I stopped watching the Sunday news shows given the amount of blatant lying & outright propaganda from GOP/trump talking heads. My eyes were in a perpetual state of rolling in disbelief. 🙄 60-Minutes? Dead to me. ☠️
Same. There used to be genuine value to watching Sunday morning news interviews, but the hosts’ passivity and timidity has turned the interviews into Kabuki theatre. And infuriating at that.
Thank you for this..it has all been such a greedy dirty and unethical game on the part of MSM and this country is paying a very high price for the same.
Mark, this is right, and the problem is bigger than any one dinner or pool decision.
I went looking for evidence that national journalism groups, the WHCA, or journalism schools have organized anything sustained over the past decade to back each other up against the lying, the insults, and attacks on the press. The best example I found is from 2018, when the Boston Globe organized more than 350 papers to run editorials on the same day defending press freedom. That was a show of unity. I can't find anything comparable since, even as the attacks have gotten worse.
Since then, it's mostly letters and statements after each escalation. Six journalism groups and 430-plus journalists had to petition the WHCA to use its own dinner to defend press freedom. Retired journalists had to do it again in July. The big newsrooms signed a joint statement only last week, after three networks were barred from the White House.
Outsiders and retirees keep pushing the institutions that should be leading. A profession under a decade-long assault should be running sustained coordination, not a one-day campaign every few years.
Journalism schools should be teaching this too.
The Democratic Party has its own record of thin responses to a decade of material. But the press is supposed to be the institution that names a lie as a lie, and it is still deciding whether to do that.
"Outsiders and retirees keep pushing the institutions that should be leading." Love this!! Editor, writer, and erstwhile journalist (weekly newspaper division). My take is that the #1 problem is corporate/big-money domination of journalism, especially the broadcast kind but newspapers are a mess too. All the suits at the top have to do is suggest (subtly of course) that reporting that challenges the rich & powerful in any way is *not done* -- and it doesn't get done. I'm not surprised that "outsiders and retirees" get this better than those who depend on the suits for their paychecks and promotions.
The headlong rush by members our mainstream press to abandon the most basic of their responsibilities - namely, to uphold the truth at every turn - especially at this juncture in the face of such blatant fascism, is shameful. Do they not realize that by remaining silent, as opposed to calling out the lies in clear, unvarnished terms, that they become complicit?
With the various corporate networks, I am reminded of the old fable of the bunch of sticks bound together that could not be broken. However, untie the bundle, and the sticks can be broken one by one. The people in the Trump administration have realized that going after three networks at once is too obvious. So, they are now going after CNN, which is in danger of being destroyed in the mega merger. They will come for the other networks. It would be better for them to band together now rather than waiting until there are fewer and fewer to object.
Thanks for calling out journalists’ and their companies’ cravenness. And thanks also for calling out Rahm’s unforgivable behavior re the Chicago police murder of Laquan McDonald.
I barely watch any news or politics from legacy media outlets any more. Only to check on the situation if there's some major rapidly-rapidly changing breaking news. Now I watch the local news for weather, some sports and local events, and the news summary from BBC News for more in-depth major news, and read a variety of substacks and newsletters.
The BBC program is like the original CNN Headline News - a 30 minute program updated and repeated throughout the day. Mostly live, anchored from London, Washington DC and Singapore around the clock. The summarize major stories from around the world, and go in depth (5-8 minutes) on one or two topics. Much less star reporter-driven than US "news" programs. They have a bigger variety of "expert" interviews, and the journalists actually push back.
(I especially loved the US right-wing person they interviewed about some GOP nonsense, and finally pushed him to the point where he responded, "Well, there's a reason we stopped listening to you people in 1776.")
Back when I was in college, a friend's mother only watched the local television news and subscribed to the Sunday NYT (which was delivered by mail on Tuesday). Her rationale was that she needed the local news for the weather and to make sure the world hadn't come to an end, anything that she really needed to know about wasn't going to change all that much between Sunday and Tuesday, and it if did the local news would probably mention it.
I believe most main stream media outlets care more about their bottom lines the they do for standing up to obvious unconstitutional actions by our President and his cabinet. This is why I get all of my news from Independent journalists. MsNow comes closest to showing some spine, but the others are all in the grips of a media consolidation, which , in my opinion, should be taken to courts for anti-trust violations.
I stopped watching the Sunday news shows given the amount of blatant lying & outright propaganda from GOP/trump talking heads. My eyes were in a perpetual state of rolling in disbelief. 🙄 60-Minutes? Dead to me. ☠️
Same. There used to be genuine value to watching Sunday morning news interviews, but the hosts’ passivity and timidity has turned the interviews into Kabuki theatre. And infuriating at that.
And they seem to have mostly republicans on (going by what I see on FB and Threads).
