Category Archives: media news

media news

Trump continues to play the media perfectly

Donald J. Trump has the media right where he wants them.

In his crosshairs. At the center of public policy debates.

Make no mistake, the president of the United States is demonstrating his amazing skill at playing the media like a cheap fiddle.

What has been fascinating to watch is the discussion over this weekend about the media reporting of inaugural crowd size and the attack-dog performance of press secretary Sean Spicer. He went right after the media in the White House press room. The media took the bait and have launched into an amazing discussion of what many reporters call “small things.”

Yes, the media keep insisting that Trump has lowered the level of discussion to issues that don’t matter — such as inaugural crowd size estimates. The media keep talking about it, however, as if it does matter.

How does the president benefit from all of this?

The Republican Party base that held Trump up while he insulted his way to the GOP nomination and then to the election hates the media’s guts. The base is Trump’s essential audience. He seems to not give a damn — no matter what he says — about representing the entire country. He’s still in campaign mode and he’s going to play to his base as long as is humanly possible.

The media are going to allow it as long as they keep tussling with the president over “small things.”

Meanwhile, many of the rest of out here in the vast stretches of this still-great nation are hoping Team Trump will develop some kind of working relationship with the media that cover it.

These first couple of days seem to portend a rocky ride.

Which might be just to Donald J. Trump’s liking.

media news

Recalling another conservative press flack with fondness

Take a look at this guy. His name was Tony Snow. He was a noted conservative columnist, TV news anchor and then a White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration.

A response to an earlier piece I posted on this blog about the current press spokesman, Sean Spicer, came from a cousin of mine — a conservative as well — who remembered Snow and the “class” he brought to the White House job he held.

My family member’s remembrance spurred a memory of my own that I want to share here.

I met Tony at a National Conference of Editorial Writers conference in Phoenix. The year was 1994. We had a drink in the lounge at the hotel where all us ink-stained wretches were staying. Snow then was a syndicated columnist for the Detroit News. We chatted and shared a few memories about politicians we both knew. I regaled him with stories about the late U.S. Rep. Jack Brooks of Beaumont; Tony knew of him and his reputation as a partisan Democrat who pretty much hated Republicans.

Not long after that, Snow got a gig at the Fox News Channel that made him famous. He became host of “Fox News Sunday.”

I left Beaumont the year after meeting Tony and moved to Amarillo.

Snow then got an invitation to speak at the annual Amarillo Community Prayer Breakfast. I got wind of the invitation and got in touch with Snow. I invited him to visit us at the Globe-News, where I was working as editorial page editor.

Tony arrived and we got reacquainted. He told me he remembered our Phoenix meeting and then we chatted about current events and his assignment as “Fox News Sunday” anchor.

Then he told me something that gives Snow some relevance in the context of today’s political/media climate. He told us at the Globe-News that his best friend on the Fox News talk show was Juan Williams, a staunch liberal columnist who was a contributor to the Fox News Channel.

Tony said his goal every Sunday was to ensure that Williams and Brit Hume — another participant on the show’s weekly panel — got into an argument. He laughed heartily as he talked about how he would bait Williams and Hume into arguing over a policy disagreement.

I mention this because Snow’s broad disagreements with colleagues did not get in the way of their friendships. We hear too little of that kind of kinship these days. Adversaries become enemies, which is too bad.

Tony died of cancer in 2008 after he became press spokesman for President Bush.

Yes, I miss him, too.

media news

Sean Spicer: media puncher in chief

Sean Spicer sauntered into the White House press briefing room today and did something quite extraordinary.

The White House press secretary looked the media in the eye and echoed what the new president of the United States has said repeatedly: He called them dishonest.

Think about that. The fellow who will be the president’s spokesman, his point of contact with the White House press corps, took off his proverbial glove and slapped the media square in the face.

And over what? This is the best part.

He challenged the media’s reporting of the size of the crowd at Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. The crowd, he said, was bigger than the media reported. It rivaled the size of the crowd that gathered for Barack Obama’s first inaugural and was larger than President Obama’s second inaugural.

Spicer bitched about pictures he said misrepresented the size of the crowd.

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen. The president of the United States is continuing his campaign to discredit the media. He trotted out his spokesman to lash out at the press corps while he — Trump, that is — was accusing the media of being full of “dishonest people.”

It’s been said that people in power shouldn’t “punch down.” If you’re the president of the United States, you pick fights, say, with members of Congress over policy matters or you argue with heads of state of adversarial nations.

