The corporate media is desperate to keep Trump and the Republicans relevant in the face of what should, and would if accurately reported, blowout. They only know how to cover the horse race, and if one of the horses is an orange mule running backward, it's hard to make it a real race, but that won't stop them from trying. The danger we face this week is that unless Trump craps his pants, or devolves into a completely incoherent diatribe at the debate, they will likely talk about how old and tired Biden looked.
The media have a much different priority than do other Americans. They will rationalize why preserving that access is more important than anything else. Its a basic lesson ithat is very simple and that MAGA people exploit - we cannot depend on the media to save us.
I agree, theory #6 is the primary reason. And, let me add #8. Journalists are not fulfilling their role as the Fourth Estate. The are not challenging those they interview to get at the truth; to speak truth to power. Whym because they fear they won't get another interview with those they challenge - live and in person.
No, I did not. But I had one who wanted for fire me, twice. That's when I learned aptitude will get me hired and attitude will get me fired. Darn, it was close.
You should have gone to some of my job interviews, then..
All I can tell you is that with me in the batting order, my paper won 10 of the highest awards New Jersey could throw at a paper -- Public Service, Feature Writing, Editorials, Spot News, and my name and fingerprints were on them.
After that glorious editor fired me, the following year, they won Best Food Page.
14 months after he axed me, the paper went out of business.....
So since you know the ropes, will the moderators allow earphones to be used? That would ruin the debate since it’s one in one, no cult members…NO COACHING!!! Please reply……
As a journalist, I would not be able to make the claim that "owners are in the tank", etc. I don't have the evidence.
I think the term "media" is bit like Hydra. Except "media" has far too many "heads" to be consolidated as one.
I despise the "horse-race" election coverage. To me, this coverage method presents a chicken and egg scenario. The media use that technique and the news consumers love it. Or, the public craves such reportage and the media fill their bottles.
I don't know how the media can induce deeper thinking and deeper reading.
This level of reporting -- in my mind -- is all about personalities or persona.
Regarding the "intellectual outer limit", I agree wholeheartedly.
A friend recently told me: "Highly motivated spiritual people discuss ideas. Medium motivated thinkers talk about events. Unmotivated people talk about people." (The "spiritual" reference involves a 12-Step fellowship to which I belong.)
With minor modifications, I think that applies to political thinking in the U.S.
Media organizations are now marketing arms of major corporations, e.g., Rupert Murdoch and Fox.
the "horse race" and "soap opera" feed and feed off of each other. The public, which thinks that the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged and WWE is real, has no analytical abilities beyond following a reality show or soap opera plot. Hence the fascination with what the Royal Family members wear to a visit to a daycare center as opposed to their support for better day care.
The media can induce deeper thinking and reading by getting the hell out of the TV studio where they talk to each other and their talking heads about "what it all means" and try riding the New York Subway and ask straphangers what THEY are thinking about. I'll be some of these clowns haven't had to walk through the Herald Square or Times Square stations -- both named for newspapers -- since they were going to Pence School as teenagers.
(I wrote one of my best stories, on how the New Jersey Borough of Kearny was reacting to a new county jail going up in their confines) by simply walking through Kearny, into stores, and asking staff and customers. I even got to chat with the Mayor. It had a great lede..."Kearny was settled by Scots, Scots-Irish, and Portuguese residents in the 1800s, Joe Schmedlap explains as he cuts up meat in his butcher shop. More recently, it has welcomed African-Americans and Latinos. And now it will get 1,800 convicted felons in a new county jail." I don't think the blow-dried, bonded-toothed, giggly TV news people of today deign to talk with little folk. I doubt they care)
They are also obsessed with polls. I argue back? How many people were polled? Where? What did you ask them? How do you know there weren't having you on? What does 1,000 people have to say about a nation of 400 million? What were their education levels? Do they think the world is flat? 35 million Americans do....
Interesting that the media platforms doing the best work right now highlighting Trump's unfitness for office are the late-night talk shows. More than once have I seen a clip offered up by Stephen Colbert, Seth Myers or Jimmy Kimmel and then went to Google to see if there was a news story around that quote. Sometimes there is, but sometimes the source is simply enterprising liberal commentary sites or activists posting on social media. You're right that often "mainstream media" reporters "fail to understand that the value-added of journalism is context and connecting the dots to help people make informed decisions." That shouldn't be left to late-night talk hosts.
