Eric, this piece is spot on except for one glaring omission - the misogyny behind the harsh and ridiculously critical coverage of our first female vice president. It might be tiresome to talk or write about, but it's there. Whenever there is an article on Harris, it portrays her as inept, weak, confused, clumsy - the opposite of the sure-footed, confident presidential candidate and former Attorney General of California. And comments never fail to come from bitter and spiteful men who insist Harris "slept" her way to the top (because heaven forbid a woman, especially one who is not white, should actually earn a promotion based on merit). At the same time, the sexual behavior of male politicians, especially the former president, barely gets discussed.
I only skim articles on Harris now, for this reason. I just can't stand that feeling of powerless anger. And I also think, at this rate it's going to be a very long time before we elect a female president.
The fact that the media hasn’t breathed a sigh of relief now that we have an administration that attends to serious issues but it is clear they are bored by that. They are clearly a bunch of excitement/conflict junkies who hype conflict and problems rather than report on boring substance or, heaven forfend!, good news.
I was taken aback when I ran across this article in Business Insider:
“One gobsmacking chart shows how Biden's economy is doing way, way better than all the others”
I follow economic news pretty closely but I had not idea that we have the best post-covid economy of all because we had a much bigger stimulus. You would think the fact that our economy is larger now than it was before covid. Biden has a better economy than Trump did yet all the media focuses on is inflation. Trump’s economy just continued the strong growth of Obama’s second term, growth that was also better than other countries because we had a larger stimulus than they did. Biden’s strong economy is the direct result of his actions, not just the continuation of a trend as Trump’s was.
Instead of reporting on the strong economy the media obsesses over inflation, blaming it on the stimulus, not temporary supply-chain issues. Then they hammer Biden and the Democrats for not “messaging” effectively. Yesterday afternoon Biden finally got live coverage of his speech about his efforts to reduce gas prices by releasing our petroleum reserves and getting other countries to do the same. He is also asking the FTC to look into possible illegal price gouging by oil companies, proving he isn’t afraid to take them on.
The WaPo didn’t cover that story until hours later, and then not in a prominent article which was gone by this morning. The NYT’s article was more immediate and prominent but only for a few hours. Now the top article at their site is how inflation is complicating the Biden agenda.
There profits are way up now. Biden pointed out that the price of crude has dropped recently but not the price at the pump which is the reason for the price gouging investigation. There is no way the oil companies are happy about that.
Harris is being Hillaried, it's that simple. Why are white men so fearful of powerful competent women? Did they have bad mothers? These same men love to objectify women though. Their image of the perfect women is someone who looks like a model who can also cook, clean the house, sew, and mostly keep quiet. You know - how women were viewed in the 1950s. Ah, for these men, the good old days. Seriously however, the fact that the media did not make more of the fact that we had a women President, even for just a couple of hours, is telling. Those little boys on the Hill and in the press must have simply been terrified. It's amazing how infantile the press can be.
They do t and it’s not about falling in line. It’s just part and parcel of the media’s disdain for the Dems. They are like the c kids in the back of the room who launch spitballs and make fun of the smart kids who do their homework and study for tests. Not all reporters of course. There are many good ones. But most of the Beltway kids.
As I posted before, my friends in France don't understand what is going on with the American press. When Kamala was in France she got extremely positive press from them while at the same time the Spiniochios and Spinderellas in the US media endlessly trashed her visit.
It all goes back to who owns the press and once you see who owns it you get your answer why they are endlessly reciting Republican propaganda.
The media owners, with a few exceptions, don’t dictate what stories should be covered or how. They’ve got their empires to run which include more than just a newspaper. They leave that to the publishers and editors and producers who have their own agendas. At the WSJ, the publisher is very aligned with his boss. NPR, which isn’t “corporate owned” does these kind of shit stories too. I stopped listening when they axed Bob Edward’s from Morning Edition and replaced him with Inskeep and Renee M.
This media coverage problem isn’t new. David Brock started media matters to expose and push back on the RW propaganda he was part of against the Clintons. He wasn’t the only one then but there weren’t that many media watchdogs as today. The media problem just seems like it’s new because of more analysis and readers growing increasingly savvy to coverage. But it did go to a new level with the bad reporting in 2016. Much as Trump’s rise has shone a spotlight on the dark undercurrents of the GOP, it also exposed the weaknesses of the media, imho.
