}

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Political Notebook 4: Media rare


If this isn’t the weirdest US election ever, then I don’t ever want to see what would take that title. There’s terrible media performance, actual events that are the exact opposite of what “should” happen, and the miasma of petulant disgust expressed for “both the candidates”, even though one of them will nevertheless win. Where’s the reset button?

Chief among the problems with this election is the truly shockingly bad performance of the news media that repeatedly fails to do its job, allowing Donald, who repeatedly and brazenly lies, to do so without consequences. This isn’t the failing of any one journalist or network or medium, the plague is on all their houses.

The video above is the first in a new web series from GQ called “The Closer”, in which Keith Olbermann takes on Donald in Keith’s inimitable style, something we haven’t see for many years [full transcript and links are available on the GQ site]. When GQ announced the series with a teaser video (https://youtu.be/bQueaSlvjCw), they said:
He's been watching this absurd election, waiting, wondering why no one is saying what needs to be said. So he's going to do it himself. Introducing GQ's new Special Correspondent, Keith Olbermann, in a series called The Closer. Stay tuned. As you might have guessed, he has a few thoughts to share.
There’s no telling how many people will watch the series—that depends, of course, on how often they’re shared—but it’s well past time that the Donald was called out on his lies and his outrageous statements. Even President Obama has complained about how the news media isn’t holding Donald accountable:
Donald Trump says stuff every day that used to be considered as disqualifying for being president. And yet because he says it over and over again, the press just gives up and then you say, well, yeah, you know, okay. They did stuff — I was opposed to the war in Iraq. Well, actually, he wasn't, but they just accept it.
Meanwhile, Donald launched into a fauxage when Hillary Clinton said that “half” of his supporters were in “a basket of deplorables”, something she said just before that line was “grossly generalistic”. When Donald’s fans started shrieking, Hillary did apologise—for the specificity of the term “half”. She also put it into context:
I was "grossly generalistic," and that's never a good idea. I regret saying "half"—that was wrong. But let's be clear, what's really "deplorable" is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called "alt-right" movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values. It's deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people. It's deplorable that he's attacked a federal judge for his "Mexican heritage," bullied a Gold Star family because of their Muslim faith, and promoted the lie that our first black President is not a true American. So I won't stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign. I also meant what I said last night about empathy, and the very real challenges we face as a country where so many people have been left out and left behind. As I said, many of Trump's supporters are hard-working Americans who just don't feel like the economy or our political system are working for them. I'm determined to bring our country together and make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. Because we really are "stronger together."
Donald’s attack on Hillary Clinton over the “half” remark sounded awfully familiar to the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn:
It was reminiscent of Trump's hyperbolic assessment of moderator Megyn Kelly's exchange with him at a Republican primary debate in the summer of 2015: "She had great anger when she was questioning me … she became very angry," he said, even though viewers plainly saw that Kelly was calm and measured when pressing Trump on remarks he'd made that were critical of women.
Donald, of course, also said about Kelly, "there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever", so he’s not exactly the best judge of other people, though he clearly enjoys smearing them.

It’s not just about Donald, either: The news media have also allowed Donald’s surrogates to lie that voters don’t want to see Donald’s tax returns when, in fact, they do.

So, where does this leave us? Will we ever get a hard look at Donald? Will journalists call him out on his lies, rather than let him get away with them? And what about the allegations of fraud and corruption against Donald—will they ignore all that so they can blather on and on about Hillary’s health or emails some more?

I’m not holding my breath for better journalism, however, maybe all this public shaming will finally get them to do their jobs. Maybe.

Why this matters: If the newsmedia don’t hold Donald accountable, if they don’t call him out on his lies, if the don’t keep the pressure on him about his promotion of white supremacists and other fringe extremists, and if they instead continue to give oxygen to Donald Inc.’s latest conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health or other absurd allegations from the “alt-right” folks, then we will end up with President Donald.

Finally, other things I saw and forgot to share:

25 Logical Reasons to Vote for Donald Trump – Trust me, you’ll want to follow the link.

Donald Trump and His Family Are Profiting From His Campaign

The Rhetorical Tool That Allows Trump To Incite Violence Without ‘Inciting Violence’

Donald Trump Insult Generator – A quick and easy way to insult like Donald

Who Said It: Donald Trump or The Onion? – This is actually harder than you might think.

4 comments:

rogerogreen said...

The working theory is that Donald lies SO much that if they called him on it each time, theyy'd be accused of bias against him. FWIW.

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

I can certainly see why news media types say that, but the problem with that excuse—because that's all it is—is that they will be accused of bias no matter what they do. As it is, by not calling out the lies of Donald and his surrogates, by never talking about allegations of corruption and bribery against Donald, by not talking (until VERY recently) abut Donald's promotion of white supremacists and the so-called "alt-right", the newsmedia is being de facto biased IN FAVOUR of Donald.


Also, by doing all that and giving oxygen to the latest whacked-out conspiracy theory or nonsense fake charge against Hillary Clinton that Donald got from the rightwing fringe (who aren't so fringe these days…) and alt-right folks, they are de facto biased AGAINST Hillary Clinton.

The news media has a simple job, really: To report the news fairly and accurately. They're absolutely abandoning their duty when they give Donald and his mates a free run while constantly going after Hillary Clinton. Their pathetic excuse that they'd be accused of bias if they treated Donald with the same harshness they treat Hillary Clinton is nothing but puerile and pathethic bovine excrement. In my opinion. 😉

rogerogreen said...

In FB discussion, someone has written of K.O.: "He is a paid character assassin. He's rehashing the same accusations made against Trump. since the beginning of his campaign." To which someone else noted: "I will refrain from insulting you personally. But as Roger [me] said above, you only have to listen to what comes out of Trump's mouth. And because he is featured on almost every news and talk show 24/7, I have heard him actually say most of the things Olbermann attributed to him. In other cases, I have read the accounts of people that have had to deal with him. I even know a couple of people personally who have had to try and get paid for the work they did for him. So this is not a "choice" I have to make about believing Olbermann or not. It is the sad reality of Donald Trump. It's hard to imagine that one guy running for President can be such an ass clown, but then Mr. Trump is no ordinary guy."

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

That's so true. What's interesting about Keith's video is that it's fully documented—ALL the sources for every quote are listed. But Trump has been a leading force in "post-truth" politics in which no fact matters when they're inconvenient for a particular ideology, opinion, or even fandom.

So, the first person attacked Keith personally, ignoring the fact that every single thing he said was directly from Trump himself. They're not "accusations", they're merely recitation of fact. But that first guy ignores the facts and truth because they conflict with his ideological viewpoint (I head the exact same silly charges levelled against Keith back when his target was Bush the Second).

What our side of things doesn't udnerstand is how very easy it is for "their side" to do that and ignore facts and reality. The fact they do is, I think, why it's so hard for us to always beat them at the polls.