On a separate note, I recently heard Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC talk about her prior reluctance to broadcast Donald Trump's blatherings on air. But she has decided, from a journalistic point of view, that it is more important for her viewers to hear how unhinged Trump's blatherings have become. Nicolle Wallace, however, is known to be on a mission to prevent Trump from being elected. Imagine if her just-the-facts-ma'am NBC News colleague Lester Holt, for example, took a page from her playbook for the purpose of allowing voters to see Trump as we are supposed to see every presidential candidate—as they are.
Recently saw this post on FB: “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your (mainstream media) job to quote them both. It’s your ***ing job to look out the window and find out which is true.”
I’ll post same reply here as I did when a friend posted this meme on Facebook. It’s also the media’s responsibility to report when a person repeatedly and falsely states that it’s raining when there’s an unbroken drought. Because it shows that person is not credible.
What the media should do: Report that e.g. Biden says X, Trump says Y, and plainly, unequivocally report that Trump lied. With a clear headline that isn’t stupid.
It's a media mystery. ProPublica or the Guardian, please investigate. Bottom line, that is what you get when you have billionaires, who know nothing about journalism, owning the major media outlets. They are not interested in the "common good." They only care about "good profits." News should be a public service, not a profit center.
I think it’s a combo of “This is just what Trump does” along with if it’s pointed out, then the media is accused of bias. The right has tons of messengers who scream the media is left leaning any time someone’s behavior is put into any sort of factual context. Sean Hannity last week literally said that the left has “journalists that are really talk show hosts” on his own program, without a hint of irony.
Trump also realizes this works because he says it in his own rallies. He will ramble incoherently and then make a comment about how the “fake news” will portray him. Most journalists won’t even bother at that point because they’re afraid to be called out on it.
And, just as the cherry on top, it’s really hard to contextualize ALL THE LYING. Trump is like 47 firehouses filled with diarrhea, aimed directly at the populace. It’s hard to make sense of that, especially when part of the populace WANTS to be hosed down with that crap. The rest of us think that’s disgusting and can’t fathom how someone would not understand that Trump is full of it, so you shouldn’t have to keep pointing that out, but here we are.
Yes. And their tactic that Bannon calls, "Flood the Zone" is designed to keep lies & misinformation constantly coming out for public consumption. It overloads the system, making it hard to evaluate all of the claims, creates chaos & confusion, which is very much intentional. We saw it in action at debate, by way Trump was fast & furious w lies. Coming one after another.
Why should the NYT or WaPo or AP or Reuters give a damn what Gox, OAN, or Newsmax thinks of them? That’s high school. Journalists are supposed to be grownups.
Because that entire group of networks and publications has created a reality that 35-40% of our country exists in, and has weaponized the populace against one another. Trump and the right have declared that the average journalist is an “enemy of the people.” They’re discrediting them ahead of time so when reporting happens on the bad things Trump and his cronies do, then his supporters will say “Ha! You believe the New York Times?!”
They’re literally creating a post truth reality and they’re doing it for money. The result is it harms the rest of us, and the publications you mentioned should be calling that out and providing context. Expecting the average person to be fully informed is like expecting Ray Charles to give you a great haircut. It’s not gonna work out for anyone involved.
I am simply tired of grownups not understanding that part of adulting is not caving to the bad guys. There’s no reason whatever for NYT or other “normal” media empires to feel they must prove they’re not left-leaning. Fox never tries to prove it’s not right-leaning.
Why then do traditionally centrist papers and networks contort themselves so they appear (in their warped minds) centrist? True journalism is centrist. Bothism is right-leaning, as it normalizes insanity.
But then, NYT, which in 1936 - a year after the Nürnberg Laws - supported the fundraising tour of the very-Nazi German Methodist Bishop Melle, with one headline proclaiming that the Lord blessed everything the Führer touched. I guess for them it’s SOP.
Over the past five months, five of the top US newspapers have published nearly 10 times as many articles focused just on Biden's age or mental acuity as focused on just Trump’s.”