I think you are right. Back in the 90s and early 2000s I felt like I was losing my mind because almost no one realized just how much their opinions were being warped by the media’s games. I spent a lot of 2000 convincing younger Democrats I knew that Gore had never claimed to have invented the internet, but had in fact been a champion of its development and had pushed hard to get it funded by the government and kept free to the public. I constantly heard friends who are not right wingers of Fox News viewers
repeat right wing spin about Democrats. Some of them have told be in recent years that I was right and they regret not having listened. It has helped that there is much more criticism of the media. The most effective from what I can see is when people like the WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin, Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman openly call out the biased media coverage of Biden and the Dems they claim are in disarray. Back in the day that kind of criticism in major media outlets was rare to non-existent.
Remember HRC's "vast right wing conspiracy"? The media laughed and laughed and ripped her apart for it. Turns out she was right, just like she's been right about so many things. Even when they acknowledge the truth, it's wrapped in disdain, like this gem from Sept 2016:
Karen Tumulty says, yes, the RWC exists but IT IS ALL HILLARY'S FAULT. If she just hadn't been so darn secretive about Whitewater at the beginning, there would have been no scandal cause it would have blown over. (As if.) Clinton got the name of Slick Willy in AK, so you know these people are just untrustworthy, is how these journalists' thinking goes, ignoring the forces aligned from the Clintons' from their earliest days. (I'm not saying they are perfect, no one is.)
So many of the kings and queens of today's Beltway press came of age during the 1980s and early '90s when Reaganism was ascendant and The Dartmouth Review, the crown jewel of young conservatism, was born (1980). That era's "liberalism is ruining us" shaped this generation and has completely colored their outlook towards the Dems and the GOP. It's baked in. I was in college then (had the misguided notion of being a reporter), and was appalled by the nonsense many of my compatriots were spouting. Fast forward forty years, and here we are.
There is also a problem on the left, with the coterie of activists who attack Dems with equal ferocity to the GOP (most notably in the Twitterverse). Media amplifies their voices as well. With so much hate all around, the fight to hold on to Congress (and the WH) feels Sisyphean some days.
Whew! I was waiting for this one. Of course, any chance the press gets no matter how made up something is they are ready to pounce on Madame VP Harris. We ain't ever heard anything about what Pence was doing (cuz it wasn't s*it) to make the world better. Listen the bottom line is that white men feel inadequate when presented with a woman of color in a place of power. Let's be real a woman of color period they feel insecure. And don't let her be smarter than them in every way. It's all too much for them to handle. Thank you Eric for always shining a light. I did watch you live on The Reid Out the other day. Always great to see you.
One of FDR's vice presidents - Jack Garner -speaking to Lyndon Johnson, famously said, “The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.” Not much has changed, with the exception of Dick Cheney muscling the ill equipped GW Bush out of the way to start the endless war on terror. The media was so busy carrying water for Cheney that his usurpation of the presidency was ignored. The media also "forgot" to hector the laughably unqualified Jared Kushner when the Former Guy tasked him with everything from peace in the Middle East to "reinventing government." What do Cheney and Kushner have that Kamala doesn't? Most notably, the Y chromosome.
Actually Al Gore was a very active, very effective VP. The media mostly ignored him but he headed the Clinton administration’s ambitious “reinventing government” initiative which made some important improvements in the way our government works. For example Gore pushed hard to implement technology to make the government more accessible to the public. Online filing of tax returns and government websites like Medicare.com are a direct result. During the Clinton administration trust in government rose significantly in part because of that program.
Gore also chaired the commission on aviation safety and security which did an in-depth study of potential threats. The commissioners consulted with officials in countries like Israel which had a strong record preventing terrorist attacks. The final report had substantive proposals which were ignored by the media. The proposals were stymied by the FAA and the airlines and ignored by the Bush administration. It took 9-11 for them to take airport security seriously.
Of course all most people knew about Gore when he ran for president was that he was a big fat liar who had claimed to have invented the internet thanks to Karl Rove and our political press.
I think they don’t like Dems cause they are “too smart” (even though many went to the same schools) and they don’t believe they want to actually govern to improve the country. I remember listening to an interview with one of Warren Buffet’s grandkids after Buffet made the announcement of turning his fortune into a foundation. The reporter wanted to know if the grandkids resented that they weren’t inheriting it all and couldn’t believe it when she said they were fine with it. That is the level of cynical skepticism that drives so many stories.
