Friday, September 16, 2016

Donald Trump Explains To Cable News How Their Relationship Works...


...in words so simple that even Don Lemon can understand them

And now they're all pissy about how rudely --



-- their meth dealer has treated them.

From the very capable Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post:
It’s time for TV news to stop playing the stooge for Donald Trump

By Margaret Sullivan Media Columnist
September 16 at 1:47 PM

Donald Trump said “Jump,” and TV news said “How high?”

It happened again Friday morning when the Republican presidential candidate held the media hostage for nearly an hour after promising a major news announcement.

“Breaking News: Trump To Make ‘Big Announcement’ on Birther Issue,” said the banner on MSNBC.

“Soon: Trump To Address Birther Issue,” said CNN’s banner. Fox News was, of course, along for the ride.

While they waited, and waited, Trump provided what amounted to a campaign infomercial and shamelessly promoted his new Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington.

When it was over, and he had said the absurdly obvious — that he now accepts that President Obama was born in the United States — there was, at least, some long overdue indignation.

“We got played again,” CNN’s John King said on the air. And that was as obvious as the announcement itself.
...

Dan Gillmor, a media scholar at Arizona State University, on Twitter called this episode “universal sewer dwelling” for cable news. By phone afterward, he said that “no journalist with a shred of integrity would have covered it.”

Saying the press got played, he said, is an understatement.

“This is a campaign and a candidate that completely understands how the press works — or doesn’t work — and exploits the blatant weaknesses of political journalism.”
...
Ms. Sullivan ends with something between a prayer and a demand that this must stop:
With public trust in the media at an abysmal low, it’s time — long past time — for TV news outlets to stop playing the stooge for Trump. The paradox, of course, is that Trump expresses nothing but contempt for the very people in the media who have made his candidacy viable.

Even if the turning point comes far too late, when billions of dollars of free media have promoted a candidacy like never before, it must come now.

Indignation in the immediate moment should turn to soul-searching in the boardroom and the newsroom.

This can’t happen again.
Sure it can happen again.  

In fact as anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the political media over the last 20 years will tell you, it will definitely happen again...and again...and again...until the reward structure of cable news changes from the top down.  Until pandering to bigots and Both Sidering every Republican atrocity into fog and ash stops being their fucking business model.  

And that will not happen until an unholy amount of professional pain is inflicted on the perpetrators, which means firing a lot of media hacks and liars and quislings, from the top down.  

8 comments:

bluicebank said...

Which makes the media the Jesse Pinkman to Donnie's Walter White.

Sure, you were cooking since way back. But then comes along a guy who takes "Better Living Through Chemistry" to a whole 'nother level.

dinthebeast said...

Kind of like what Bill Clinton said to Jon Stewart in their first interview, on the subject of dirty political trickery: "As long as it works, they'll keep doing it."

-Doug in Oakland

bowtiejack said...

Amen.

RUKidding said...

Nothing will change. NOTHING.

Because: ratings, money, money, ratings.

It seems obvious to me that the Media Oligarchs are just as disgustingly racist, homophobic, sexist, bigoted, xenophobic, hateful, unpatriotic, nasty and worthless as Trump's hard core AltRight fans. What's the difference, other some millions and billions of dollars? Seriously.

One lot of fans lives in trailer parks and broken down working class areas with lost teeth, bad diets, drug habits and the rest that goes with it.

The other lot lives in baronial splendor with everything that money can buy except for of course: values, morals, ethics, a sense fairness, concern for their community, the environment, etc.

Neither group can truly be called patriots, nor does either group give a shit about our nation. It's all: every man for himself and let the devil take the hindmost.

The Altright goons arm themselves with amories of weapons that they can ill afford, whilst the rich buy personal security goons, live in heavily gated and guarded "plantations" surrounding themselves with the trappings of wealth, including personal armies to defend them.

The Oligarchs in charge of the media won't change one damn thing. Why should they? Trump has made a DEAL with them: cut their taxes, cut regulations, cut cut cut cut... and let them continue to pollute and spoil what's left of the environment whilst possibly buying up public lands and public parks for pennies on the dollar. Why should the Oligarchs stop Trump now? Cui Bono if Trump wins? The .001% of course.

What does the AltRight get out of it? Confirmation that their disgusting debased white supremacist POV is "correct." That their very whiteness gives them a leg up over the darkies, the dirty messicans and especially over the heathen muzlinz.

Eh? I suspect we'll be treated to lots more Trump infomercials before this election finally (blessedly) grinds to a screeching halt. Why shouldn't the Oligarchs let Trump provide infomercials selling his "brand"? What's it to the Oligarchs? As long as they get THEIRS, Trump can do his thing.

I expect fuck all to change. Who's gonna stop it??

BTW I suspect that today's broadcast was quite cleverly ginned up by none other than Roger the Ailes. I've smelt his sweaty hand behind the scenes since Trump hired him some weeks ago... it also coincides with Trump behaving with - for him - some control over his "message" and with less outbursts. This is being sold as the Trump "pivot" to prove how Trump is truly "presidential." Yes, yes, it all goes back to filthy Richard Milhous Nixon - ptoui - once again.

stratocruiser said...

Some say the media started kneeling in Reagan's time. I think it was Walter Cronkite's final telling of truth after Tet; "Stalemate" and Agnew's riposte
"Those nattering nabobs of negativism."
The press has never recovered from this shoot-the-messenger attack.

Neo Tuxedo said...

I expect fuck all to change. Who's gonna stop it??

Not a who, I suspect, but a what. Unfortunately, I suspect that "what" will be an extinction-level event or some other flavor of Outside Context Problem ("the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a fullstop" -- Iain El-Bonko Banks, Excession)

Paul W said...

The media has to honestly man up and deny Trump any coverage.

Just do a one-day moratorium on covering him. Even if he calls up claiming IT'S A BIG NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT, the press should avoid him like the plague. Take no calls from his campaign people, deny them airtime on the pundit shows.

DO NOT EVEN MENTION HIS NAME. HIS BRAND, HIS TRADEMARK. NOT A WORD OF IT.

They'll get calls, obviously. People will complain. But the press has a good reason now.

This SOB has abused the PRIVILEGE of getting news coverage to where he can no longer be trusted to be factual, accurate, or respectful. Not to the media, but to the audience he's conning as well.

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