Thank you for articulating the grave concerns about media reportage. As a retired school librarian, I made sure that my elementary school kids knew how to spot authoritative information vs. heavily slanted information. (I used the 2010 oil spill as an example. After reading about it on World Book's online encyclopedia, where the article was written by experts, I asked the 4th graders to google it--and BP's website was the first to pop up. "Hey" they said, "didn't BP CAUSE the oil spill?" "Yes," I would reply, "so can you trust that this is unbiased information?" That opened not only their eyes, but those of their teachers, too.) Unfortuantely, school librarians are being cut, or criminalized, our future voters/leaders are left to discover the truth on their own, and this has been going on for a LONG time. Keep sounding the alarm, please, Mark Jacob, and I'm going to work to defeat this evil man with every ounce of energy I still have!
The parents AND teachers were thrilled. I taught in a very supportive community, where library and informational skills were taught at the same time as topics taught in the classroom. Our 4th graders were studying biomes, so we did authoritative research, and I booktalked non-fiction and fiction books--and even poetry!-- about the various biomes, saving endangered species, etc; We also worked closely with the public library. In 2010 the new administration tried to get rid of school librarians, and had community meetings about this and other cuts. The community rose up in outrage! They said "Get rid of your own jobs, administrators! We moved to this community for the excellent schools AND libraries!" OH, how wonderful that meeting was with all of the supportive people there---and we DID keep our jobs!:-)
45 years in local broadcast news before management at my last gig decided to find prettier, more compliant personnel. I also believe the GM didn't appreciate my morning meeting comments about Trump's allergy to facts.
Therefore, I'd suggest Theory #8: Threats and the potential destruction of one's career can impact the decisions of even the best in our business.
The one that has always intrigues me is “Trump is just being Trump.” (TBT). Why that isn’t damning per se is worth thinking about.
My humble hypothesis is cobbled from a couple of sources. One is that Trump was, is and always will be a 24/7 “reality tv star”. He is lost in his own narcissistic loop of self obsession that he fuels by making one outrageous statement after another and one wealth grab after another. It keeps him powerfully at the center of the spotlight, his one and only goal.
The TBT crowd intuitively recognize this but give him a pass, based on the false assumption that he is not really being malicious. It’s all an act, they think. They seem to think, with no basis in fact, that he will function as a normal adult and at an acceptable level if he becomes President, rather than continuing to do exactly what he is doing, only with the full power of the presidency. And they continue to believe it after January 6.
In short, it is all the same reality to Trump, but the TBT media just can’t believe it. These are folks who shouldn’t be in journalism.
The media is an abomination. Never forget the mainstream media's malevolent campaign to cripple Hillary Clinton with their incessant hectoring on her emails, on her "appalling" characterization of her opponent's worst sycophants and supporters and the convulsions and somersaults provoked by the last-minute and hollow investigation by the notorious James Comey. The unapologetic media has been at it again with President Biden, with their ageist crap and his alledged unpopularity while glossing over his opponent's diminished mind and truly fractured state. I, for one, can't wait until 11:35 pm to watch Jimmy Kimmel and/or Stephen Colbert as each eviserates the felon and clear menace to democracy. Shame on the media.
As a retired journalist, I find several of these opinions ill founded. But what is key here is that the unbalanced (yes, pun intended) coverage of Trump gives readers reasons to think the worst of the media's intentions. BTW, I notice that as Biden passes Trump in virtually all polls, the NYT's famous poll with Siena , so favorable to Trump, seems to be missing in action.
The corporate media is desperate to keep Trump and the Republicans relevant in the face of what should, and would if accurately reported, blowout. They only know how to cover the horse race, and if one of the horses is an orange mule running backward, it's hard to make it a real race, but that won't stop them from trying. The danger we face this week is that unless Trump craps his pants, or devolves into a completely incoherent diatribe at the debate, they will likely talk about how old and tired Biden looked.
Its all about preserving *access* if Trump wins.
The media have a much different priority than do other Americans. They will rationalize why preserving that access is more important than anything else. Its a basic lesson ithat is very simple and that MAGA people exploit - we cannot depend on the media to save us.
Theory #8: Clickbait dollars.