The report of his airline security commission was completely ignored by the Bush administration and the media didn’t bother to give attention to what it recommended.
Yes, sadly so. And it took about a year longer than it should have to get the TSA up and running because the Bush Adm. wanted to make sure it was not unionized. "Priorities." <sigh>
Biden made it clear that, as Obama did with him, he was giving her a large and important portfolio. But instead of reporting on what she’s actually doing, all we get is 8th-grade level gossip column BS. The LAT has devoted reporting to her that they just began—which makes sense because of her importance and centrality to the state. It’s very fair—and stories mention the unfair coverage she gets.
It is frustrating that the media do a piss poor job actually reporting on real issues then blame the Dems for “bad messaging”—a narrative that has been picked up by commenters here and across the spectrum. They really have their knives out for the Democrats and I honestly don’t where the hatred originated.
As for the success of GOP “messaging” they have no real agenda to push. All they have are lies and increasingly threatening rhetoric. They are nihilists and the media consistently gives them a pass and instead blame dems. I was joking this morning that next they may say Santa Claus is a communist/socialist because he doles out free stuff to kids and gets them dependent on him for goodies. It’s easy to tear down—death panels, death tax, war on Christmas—etc when the media keep giving them the mics to spread such nonsense and rarely challenge their lies.
Margaret Brennan was getting praise for "pushing back" against Ted Cruz's BS about the 2020 election on Face the Nation, but the real issue is this: Why give Ted Cruz a platform in the first place? You KNOW he is going to spread nonsense. It's what he does. Period. Full stop. Recall Chuck Todd saying he doesn't call out GOP lies because if he did, "No one would come on the show." Like so many other faux journalists, Todd's first and only concern is the number on his paycheck.
To put an exclamation point at the end of Eric’s premise today, see (or don’t). Matt Lewis in current Daily Beast, “Kamala Harris on her way to being next Dan Quayle.” I haven’t read anything past the headline. Enraging.
It always feels like the right wing media's super power is that they are treated as a legitimate if "slightly slanted" news source. The regular trickle of outrage from Fox to Politico to the New York Times leads to this kind of coverage. The right has moral clarity, yes bad morals, but still lots of clarity. Harris is an uppity black woman who deserves constant criticism to put her in her place. It's not about a $400 piece of cookware. If it hadn't been that it would have been a pair or shoes or a croissant. It was a story that was going to be written no matter what. Now that story will float up to the Times as a "Harris who is always a little of out touch with regular Americans" frame. Since the media so studiously holds the "we must be neutral frame" they are like naïfs constantly sucked into the clear moral outrage of the right. They have no moral clarity, no clear boundaries to guide coverage. The Right "knows" they deserve whatever they have and don't care where McConnell spends his vacations. They also "know" Democrats deserve nothing, only more so a black woman Democrat; and so every ice cream, every haircut, every pair of shoes is a perfect vehicle for outrage. It seems like a hopeless loop we are destined to repeat considering the leadership at the major outlets.
One of the best incidents along these lines was Diane Sawyer, who was then knocking down $12M/yr., telling Hillary Clinton that she (Hillary) was too wealthy to relate to ordinary Americans.
"The regular trickle of outrage from Fox to Politico to the New York Times leads to this kind of coverage." I never really thought of it this way. So we can assume main stream media is all the same except for the conservative/liberal window dressing.
I have my own opinions on why this is happening. I would like to hear from other folks on their views of media collusion.
No I wouldn't say, in my opinion at least, they are "the same except for the conservative/liberal window dressing". My point was that because of a clear attachment to neutrality over all over other values they are easily put to service for partisan publications that only have a fig leaf of neutral news coverage. I also don't think it is collusion. I think it is a structural defect. They want to have collegial relations with all "journalists" and want to consider themselves as independent players who could work for a variety of publications/outlets. But that has lead to treating reporters from Fox as equally professional (ostensibly neutral) when the Fox reporters themselves view their role as partisan "truth tellers".
Yesterday the Atlantic posted a piece saying that one of Harris' staff is leaving. Even though it mentioned that the staffer had planned to depart after a year, the article still has all the old tropes - that there is unhappiness, infighting, and dissatisfaction in working for Harris, who is portrayed as the Wicked Witch of the West. And of course that everyone in Washington despises her. This is the misogyny in full bloom.
