days, those are your two options. It's up to you.

Anonymous said...

Donald Trump is a big ol' pimp, and the press is his bitch.

All other details can be extrapolated from this, it ain't hard.

E.

Unknown said...

Media's job was to elect Trump. Now their job is to make KKK cuddly. Don't expect anything else. As for Maddow and Hayes good riddance. Only decent one is Joy Anne Reid.I'm not watching, reading or listening to any mainslime media.

Green Eagle said...

I will take a back seat to no one in my contempt for Trump, but really, if a guy wants to take his family out for dinner without being hounded by the pathetic excuse for a mainstream press in this country, can you really blame him?

Hutchman said...

Will Congress be willing to double the Secret Service's budget to pay for the scrambles every time the Don wants to go clubbing? Or will the Service just say "Fuck it" and go for coffee. We can always hope.

Dominic said...

GreenEagle I may be a bloody Englishman butting my nose into the affairs of a foreign country, but since he decided to campaign and won the election, he no longer has the ability to just take his family out for a meal. He gave up that right when he wanted to be President, the fact that he either didn't know or care just adds more reasons as why he's unqualified for the position.

June Butler said...

The MSM, with a few exceptions, enabled Trump's election by focusing endlessly on Hillary Clinton's emails, her secrecy, her lack of likability, etc., etc., etc., even as they neglected to cover her policy speeches. At the same time, the media, especially the cable channels, highlighted Trump's inflammatory speeches and populist appeal and neglected to cover his many scandals and dubious associations.

Surprise! The media are now "concerned" about Trump's presidency. Far too little, too late. Shame on them. Not one of them comes close to deserving their multi-million dollar salaries. As for Maddow's nightly sermonettes, I've had enough.

trgahan said...

Ah yes...beat reporters lamenting the career killing reality that would be losing access to the Donald.

Something tells me 2017 is going to be the year of "But it wasn't supposed to negatively affect me!"

Robt said...

A clear answer America never received,

Bernie Sanders's question we will never get, because George Carlin told us,"we are not in the club and never will be".

The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

That sounds like an oligarchy.

So Sanders asked Yellen: “In your judgment, given the enormous power held by the billionaire class and their political representatives, are we still a capitalist democracy or have we gone over to an oligarchic form of society in which incredible enormous economic and political power now rests with the billionaire class?”

Yellen did not answer “yes.” But she did say, “There’s no question that we’ve had a trend toward growing inequality and I personally find it a very worrisome trend that deserves the attention of policymakers.”

Id you voted for Trump, you are not going to understand the question and need to see Rush or Breitbart for direction because you have no compass.
For everyone else, Why can't we get the Fed Chair to answer this before she is tossed out for jamie Dimon.?

bluicebank said...

"A small group of political journalists, the 'press pool,' would have been ready to travel with him -- but the pool was not notified. A Bloomberg staffer dining at the restaurant spotted Trump and tweeted a picture, and that's how we all found out where he was..."

Just wow. And these people are supposed to be in the big leagues. Jeez, even as a cub reporter at a weekly rag lost to history, we sure as shit knew how to cover the exits when the target of our affection grew gun shy. But you got the "scoop" because some Bloomberg guy got lucky (and got the restaurant HE WAS AT wrong)?

VonWenk said...

To the press: Cry me a river. You helped build this. Who knew this many people in this country were THIS stupid to vote for president someone who's never held public office before, but the media put Trump in a position to get elected, so a pox on them. It's a little late to be arguing the "merits" of white supremacy now.

Reading this post, Driftglass, given your penchant for using clips, it struck me that the climax of the Cheyenne episode "The Argonauts," where Edward Andrews gets stabbed in the back defending his gold, would have been appropriate accompaniment.

Meremark said...


Hey TV nonAmericans,

STOP showing all video of Trump.
STOP playing audio of Trump inflections and tone.

When you got something to tell about him
PRINT his words on the screen.
READ the words for your illiterate audience.

YOU speak his words.
You OWN those words.

GodIpuked at O'Donnell grinning like a rich elite saying, "we don't know what's going to happen, we're only going along letting him broadcast through us racist fascist bigotry to get along letting him do what he wants, we TV rich people don't care what happens to America, we're only his enablers, we have a riot of scary upsetting news so you got to watch to follow the action, stay tuned, don't kill your television" - et cetera sales pitch - while O'Donnell is thinking Moonves, 'this fearmongering is a ratings and profits gold mine.'

Trump does NOT build a wall, NOT deport millions, NOT make jobs, NOT undo ACA or Soc.Sec. or Medicare BECAUSE he CAN NOT.
He forfeits his fascism when he stood for POTUS.

He can NOT take his "family out to dinner" BECAUSE he is the President. He can RESIGN if he loves his fascism more.

Where's he going to be when the 3:am phone call requires a worldwar decision? Coked out tweeting?

If he doesn't like the fishbowl, get out of it.
You, Trump, are OURS now. We pay you. We own you. You behave with common decency in our house, or, prison.
Mr. Al Capone Trump TAX evader CHEAT. Prisoner 1.



Ed said...

Meremark- "OURS" lost the election.

Unknown said...

Yeah, the concept of "public servant" just won't stretch over Pepe the Orange Pukebag penis-shaped persona.Scuse me for asking, but did our glorious press corps ever point out that POTUS is only the first in a looooong line of public employees? Oh, right, autocracy. That happened.
Assholes, just about every last one of them. Now, completely neutered and irrelevant assholes.Tautology or oxymoron? YOU decide!