I agree, theory #6 is the primary reason. And, let me add #8. Journalists are not fulfilling their role as the Fourth Estate. The are not challenging those they interview to get at the truth; to speak truth to power. Whym because they fear they won't get another interview with those they challenge - live and in person.
Corporate media are corporations....the owners are in the tank for the Bloated Yam and his promised tax cuts.
Reporters like the cross between a horse race and a soap opera. It's more entertaining.
Their intellectual outer limit is describing the foibles and follies of people like the Kardashians and their squabbles, love affairs, and hooters.
May I disagree?
Do bear in mind….I’ve been an award-winning journalist on four continents for the past 44 years, so I’m no amateur.
Congratulations on your resume and accomplishments. I, too, am (retired now) a national and regional award-winning journalist
Thank you.
I am not retired. I probably will never have the money to be able to enjoy retirement.
However, you never had an editor who blacklisted you through the industry….
No, I did not. But I had one who wanted for fire me, twice. That's when I learned aptitude will get me hired and attitude will get me fired. Darn, it was close.
You should have gone to some of my job interviews, then..
All I can tell you is that with me in the batting order, my paper won 10 of the highest awards New Jersey could throw at a paper -- Public Service, Feature Writing, Editorials, Spot News, and my name and fingerprints were on them.
After that glorious editor fired me, the following year, they won Best Food Page.
14 months after he axed me, the paper went out of business.....
So since you know the ropes, will the moderators allow earphones to be used? That would ruin the debate since it’s one in one, no cult members…NO COACHING!!! Please reply……
No idea. Good question.
Thanks for answering…..sigh!
Go ahead.
As a journalist, I would not be able to make the claim that "owners are in the tank", etc. I don't have the evidence.
I think the term "media" is bit like Hydra. Except "media" has far too many "heads" to be consolidated as one.
I despise the "horse-race" election coverage. To me, this coverage method presents a chicken and egg scenario. The media use that technique and the news consumers love it. Or, the public craves such reportage and the media fill their bottles.
I don't know how the media can induce deeper thinking and deeper reading.
This level of reporting -- in my mind -- is all about personalities or persona.
Regarding the "intellectual outer limit", I agree wholeheartedly.
A friend recently told me: "Highly motivated spiritual people discuss ideas. Medium motivated thinkers talk about events. Unmotivated people talk about people." (The "spiritual" reference involves a 12-Step fellowship to which I belong.)
With minor modifications, I think that applies to political thinking in the U.S.
Media organizations are now marketing arms of major corporations, e.g., Rupert Murdoch and Fox.
the "horse race" and "soap opera" feed and feed off of each other. The public, which thinks that the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged and WWE is real, has no analytical abilities beyond following a reality show or soap opera plot. Hence the fascination with what the Royal Family members wear to a visit to a daycare center as opposed to their support for better day care.
The media can induce deeper thinking and reading by getting the hell out of the TV studio where they talk to each other and their talking heads about "what it all means" and try riding the New York Subway and ask straphangers what THEY are thinking about. I'll be some of these clowns haven't had to walk through the Herald Square or Times Square stations -- both named for newspapers -- since they were going to Pence School as teenagers.
(I wrote one of my best stories, on how the New Jersey Borough of Kearny was reacting to a new county jail going up in their confines) by simply walking through Kearny, into stores, and asking staff and customers. I even got to chat with the Mayor. It had a great lede..."Kearny was settled by Scots, Scots-Irish, and Portuguese residents in the 1800s, Joe Schmedlap explains as he cuts up meat in his butcher shop. More recently, it has welcomed African-Americans and Latinos. And now it will get 1,800 convicted felons in a new county jail." I don't think the blow-dried, bonded-toothed, giggly TV news people of today deign to talk with little folk. I doubt they care)
They are also obsessed with polls. I argue back? How many people were polled? Where? What did you ask them? How do you know there weren't having you on? What does 1,000 people have to say about a nation of 400 million? What were their education levels? Do they think the world is flat? 35 million Americans do....