Eric, I think it's high time for pushback delivered DIRECTLY to each of these malefactors--and what I'd propose (if you had unlimited time and an extra intern or two, yeh like THAT's going to happen) is to end each of these pieces with names and emails, AND names and emails of the reporters/commentators bosses (or in the case of broadcast media, their producers and show bookers), so that each of your readers can decide which media whore(s) to write to (respectfully and civilly, of course) in order to convey disappointment with their willful distortion of events to fit "narratives" of lies. I sure as hell would do it. I'm sure many of your other subscribers would too, because we'd love the opportunity to explain to each of them how much this shallow performative punditry is endangering our democracy. I'm sure that's not why you set up "Press Run," i.e. to function as a clearing house for public commentary, but I sure wish someone in the media-critique line would do this. (Let me know if someone is, in case I've missed it!) And thanks for your work!
No doubt about it. Many prominent women had her back in the run up to the election and it worked. Fortunately among the young women I know, 20 somethings, they won’t put you with the crap heaped on the likes of Kamala. They push back. But your point is well taken.
Gee a prominent woman politician who has been attacked relentlessly for months is being "defensive" I can't imagine why that might be or whether there are any other examples of this in the past few years.
What fun it must be to attack the first woman, first woman of color to EARN the position of US VP. Cheap shots, inane drivel, shallow nonsense no one is interested in other than the msm. Junior High much? How about we cover 24/7 and pick apart every one of msm members to see how their jobs compare w/ the day to day experiences of Kamala. I think msm is happy to slap down another woman so the writers can feel better about themselves. There is no sense of the historic place she holds nor the success of the work she is doing.
The flip side of this coin is that 🇺🇸WOMEN should not allow these media shenanigans to slide by w/o constantly calling them out! This is the missing piece here… ALL women need to help stop this ‘accepted’ level of downplaying other women’s contributions (and women journalists do it too). I really don’t understand what kind of society people think will be left for their own daughters/granddaughters if moving the goalposts re: their honest achievements becomes the norm (if it isn’t already).
The question is how to call them out so they will hear us. The NY Times and WaPo used to have public editors to take and address readers complaints but they both eliminated that position.
And Harris just released a statement on the Arbery case, so any moment we'll be hearing that she's "sticking her nose in" and being "divisive" and "inflammatory."
Actually the response was that she was too tepid. Of course if she had had a stronger statement she would have been condemned for the things you list. Typical of the sexist treatment women constantly receive — damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Eric, this piece is spot on except for one glaring omission - the misogyny behind the harsh and ridiculously critical coverage of our first female vice president. It might be tiresome to talk or write about, but it's there. Whenever there is an article on Harris, it portrays her as inept, weak, confused, clumsy - the opposite of the sure-footed, confident presidential candidate and former Attorney General of California. And comments never fail to come from bitter and spiteful men who insist Harris "slept" her way to the top (because heaven forbid a woman, especially one who is not white, should actually earn a promotion based on merit). At the same time, the sexual behavior of male politicians, especially the former president, barely gets discussed.
I only skim articles on Harris now, for this reason. I just can't stand that feeling of powerless anger. And I also think, at this rate it's going to be a very long time before we elect a female president.
Totally agree and I should have been more explicit re: misogyny
Thank you for so eloquently expressing what I can only burble in rage.
The fact that the media hasn’t breathed a sigh of relief now that we have an administration that attends to serious issues but it is clear they are bored by that. They are clearly a bunch of excitement/conflict junkies who hype conflict and problems rather than report on boring substance or, heaven forfend!, good news.
I was taken aback when I ran across this article in Business Insider:
“One gobsmacking chart shows how Biden's economy is doing way, way better than all the others”
https://www.businessinsider.com/chart-us-economic-recovery-beats-other-advanced-economies-gdp-rebound-2021-11
I follow economic news pretty closely but I had not idea that we have the best post-covid economy of all because we had a much bigger stimulus. You would think the fact that our economy is larger now than it was before covid. Biden has a better economy than Trump did yet all the media focuses on is inflation. Trump’s economy just continued the strong growth of Obama’s second term, growth that was also better than other countries because we had a larger stimulus than they did. Biden’s strong economy is the direct result of his actions, not just the continuation of a trend as Trump’s was.