Thank you for this..it has all been such a greedy dirty and unethical game on the part of MSM and this country is paying a very high price for the same.
Mark, this is right, and the problem is bigger than any one dinner or pool decision.
I went looking for evidence that national journalism groups, the WHCA, or journalism schools have organized anything sustained over the past decade to back each other up against the lying, the insults, and attacks on the press. The best example I found is from 2018, when the Boston Globe organized more than 350 papers to run editorials on the same day defending press freedom. That was a show of unity. I can't find anything comparable since, even as the attacks have gotten worse.
Since then, it's mostly letters and statements after each escalation. Six journalism groups and 430-plus journalists had to petition the WHCA to use its own dinner to defend press freedom. Retired journalists had to do it again in July. The big newsrooms signed a joint statement only last week, after three networks were barred from the White House.
Outsiders and retirees keep pushing the institutions that should be leading. A profession under a decade-long assault should be running sustained coordination, not a one-day campaign every few years.
Journalism schools should be teaching this too.
The Democratic Party has its own record of thin responses to a decade of material. But the press is supposed to be the institution that names a lie as a lie, and it is still deciding whether to do that.
"Outsiders and retirees keep pushing the institutions that should be leading." Love this!! Editor, writer, and erstwhile journalist (weekly newspaper division). My take is that the #1 problem is corporate/big-money domination of journalism, especially the broadcast kind but newspapers are a mess too. All the suits at the top have to do is suggest (subtly of course) that reporting that challenges the rich & powerful in any way is *not done* -- and it doesn't get done. I'm not surprised that "outsiders and retirees" get this better than those who depend on the suits for their paychecks and promotions.
The corporate media press is not news it's entertainment purely fictional garbage which I will never watch again.
Thanks for asking whether we’re ready to
Vote. We are!
Great article
Yes, the press perpetuate the incoming “kick me” insults because they lie down belly up and accept the insults
But in Trumps bent out of shape reality not addressing his abuse gives him permission…no … encourages him to continue the insults, lies … etc
You are so correct…
Excerpt”…journalists have found cutesy ways to minimize it, such as saying Republicans are “untethered to truth…”
Cutesy ugh
And another excerpt:
“…When regime figures go on TV news shows and lie repeatedly, the hosts thank them for their time and invite them back.”
And
Kick me kick me kick me happens.
I sort of yell….”Press! Just walk out in masse please” when I read or see this.
The headlong rush by members our mainstream press to abandon the most basic of their responsibilities - namely, to uphold the truth at every turn - especially at this juncture in the face of such blatant fascism, is shameful. Do they not realize that by remaining silent, as opposed to calling out the lies in clear, unvarnished terms, that they become complicit?
With the various corporate networks, I am reminded of the old fable of the bunch of sticks bound together that could not be broken. However, untie the bundle, and the sticks can be broken one by one. The people in the Trump administration have realized that going after three networks at once is too obvious. So, they are now going after CNN, which is in danger of being destroyed in the mega merger. They will come for the other networks. It would be better for them to band together now rather than waiting until there are fewer and fewer to object.
Thanks for calling out journalists’ and their companies’ cravenness. And thanks also for calling out Rahm’s unforgivable behavior re the Chicago police murder of Laquan McDonald.
I barely watch any news or politics from legacy media outlets any more. Only to check on the situation if there's some major rapidly-rapidly changing breaking news. Now I watch the local news for weather, some sports and local events, and the news summary from BBC News for more in-depth major news, and read a variety of substacks and newsletters.
The BBC program is like the original CNN Headline News - a 30 minute program updated and repeated throughout the day. Mostly live, anchored from London, Washington DC and Singapore around the clock. The summarize major stories from around the world, and go in depth (5-8 minutes) on one or two topics. Much less star reporter-driven than US "news" programs. They have a bigger variety of "expert" interviews, and the journalists actually push back.
(I especially loved the US right-wing person they interviewed about some GOP nonsense, and finally pushed him to the point where he responded, "Well, there's a reason we stopped listening to you people in 1776.")
Back when I was in college, a friend's mother only watched the local television news and subscribed to the Sunday NYT (which was delivered by mail on Tuesday). Her rationale was that she needed the local news for the weather and to make sure the world hadn't come to an end, anything that she really needed to know about wasn't going to change all that much between Sunday and Tuesday, and it if did the local news would probably mention it.
I guess I'm using a version of her strategy.
I believe most main stream media outlets care more about their bottom lines the they do for standing up to obvious unconstitutional actions by our President and his cabinet. This is why I get all of my news from Independent journalists. MsNow comes closest to showing some spine, but the others are all in the grips of a media consolidation, which , in my opinion, should be taken to courts for anti-trust violations.