Interesting that the media platforms doing the best work right now highlighting Trump's unfitness for office are the late-night talk shows. More than once have I seen a clip offered up by Stephen Colbert, Seth Myers or Jimmy Kimmel and then went to Google to see if there was a news story around that quote. Sometimes there is, but sometimes the source is simply enterprising liberal commentary sites or activists posting on social media. You're right that often "mainstream media" reporters "fail to understand that the value-added of journalism is context and connecting the dots to help people make informed decisions." That shouldn't be left to late-night talk hosts.
On a separate note, I recently heard Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC talk about her prior reluctance to broadcast Donald Trump's blatherings on air. But she has decided, from a journalistic point of view, that it is more important for her viewers to hear how unhinged Trump's blatherings have become. Nicolle Wallace, however, is known to be on a mission to prevent Trump from being elected. Imagine if her just-the-facts-ma'am NBC News colleague Lester Holt, for example, took a page from her playbook for the purpose of allowing voters to see Trump as we are supposed to see every presidential candidate—as they are.
John Oliver
Recently saw this post on FB: “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your (mainstream media) job to quote them both. It’s your ***ing job to look out the window and find out which is true.”
I’ll post same reply here as I did when a friend posted this meme on Facebook. It’s also the media’s responsibility to report when a person repeatedly and falsely states that it’s raining when there’s an unbroken drought. Because it shows that person is not credible.
What the media should do: Report that e.g. Biden says X, Trump says Y, and plainly, unequivocally report that Trump lied. With a clear headline that isn’t stupid.
I totally agree. Right now, the MSM is absolutely complicit in undermining our democracy.
It's a media mystery. ProPublica or the Guardian, please investigate. Bottom line, that is what you get when you have billionaires, who know nothing about journalism, owning the major media outlets. They are not interested in the "common good." They only care about "good profits." News should be a public service, not a profit center.
I think it’s a combo of “This is just what Trump does” along with if it’s pointed out, then the media is accused of bias. The right has tons of messengers who scream the media is left leaning any time someone’s behavior is put into any sort of factual context. Sean Hannity last week literally said that the left has “journalists that are really talk show hosts” on his own program, without a hint of irony.
Trump also realizes this works because he says it in his own rallies. He will ramble incoherently and then make a comment about how the “fake news” will portray him. Most journalists won’t even bother at that point because they’re afraid to be called out on it.
And, just as the cherry on top, it’s really hard to contextualize ALL THE LYING. Trump is like 47 firehouses filled with diarrhea, aimed directly at the populace. It’s hard to make sense of that, especially when part of the populace WANTS to be hosed down with that crap. The rest of us think that’s disgusting and can’t fathom how someone would not understand that Trump is full of it, so you shouldn’t have to keep pointing that out, but here we are.
Yes. And their tactic that Bannon calls, "Flood the Zone" is designed to keep lies & misinformation constantly coming out for public consumption. It overloads the system, making it hard to evaluate all of the claims, creates chaos & confusion, which is very much intentional. We saw it in action at debate, by way Trump was fast & furious w lies. Coming one after another.
Why should the NYT or WaPo or AP or Reuters give a damn what Gox, OAN, or Newsmax thinks of them? That’s high school. Journalists are supposed to be grownups.
Because that entire group of networks and publications has created a reality that 35-40% of our country exists in, and has weaponized the populace against one another. Trump and the right have declared that the average journalist is an “enemy of the people.” They’re discrediting them ahead of time so when reporting happens on the bad things Trump and his cronies do, then his supporters will say “Ha! You believe the New York Times?!”
They’re literally creating a post truth reality and they’re doing it for money. The result is it harms the rest of us, and the publications you mentioned should be calling that out and providing context. Expecting the average person to be fully informed is like expecting Ray Charles to give you a great haircut. It’s not gonna work out for anyone involved.
I am simply tired of grownups not understanding that part of adulting is not caving to the bad guys. There’s no reason whatever for NYT or other “normal” media empires to feel they must prove they’re not left-leaning. Fox never tries to prove it’s not right-leaning.
Why then do traditionally centrist papers and networks contort themselves so they appear (in their warped minds) centrist? True journalism is centrist. Bothism is right-leaning, as it normalizes insanity.
