And while the press aids and abets Trump's call to violence, the great distraction continues away from his biggest failure, the pandemic. 180k+ Americans are dead on this president's watch because of his total incompetence. I hope some day we discover why the media is so willing to do what it can to help the worst president in American history get reelected.
I am shocked that the story about us refusing to join in the international effort to develop and distribute a vaccine hasn’t been a bigger story. By us not participating it will be harder to stop hoarding and may leave us out in the cold if other vaccines like Germany’s or the UK’s are available before we have one.
Just a few days ago I heard someone on MSNBC say that NBC is preparing an in-depth report on the recent increase in homicides. I was appalled. I don’t remember the media doing an in-depth report on the pronounced decrease in crime that we have experienced over decades. In fact the media has given the public the impression that crime has gotten worse over that time. The last thing we need during this election is for them to reinforce that misimpression. That will only reinforce the false belief pushed by the media that Republicans are the party of law and order. That is just as wrong as the belief that they are the party of fiscal responsibility.
In most any workplace toeing the line can mean the difference between a promotion and a demotion, keeping your job or sent packing.
The lack of integrity may start at the top, but it's perpetuated by anyone who needs that paycheck more than their conscience.
Funding is always the issue, so follow that money! For example: when NPR was more or less forced to present a (purportedly) less biased broadcasting of their well nuanced (albeit grain brainy) pieces, it was the beginning of the end for harder hitting material to be presented w/o the typical spin attached by an opposing faction. The waters get so easily muddled that way.
They also neglect to report on many of the consequences of the pandemic hurting so many Americans, including the ever-sinking economy, the tremendous number of small businesses that have had to close permanently, the continued loss of jobs...
Right, Trump sees the economy as the stock market, not what it means to people who have lost their businesses or those living from paycheck to paycheck, or worse having no income. While there is no question that the stunt of visiting Kenosha was to post his appeal to the police, this like many other things he does distracts from the bigger issues, specifically the pandemic, his battle with the SDNY and having to release his taxes, now the scandal involving what happened to the inauguration contributions. This presidency is exhausting. 4 more years of this will be intolerable.
It’s just another version of the media’s obsession with the “Democrats are in disarray” narrative. 🙄
I am so over it. And it isn’t working this time. Even the RNC couldn’t bring Trump’s or the GOP’s numbers up. It is disingenuous at best to lay any of the responsibility for the country’s problems on Joe Biden, but in all fairness, what else can they do? They know Trump isn’t really our president. He’s just playing a role. They need somebody to be POTUS. If anything, this has been helping Biden’s campaign, because it is showing Americans who the real leader is. On the plus side, some journalists (on Fox “News” no less!) are already calling Joe Biden “Mr. President.” Whether this is intentional to gaslight Americans into placing all the blame for America’s problems on him or not, I don’t know, but it has not helped Trump. And the majority of Americans are not not falling for it or shifting blame away from Trump. So, there’s that.
One of the many things Democrats have got to do in the first 100 days once they take control of the White House, Senate and House in January is reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to put an end to the bias media coverage, and especially put an end to foreign election interference by way of disinformation campaigns and propaganda, so we can avoid another media-enabling Trump type in the future.
There is no doubt in my mind the GOP will start blaming Biden for everything Trump did to us the moment he’s sworn in on January 20th, in order to create another Tea Party-like sweep in the 2022 midterms. Democrats have got to make voting rights and the Fairness Doctrine the #1 priority from the get-go or we’re going to be right back where we started and the circus begins again. And Americans are too exhausted for that.
A couple of my favorite journalists to pay attention to right now are Ana Navarro-Cardenas (sp?), Amy Siskind of The Weekly List, David Corn of Mother Jones, and Kyle Griffin at MSNBC (on social media). They are consistently factual, fair and interesting. I also like Robert Reich, but he’s not technically a journalist, I think.
Biden has dementia, and is a political hack, Harris is a racist and a Marxist and the left hates America. So blame Trump for everything that the dems and libtards did and are doing now. The left is the reason that these cities are burning and rioting is happening.