Instead of reporting on the strong economy the media obsesses over inflation, blaming it on the stimulus, not temporary supply-chain issues. Then they hammer Biden and the Democrats for not “messaging” effectively. Yesterday afternoon Biden finally got live coverage of his speech about his efforts to reduce gas prices by releasing our petroleum reserves and getting other countries to do the same. He is also asking the FTC to look into possible illegal price gouging by oil companies, proving he isn’t afraid to take them on.
The WaPo didn’t cover that story until hours later, and then not in a prominent article which was gone by this morning. The NYT’s article was more immediate and prominent but only for a few hours. Now the top article at their site is how inflation is complicating the Biden agenda.
No sighs of relief! instead they miss their (verbal) abuser
Beat me Daddy - eight to the bar. HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL.
They must have made BUCKETS of money during the TFG years… sad.
There profits are way up now. Biden pointed out that the price of crude has dropped recently but not the price at the pump which is the reason for the price gouging investigation. There is no way the oil companies are happy about that.
I was referring to the media - have not been following oil.
Agree with your ‘sigh of relief’ comment! Waiting…
But, but, but, Kamala's emails... Oh, wait.
Harris is being Hillaried, it's that simple. Why are white men so fearful of powerful competent women? Did they have bad mothers? These same men love to objectify women though. Their image of the perfect women is someone who looks like a model who can also cook, clean the house, sew, and mostly keep quiet. You know - how women were viewed in the 1950s. Ah, for these men, the good old days. Seriously however, the fact that the media did not make more of the fact that we had a women President, even for just a couple of hours, is telling. Those little boys on the Hill and in the press must have simply been terrified. It's amazing how infantile the press can be.
Hillaried is good way of putting it
Worth remembering how many men who had prominent roles covering Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign have been revealed as literal sexual harassers.
Whew! I didn't know that.
Mark Halperin is an example. So is Matt Lauer. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/11/29/16715478/matt-lauer-today-hillary-clinton-anne-hathaway-interviews
It's not just the men. It's the women in the media too especially the Maureen Dowd/Sally Quinns who are even more venomous!
Add in Kathleen Parker.
I am trying to recall if the Press goes after prominent Republican women as much as they do prominent Democratic women. I call it the Hillary effect.
Also. To my mind the Press backed off pretty quickly on Dr. Jill Biden after some initial nasty and petty Press. Not sure why they did but I am glad.
Apparently the media "forgot" to comment on how Nikki Haley dressed as UN Ambassador.
No, probably because Republican women, and I know I'm painting with a broad brush here, but typically fall in line.
They do t and it’s not about falling in line. It’s just part and parcel of the media’s disdain for the Dems. They are like the c kids in the back of the room who launch spitballs and make fun of the smart kids who do their homework and study for tests. Not all reporters of course. There are many good ones. But most of the Beltway kids.
Here is a perfect example of the media acting like kids in high school.
https://www.newsweek.com/potomac-high-98601
Thanks, Theodora. And this was 2008! Sadly, it’s only gotten worse as our problems have increased.
I wonder if people just weren’t taking the bait…
Or more likely - it was backfiring in ‘focus groups’, as people genuinely like Jill B… So if the negative message wasn’t selling (SAD!) 😒
As I posted before, my friends in France don't understand what is going on with the American press. When Kamala was in France she got extremely positive press from them while at the same time the Spiniochios and Spinderellas in the US media endlessly trashed her visit.
It all goes back to who owns the press and once you see who owns it you get your answer why they are endlessly reciting Republican propaganda.
The media owners, with a few exceptions, don’t dictate what stories should be covered or how. They’ve got their empires to run which include more than just a newspaper. They leave that to the publishers and editors and producers who have their own agendas. At the WSJ, the publisher is very aligned with his boss. NPR, which isn’t “corporate owned” does these kind of shit stories too. I stopped listening when they axed Bob Edward’s from Morning Edition and replaced him with Inskeep and Renee M.
This media coverage problem isn’t new. David Brock started media matters to expose and push back on the RW propaganda he was part of against the Clintons. He wasn’t the only one then but there weren’t that many media watchdogs as today. The media problem just seems like it’s new because of more analysis and readers growing increasingly savvy to coverage. But it did go to a new level with the bad reporting in 2016. Much as Trump’s rise has shone a spotlight on the dark undercurrents of the GOP, it also exposed the weaknesses of the media, imho.
