27 Comments

None of this is ever going to change until The Fairness Doctrine is reinstated with upgrades for social media and digital news. In fact, I expect it to get worse. The mainstream media seems hellbent on moving America towards autocracy, simply for the political theater.

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author

their laziness carries a stiff price for country

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What really angers me about Mika blaming Hillary for not warning us about how dangerous Trump was is that it is the job of people like Mika who have powerful media positions to warn us about dangerous, dishonest politicians even if their opponents don’t. (Going negative can hurt a politician, especially a woman.)

Mika isn’t alone in this attitude. For years the media has adopted the attitude that if the opposition, especially Democrats, don’t criticize their opponents then the media doesn’t have an obligation to inform voters. Too many political journalists view their job more as reporting “he said/she said” and leaving it at that rather than giving us the facts we need to make informed decisions. That is as lazy as it gets.

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Mika tore into Joe Biden about Tara Reade. Won't watch her again.

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Just like every other GOP Stenographer...

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Especially with such a GOP stenographer as Mika who endlessly trashed Hillary in 2016. Mika endlessly pushed Trump and lied ay lie for him...UNTIL Trump turned on her and Morning Joke. Then and ONLY then did she reduce her GOP stenography!

Oh and I remember how Mr. -4600 on Jeopardy Blitzer got his start under his mentor Pulpit Pimp Pat Robertson!

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Wow! I never knew that Blitzer started out with Robertson’s 700 Club.

As for Mika, she is the champion of women. I know that because she keeps telling us she is. But I guess she forgot about that when she was swooning over the bully boys Chris Christie and Trump but trashing Hillary.

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You are so right.

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Their laziness should have consequences. I know we need and want a free press, but there has to be some minimum of standards and accountability. If not, it carries a stiff price for the world too.

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Yes. Exactly.

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With Moscow Mitch threatening the repeal of Section 230 as a poison pill to Covid Relief, we may in fact get back to the fairness doctrine once the bottom falls out from social media.

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If Mitch gets his way and kills Section 230 watch the meltdown when @jack kicks Trump off of Twitter. Oh and Parler will shut down as well. That's just the start...

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Dec 30, 2020Liked by Eric Boehlert

You left out #13 - The media has printed, over and over, stories about Trump's claims of alleged "cheating" in this election on the part of the Democrats without once mentioning that Trump was himself impeached for attempting to cheat in this very election.

I'd think that would be something to include in any article that involved Trump accusing others of cheating.

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Dec 30, 2020Liked by Eric Boehlert

well to be fair I think it goes from #13 to maybe #500....it's a mess

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Thanks Eric. I'll add the ridiculous September 15 Town Hall with ABC News where George Stephanopoulos allowed the most blatant lies go out largely unchecked to millions of viewers. Like trump taking credit for New York's response. And of course lying about being tested before the Presidential Debate, though Savannah Guthrie cleaned that up a bit.

Cheers, and Happy New Year.

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author

Ha! so many options! Thanks, and you too

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Now watch what happens on January 20th when the DC Press Corpse and the Sunday Gasbag Shows go into full GOP attack mode on Joe. It will be relentless just like it was with Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama.

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oh we're definitely going to see a change in press behavior next month....the return of "optics"!

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I refuse to watch Morning Joe because both Mike and Joe fawned over tRump for a long, long time. It is interesting to watch a lot of women reporters interview women in politics - women are our own worst enemies, the inner "Jr High Mean Girl" seems to come out!

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That may be an issue but "mean girl" is a good description for Howell Raines, who directed NYT attacks on both of the Clintons based on his pique over having someone else from Arkansas getting attention.

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It's like they forgotten how hard it was for them to succeed in their job goal. No these women do "high school mean girl" you know the empty headed ones who hate any other girl who is smart. I've always say as women we are our worst enemy not wanting the girl in front of us to get ahead so we will pull her down it's sad.

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A fine job of narrowing multiple daily occurrences of disgraces to journalism to 12.

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It wasn’t easy, sadly

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To be fair, screw-ups happen. But theirs are consistent and they don't learn from them.

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The Main Street press is one aspect of how our system failed. Even though Joe Biden won, our system of democracy hangs by a thread. In fact, our democracy has always been flawed because so many Americans have been disenfranchised from the very beginning of our nation. In addition to the press, it was an entire political party and 40 percent of Americans who more or less said they would rather have an authoritarian government than a democracy. The press helped to push us to the brink of autocracy. I wish I could be more optimistic but it is only a matter of time before this country sinks into authoritarianism for good. The people will decide they said. Yes, while we did get Trump out of office we didn't take the Senate with that hanging on a long shot of two runoff elections in Georgia. We lost seats in the house and state legislatures too. I'm not sure what it will ever take for people to wake up. Don't look to the mainstream media to help us out either, not while they are owned by the 1 percent. Truth is not in their best interest.

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I tend to agree with your assertions about how bad the media is and often make me very angry and sad over it but I wonder if you are having any impact on the media? Or are you just screaming into a void and nothing will ever change? I hope you are making an impact - can you share if you see anything in the horizon - I’m desperate to hear some good news on this front 🙄

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The press continues to validate the process of "signature matching," which is rife with possibilities for chicanery.

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