"I'm rubber and you're glue." Trump learned this method in elementary school and matured very little since then. His minority of voters are arrested in the same developmental stage. They like Trump's simple mindedness. But the press is not in arrested development. They know what is happening. Eric Boehlert, and a few others, have the task of explaining why the press does not cover this nightmare honestly. It is not a simple task.
Trump also deploys the Joseph McCarthy strategy of lying so much and so often, that it's impossible to keep up. The Glue people are stuck trying to show the lies as lies (a very slow process in this age of zero attention span), and the Rubber folks just get to bounce on to the next bogus headline, unfazed.
Additionally, being liars, for them, has ample rewards and no downside. Hence lawlessness. Biden has to obey the rules, when his opponent is completely free to break them.
What to do? The Media should simply open every interview with the Rubber Class like this: If you lie, the interview is over. In other words, the Media is the microphone. The oxygen. Starve the liars of their audience unless they abide by the rules.
It honesly makes you wonder. If "the press" doesn't understand who the president that created the situation we're in is, how is the average voter supposed to make the connection. This appears to be an "Emperor has no clothes" moment.
I think they do. A lot of them are as complicit as the Republican senators, and all for a horserace narrative. Remember, these are still a lot of the same people who decided they didn't want to have a beer with Al Gore.
Great point. Unfortunately, it's no longer hardball. It's lawlessness. When the GOP lawmakers abdicate their duty to uphold the constitution, it's taking a salary for doing nothing. It's being an accessory to the murder of this democracy.
And while the press aids and abets Trump's call to violence, the great distraction continues away from his biggest failure, the pandemic. 180k+ Americans are dead on this president's watch because of his total incompetence. I hope some day we discover why the media is so willing to do what it can to help the worst president in American history get reelected.
so important! and yr right, press has def pulled back coverage of runaway pandemic
I am shocked that the story about us refusing to join in the international effort to develop and distribute a vaccine hasn’t been a bigger story. By us not participating it will be harder to stop hoarding and may leave us out in the cold if other vaccines like Germany’s or the UK’s are available before we have one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/coronavirus-vaccine-trump/2020/09/01/b44b42be-e965-11ea-bf44-0d31c85838a5_story.html
Just a few days ago I heard someone on MSNBC say that NBC is preparing an in-depth report on the recent increase in homicides. I was appalled. I don’t remember the media doing an in-depth report on the pronounced decrease in crime that we have experienced over decades. In fact the media has given the public the impression that crime has gotten worse over that time. The last thing we need during this election is for them to reinforce that misimpression. That will only reinforce the false belief pushed by the media that Republicans are the party of law and order. That is just as wrong as the belief that they are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Why is the press so willing?
In most any workplace toeing the line can mean the difference between a promotion and a demotion, keeping your job or sent packing.
The lack of integrity may start at the top, but it's perpetuated by anyone who needs that paycheck more than their conscience.
Funding is always the issue, so follow that money! For example: when NPR was more or less forced to present a (purportedly) less biased broadcasting of their well nuanced (albeit grain brainy) pieces, it was the beginning of the end for harder hitting material to be presented w/o the typical spin attached by an opposing faction. The waters get so easily muddled that way.
That's definitely a big part of the issue, but economics plays its part *throughout the ranks.*
They also neglect to report on many of the consequences of the pandemic hurting so many Americans, including the ever-sinking economy, the tremendous number of small businesses that have had to close permanently, the continued loss of jobs...
Right, Trump sees the economy as the stock market, not what it means to people who have lost their businesses or those living from paycheck to paycheck, or worse having no income. While there is no question that the stunt of visiting Kenosha was to post his appeal to the police, this like many other things he does distracts from the bigger issues, specifically the pandemic, his battle with the SDNY and having to release his taxes, now the scandal involving what happened to the inauguration contributions. This presidency is exhausting. 4 more years of this will be intolerable.