I think you are right. Back in the 90s and early 2000s I felt like I was losing my mind because almost no one realized just how much their opinions were being warped by the media’s games. I spent a lot of 2000 convincing younger Democrats I knew that Gore had never claimed to have invented the internet, but had in fact been a champion of its development and had pushed hard to get it funded by the government and kept free to the public. I constantly heard friends who are not right wingers of Fox News viewers
repeat right wing spin about Democrats. Some of them have told be in recent years that I was right and they regret not having listened. It has helped that there is much more criticism of the media. The most effective from what I can see is when people like the WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin, Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman openly call out the biased media coverage of Biden and the Dems they claim are in disarray. Back in the day that kind of criticism in major media outlets was rare to non-existent.
Remember HRC's "vast right wing conspiracy"? The media laughed and laughed and ripped her apart for it. Turns out she was right, just like she's been right about so many things. Even when they acknowledge the truth, it's wrapped in disdain, like this gem from Sept 2016:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-was-right-about-the-vast-right-wing-conspiracy-heres-why-it-exists/2016/09/02/4a5e0fba-6879-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html
Karen Tumulty says, yes, the RWC exists but IT IS ALL HILLARY'S FAULT. If she just hadn't been so darn secretive about Whitewater at the beginning, there would have been no scandal cause it would have blown over. (As if.) Clinton got the name of Slick Willy in AK, so you know these people are just untrustworthy, is how these journalists' thinking goes, ignoring the forces aligned from the Clintons' from their earliest days. (I'm not saying they are perfect, no one is.)
So many of the kings and queens of today's Beltway press came of age during the 1980s and early '90s when Reaganism was ascendant and The Dartmouth Review, the crown jewel of young conservatism, was born (1980). That era's "liberalism is ruining us" shaped this generation and has completely colored their outlook towards the Dems and the GOP. It's baked in. I was in college then (had the misguided notion of being a reporter), and was appalled by the nonsense many of my compatriots were spouting. Fast forward forty years, and here we are.
There is also a problem on the left, with the coterie of activists who attack Dems with equal ferocity to the GOP (most notably in the Twitterverse). Media amplifies their voices as well. With so much hate all around, the fight to hold on to Congress (and the WH) feels Sisyphean some days.
Whew! I was waiting for this one. Of course, any chance the press gets no matter how made up something is they are ready to pounce on Madame VP Harris. We ain't ever heard anything about what Pence was doing (cuz it wasn't s*it) to make the world better. Listen the bottom line is that white men feel inadequate when presented with a woman of color in a place of power. Let's be real a woman of color period they feel insecure. And don't let her be smarter than them in every way. It's all too much for them to handle. Thank you Eric for always shining a light. I did watch you live on The Reid Out the other day. Always great to see you.
One of FDR's vice presidents - Jack Garner -speaking to Lyndon Johnson, famously said, “The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.” Not much has changed, with the exception of Dick Cheney muscling the ill equipped GW Bush out of the way to start the endless war on terror. The media was so busy carrying water for Cheney that his usurpation of the presidency was ignored. The media also "forgot" to hector the laughably unqualified Jared Kushner when the Former Guy tasked him with everything from peace in the Middle East to "reinventing government." What do Cheney and Kushner have that Kamala doesn't? Most notably, the Y chromosome.
Agreed, press acting *shocked* a VP feels constrained etc
Actually Al Gore was a very active, very effective VP. The media mostly ignored him but he headed the Clinton administration’s ambitious “reinventing government” initiative which made some important improvements in the way our government works. For example Gore pushed hard to implement technology to make the government more accessible to the public. Online filing of tax returns and government websites like Medicare.com are a direct result. During the Clinton administration trust in government rose significantly in part because of that program.
http://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS21/articles/reinventing.htm
Gore also chaired the commission on aviation safety and security which did an in-depth study of potential threats. The commissioners consulted with officials in countries like Israel which had a strong record preventing terrorist attacks. The final report had substantive proposals which were ignored by the media. The proposals were stymied by the FAA and the airlines and ignored by the Bush administration. It took 9-11 for them to take airport security seriously.
Of course all most people knew about Gore when he ran for president was that he was a big fat liar who had claimed to have invented the internet thanks to Karl Rove and our political press.