But then, NYT, which in 1936 - a year after the Nürnberg Laws - supported the fundraising tour of the very-Nazi German Methodist Bishop Melle, with one headline proclaiming that the Lord blessed everything the Führer touched. I guess for them it’s SOP.
They could start with balancing this out:
“Study: Top newspapers fixate on Biden's age
Over the past five months, five of the top US newspapers have published nearly 10 times as many articles focused just on Biden's age or mental acuity as focused on just Trump’s.”
Link: https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/top-newspapers-fixate-bidens-age
Thank you for articulating the grave concerns about media reportage. As a retired school librarian, I made sure that my elementary school kids knew how to spot authoritative information vs. heavily slanted information. (I used the 2010 oil spill as an example. After reading about it on World Book's online encyclopedia, where the article was written by experts, I asked the 4th graders to google it--and BP's website was the first to pop up. "Hey" they said, "didn't BP CAUSE the oil spill?" "Yes," I would reply, "so can you trust that this is unbiased information?" That opened not only their eyes, but those of their teachers, too.) Unfortuantely, school librarians are being cut, or criminalized, our future voters/leaders are left to discover the truth on their own, and this has been going on for a LONG time. Keep sounding the alarm, please, Mark Jacob, and I'm going to work to defeat this evil man with every ounce of energy I still have!
Good for you. Real world examples help illustrate the point. Any push-back from parents? : )
The parents AND teachers were thrilled. I taught in a very supportive community, where library and informational skills were taught at the same time as topics taught in the classroom. Our 4th graders were studying biomes, so we did authoritative research, and I booktalked non-fiction and fiction books--and even poetry!-- about the various biomes, saving endangered species, etc; We also worked closely with the public library. In 2010 the new administration tried to get rid of school librarians, and had community meetings about this and other cuts. The community rose up in outrage! They said "Get rid of your own jobs, administrators! We moved to this community for the excellent schools AND libraries!" OH, how wonderful that meeting was with all of the supportive people there---and we DID keep our jobs!:-)
45 years in local broadcast news before management at my last gig decided to find prettier, more compliant personnel. I also believe the GM didn't appreciate my morning meeting comments about Trump's allergy to facts.
Therefore, I'd suggest Theory #8: Threats and the potential destruction of one's career can impact the decisions of even the best in our business.
The one that has always intrigues me is “Trump is just being Trump.” (TBT). Why that isn’t damning per se is worth thinking about.
My humble hypothesis is cobbled from a couple of sources. One is that Trump was, is and always will be a 24/7 “reality tv star”. He is lost in his own narcissistic loop of self obsession that he fuels by making one outrageous statement after another and one wealth grab after another. It keeps him powerfully at the center of the spotlight, his one and only goal.
The TBT crowd intuitively recognize this but give him a pass, based on the false assumption that he is not really being malicious. It’s all an act, they think. They seem to think, with no basis in fact, that he will function as a normal adult and at an acceptable level if he becomes President, rather than continuing to do exactly what he is doing, only with the full power of the presidency. And they continue to believe it after January 6.
In short, it is all the same reality to Trump, but the TBT media just can’t believe it. These are folks who shouldn’t be in journalism.
My question back at you, Mark, is , “What would Walter Cronkite say tonight?”
The media is an abomination. Never forget the mainstream media's malevolent campaign to cripple Hillary Clinton with their incessant hectoring on her emails, on her "appalling" characterization of her opponent's worst sycophants and supporters and the convulsions and somersaults provoked by the last-minute and hollow investigation by the notorious James Comey. The unapologetic media has been at it again with President Biden, with their ageist crap and his alledged unpopularity while glossing over his opponent's diminished mind and truly fractured state. I, for one, can't wait until 11:35 pm to watch Jimmy Kimmel and/or Stephen Colbert as each eviserates the felon and clear menace to democracy. Shame on the media.
I completely agree. The media treatment of Al Gore was also abominable See my comment with links above.
As a retired journalist, I find several of these opinions ill founded. But what is key here is that the unbalanced (yes, pun intended) coverage of Trump gives readers reasons to think the worst of the media's intentions. BTW, I notice that as Biden passes Trump in virtually all polls, the NYT's famous poll with Siena , so favorable to Trump, seems to be missing in action.
Because they fear, not him, but the loss of subscribers.