It’s just another version of the media’s obsession with the “Democrats are in disarray” narrative. 🙄
I am so over it. And it isn’t working this time. Even the RNC couldn’t bring Trump’s or the GOP’s numbers up. It is disingenuous at best to lay any of the responsibility for the country’s problems on Joe Biden, but in all fairness, what else can they do? They know Trump isn’t really our president. He’s just playing a role. They need somebody to be POTUS. If anything, this has been helping Biden’s campaign, because it is showing Americans who the real leader is. On the plus side, some journalists (on Fox “News” no less!) are already calling Joe Biden “Mr. President.” Whether this is intentional to gaslight Americans into placing all the blame for America’s problems on him or not, I don’t know, but it has not helped Trump. And the majority of Americans are not not falling for it or shifting blame away from Trump. So, there’s that.
One of the many things Democrats have got to do in the first 100 days once they take control of the White House, Senate and House in January is reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to put an end to the bias media coverage, and especially put an end to foreign election interference by way of disinformation campaigns and propaganda, so we can avoid another media-enabling Trump type in the future.
There is no doubt in my mind the GOP will start blaming Biden for everything Trump did to us the moment he’s sworn in on January 20th, in order to create another Tea Party-like sweep in the 2022 midterms. Democrats have got to make voting rights and the Fairness Doctrine the #1 priority from the get-go or we’re going to be right back where we started and the circus begins again. And Americans are too exhausted for that.
A couple of my favorite journalists to pay attention to right now are Ana Navarro-Cardenas (sp?), Amy Siskind of The Weekly List, David Corn of Mother Jones, and Kyle Griffin at MSNBC (on social media). They are consistently factual, fair and interesting. I also like Robert Reich, but he’s not technically a journalist, I think.
Great, great song choice this week.
Mr. Boehlert,
Off topic; but important to me.
It is appalling late for me to finally grok this; but I see the source of our disagreements over Facebook.
You see Facebook as an active “media outlet” supplying news.
I see Facebook as an electronic “wall” upon which everyone can post; but having no responsibility for the items posted by individuals.
This, of course, does not include the advertising Facebook accepts.
Of course we can’t agree if we don’t see Facebook the same way.
Biden has dementia, and is a political hack, Harris is a racist and a Marxist and the left hates America. So blame Trump for everything that the dems and libtards did and are doing now. The left is the reason that these cities are burning and rioting is happening.
"I'm rubber and you're glue." Trump learned this method in elementary school and matured very little since then. His minority of voters are arrested in the same developmental stage. They like Trump's simple mindedness. But the press is not in arrested development. They know what is happening. Eric Boehlert, and a few others, have the task of explaining why the press does not cover this nightmare honestly. It is not a simple task.
ha, it should be a simple task. but unfortunately it’s not
Trump also deploys the Joseph McCarthy strategy of lying so much and so often, that it's impossible to keep up. The Glue people are stuck trying to show the lies as lies (a very slow process in this age of zero attention span), and the Rubber folks just get to bounce on to the next bogus headline, unfazed.
Additionally, being liars, for them, has ample rewards and no downside. Hence lawlessness. Biden has to obey the rules, when his opponent is completely free to break them.
What to do? The Media should simply open every interview with the Rubber Class like this: If you lie, the interview is over. In other words, the Media is the microphone. The oxygen. Starve the liars of their audience unless they abide by the rules.
It honesly makes you wonder. If "the press" doesn't understand who the president that created the situation we're in is, how is the average voter supposed to make the connection. This appears to be an "Emperor has no clothes" moment.
question is, do they know who is he is but just don’t want to tell voters
I think they do. A lot of them are as complicit as the Republican senators, and all for a horserace narrative. Remember, these are still a lot of the same people who decided they didn't want to have a beer with Al Gore.
as I’ve said fir years, Beltway press is in awe of GOP hardball
Great point. Unfortunately, it's no longer hardball. It's lawlessness. When the GOP lawmakers abdicate their duty to uphold the constitution, it's taking a salary for doing nothing. It's being an accessory to the murder of this democracy.