I think they don’t like Dems cause they are “too smart” (even though many went to the same schools) and they don’t believe they want to actually govern to improve the country. I remember listening to an interview with one of Warren Buffet’s grandkids after Buffet made the announcement of turning his fortune into a foundation. The reporter wanted to know if the grandkids resented that they weren’t inheriting it all and couldn’t believe it when she said they were fine with it. That is the level of cynical skepticism that drives so many stories.
It was Gore's work that created the foundation for the Dept. of Homeland Security.
The report of his airline security commission was completely ignored by the Bush administration and the media didn’t bother to give attention to what it recommended.
Yes, sadly so. And it took about a year longer than it should have to get the TSA up and running because the Bush Adm. wanted to make sure it was not unionized. "Priorities." <sigh>
Sadly noted. Chomsky speaks of manufactured consent- it might be here on steroids :/
Re: Kushner ‘pass’
Biden made it clear that, as Obama did with him, he was giving her a large and important portfolio. But instead of reporting on what she’s actually doing, all we get is 8th-grade level gossip column BS. The LAT has devoted reporting to her that they just began—which makes sense because of her importance and centrality to the state. It’s very fair—and stories mention the unfair coverage she gets.
It is frustrating that the media do a piss poor job actually reporting on real issues then blame the Dems for “bad messaging”—a narrative that has been picked up by commenters here and across the spectrum. They really have their knives out for the Democrats and I honestly don’t where the hatred originated.
As for the success of GOP “messaging” they have no real agenda to push. All they have are lies and increasingly threatening rhetoric. They are nihilists and the media consistently gives them a pass and instead blame dems. I was joking this morning that next they may say Santa Claus is a communist/socialist because he doles out free stuff to kids and gets them dependent on him for goodies. It’s easy to tear down—death panels, death tax, war on Christmas—etc when the media keep giving them the mics to spread such nonsense and rarely challenge their lies.
it’s amazing, Harris being given weighty responsibilities is portrayed as bad news for Harris
the press would ding Kamala if she had a light OR a heavy policy portfolio
Margaret Brennan was getting praise for "pushing back" against Ted Cruz's BS about the 2020 election on Face the Nation, but the real issue is this: Why give Ted Cruz a platform in the first place? You KNOW he is going to spread nonsense. It's what he does. Period. Full stop. Recall Chuck Todd saying he doesn't call out GOP lies because if he did, "No one would come on the show." Like so many other faux journalists, Todd's first and only concern is the number on his paycheck.
To put an exclamation point at the end of Eric’s premise today, see (or don’t). Matt Lewis in current Daily Beast, “Kamala Harris on her way to being next Dan Quayle.” I haven’t read anything past the headline. Enraging.
like I’ve said, misogyny is a helluva drug. also, Lewis is a dolt
Great word, ‘dolt.’ Suits him perfectly.
It always feels like the right wing media's super power is that they are treated as a legitimate if "slightly slanted" news source. The regular trickle of outrage from Fox to Politico to the New York Times leads to this kind of coverage. The right has moral clarity, yes bad morals, but still lots of clarity. Harris is an uppity black woman who deserves constant criticism to put her in her place. It's not about a $400 piece of cookware. If it hadn't been that it would have been a pair or shoes or a croissant. It was a story that was going to be written no matter what. Now that story will float up to the Times as a "Harris who is always a little of out touch with regular Americans" frame. Since the media so studiously holds the "we must be neutral frame" they are like naïfs constantly sucked into the clear moral outrage of the right. They have no moral clarity, no clear boundaries to guide coverage. The Right "knows" they deserve whatever they have and don't care where McConnell spends his vacations. They also "know" Democrats deserve nothing, only more so a black woman Democrat; and so every ice cream, every haircut, every pair of shoes is a perfect vehicle for outrage. It seems like a hopeless loop we are destined to repeat considering the leadership at the major outlets.
One of the best incidents along these lines was Diane Sawyer, who was then knocking down $12M/yr., telling Hillary Clinton that she (Hillary) was too wealthy to relate to ordinary Americans.
"The regular trickle of outrage from Fox to Politico to the New York Times leads to this kind of coverage." I never really thought of it this way. So we can assume main stream media is all the same except for the conservative/liberal window dressing.
I have my own opinions on why this is happening. I would like to hear from other folks on their views of media collusion.
No I wouldn't say, in my opinion at least, they are "the same except for the conservative/liberal window dressing". My point was that because of a clear attachment to neutrality over all over other values they are easily put to service for partisan publications that only have a fig leaf of neutral news coverage. I also don't think it is collusion. I think it is a structural defect. They want to have collegial relations with all "journalists" and want to consider themselves as independent players who could work for a variety of publications/outlets. But that has lead to treating reporters from Fox as equally professional (ostensibly neutral) when the Fox reporters themselves view their role as partisan "truth tellers".
Yesterday the Atlantic posted a piece saying that one of Harris' staff is leaving. Even though it mentioned that the staffer had planned to depart after a year, the article still has all the old tropes - that there is unhappiness, infighting, and dissatisfaction in working for Harris, who is portrayed as the Wicked Witch of the West. And of course that everyone in Washington despises her. This is the misogyny in full bloom.
Oops. my bad. The article is in Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/11/ashley-etienne-kamala-harris-white-house?utm_campaign=cm&utm_source=crm&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VYF_SubPersRec_1_02012020&utm_medium=email&hasha=65a12ddd22ddb36a9b42df17f59f9592&hashb=4aa467cc998e3d623ee3a73c96df6764e782bdc2&hashc=0e8ad2739950b2a1eb13079054bcb9ca1b3c01233d697dbee818b32b5de14905&utm_term=VYF_PersRec_Freq_Test_2021-11-24_B
Hillaried AND Klobuchared?…
More and more that vanity seems to be their reporters.
Eric, I think it's high time for pushback delivered DIRECTLY to each of these malefactors--and what I'd propose (if you had unlimited time and an extra intern or two, yeh like THAT's going to happen) is to end each of these pieces with names and emails, AND names and emails of the reporters/commentators bosses (or in the case of broadcast media, their producers and show bookers), so that each of your readers can decide which media whore(s) to write to (respectfully and civilly, of course) in order to convey disappointment with their willful distortion of events to fit "narratives" of lies. I sure as hell would do it. I'm sure many of your other subscribers would too, because we'd love the opportunity to explain to each of them how much this shallow performative punditry is endangering our democracy. I'm sure that's not why you set up "Press Run," i.e. to function as a clearing house for public commentary, but I sure wish someone in the media-critique line would do this. (Let me know if someone is, in case I've missed it!) And thanks for your work!
No doubt about it. Many prominent women had her back in the run up to the election and it worked. Fortunately among the young women I know, 20 somethings, they won’t put you with the crap heaped on the likes of Kamala. They push back. But your point is well taken.
Gee a prominent woman politician who has been attacked relentlessly for months is being "defensive" I can't imagine why that might be or whether there are any other examples of this in the past few years.
What fun it must be to attack the first woman, first woman of color to EARN the position of US VP. Cheap shots, inane drivel, shallow nonsense no one is interested in other than the msm. Junior High much? How about we cover 24/7 and pick apart every one of msm members to see how their jobs compare w/ the day to day experiences of Kamala. I think msm is happy to slap down another woman so the writers can feel better about themselves. There is no sense of the historic place she holds nor the success of the work she is doing.
The flip side of this coin is that 🇺🇸WOMEN should not allow these media shenanigans to slide by w/o constantly calling them out! This is the missing piece here… ALL women need to help stop this ‘accepted’ level of downplaying other women’s contributions (and women journalists do it too). I really don’t understand what kind of society people think will be left for their own daughters/granddaughters if moving the goalposts re: their honest achievements becomes the norm (if it isn’t already).
The question is how to call them out so they will hear us. The NY Times and WaPo used to have public editors to take and address readers complaints but they both eliminated that position.
Here is an example of one CO news anchor trying to break/shed light on another negative/narrative news
trend - https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWmcHj8j0Iy/?utm_medium=copy_link
The lowest of the low, Fox is the reincarnation of the Nazi propaganda machine that ruined Germany for generations. Except that its goal is not so much the domination of the world, but rather the pursuit of gold for its owners at any expense. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/03/how-nazi-propaganda-encouraged-the-masses-to-co-produce-a-false-reality.html Thanks to HCR, this article from March, 2017 will help with perspective.
And Harris just released a statement on the Arbery case, so any moment we'll be hearing that she's "sticking her nose in" and being "divisive" and "inflammatory."
Actually the response was that she was too tepid. Of course if she had had a stronger statement she would have been condemned for the things you list. Typical of the sexist treatment women constantly receive — damned if they do, damned if they don’t.