Arguing over crowd size? To be candid, a lot of Trump’s supporters think he’s right, that the media deserve to be taken down, that they are too big, too powerful, too smug, too elitist and, oh yes, too liberal.

Let’s all get ready, folks. There’s much more of this to come. Of that I am quite certain.

media news

Obama’s poll numbers spiking in final days

I have a good time following certain public opinion polling sites, my favorite of which is the RealClearPolitics average of polls.

Here’s what it shows now about President Obama’s poll standing among Americans: The nation is falling back in love with the guy.

The average of polls shows Obama’s standing at 57 percent. There’s now an 18-percentage-point spread between the “favorable” and “unfavorable” ratings.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

How does the poll average rate Congress? It’s about 14 percent. Interesting, yes?

Why the poll spike for the president? It might have something to do with how voters view him in relation to the man who will succeed him in just a couple of days.

He’s conducting himself with remarkable calm, grace, dignity. Donald J. Trump, meanwhile, is continuing to lash out at his foes, the media, almost anyone who makes a critical statement.

What’s not to admire about a president who is leaving the stage with such style?

media news, national news

Tweeter in chief doesn’t appreciate majesty of his office

In just a couple of days, Donald J. Trump is going to become the 45th president of the United States of America.

He’ll be head of state of the greatest nation on Earth. And, yes, it’s still the greatest nation, Mr. President-elect.

It’s fair to ask, given this fellow’s use of Twitter as his primary mode of communication: Does he truly understand the majesty attached to the office he is about to assume?

Trump has tossed countless conventional norms into the dumper on his way to become president. He has gotten away with countless insults, boorish stunts and profoundly bizarre statements. All of them — or any one of them — would have disqualified him in the eyes of voters.

Instead, his supporters stiffened their spines. They stood behind him. They cheered him on for “telling it like it is.” Good grief!

They also are cheering on his Twitter taunts and tirades. They, like their man, are giving raspberries to the very office that Trump is about to inherit.

He uses Twitter, in the words of some pundits, to “punch down” at critics. Presidents of the United States are supposed to be better than that; they’re supposed to hold themselves above the petty bickering that erupts all around them.

Twitter is supposed to be a tool reserved for schmucks — like, oh, yours truly — to fire off barbs or share others’ barbs.

Not so with the president-elect of the United States of America.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that he doesn’t appreciate the grandeur of the office he sought — and won! He has had zero dealings with any of its previous occupants.

He acknowledged meeting President Obama for the first time after the election. And this comes after he spent years questioning out loud whether Barack Obama was qualified to hold the office. You know … the birther baloney.

You know, there at least is the remote possibility that after he takes the oath, bids good bye to the Obama family and then settles in behind the Oval Office desk he might appreciate the immense power and tradition of the presidency.

He might …

I am not holding my breath.

 

local news, media news, national news, political news

Criticism should keep us all humble … not make us angry

This is going to sound presumptuous and for that I apologize up front.

Donald J. Trump’s knee-jerk reaction to criticism via Twitter got me thinking about how most folks who say or write provocative statements react to comments from those who disagree with them.

I want to count myself in that category. I write this blog and it draws its share of negative reaction. I take all of it seriously. I choose not to respond to all of it directly.

If only the president-elect would show just a little more reticence when someone delivers a barb. I mean, c’mon! You’re about to become president of the United States of America, dude!

I pulled a blog post I wrote nearly seven years ago, back when I was working for a living at the Amarillo Globe-News. Here it is:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/01/damnation-to-the-max/

I used to keep a “Praise and Damnation” file full of notes that, um, praised and damned me. I regret that I have destroyed that file. I did so when I got into a file-cleaning frenzy about a year or so ago. My thought was, “What’s the point?” The bulging folder was taking up room in my filing cabinet and I rarely, if ever, looked at the submissions in it.

I recall what I said in 2010 about that folder and about a particular letter that caught my attention back then. Now, as it was then, I believe criticism keeps me humble. It kept me grounded while I was writing opinion pieces for newspapers and it does so today now that I am writing strictly for myself.

I was unaware of Twitter seven years ago, if memory serves. Heck, I don’t know if it even existed then.

The world is full of know-it-all smart alecks like me who think they know better than those in the public eye. However, we smart alecks have something in common with celebrities such as, oh, the president-elect: We get our share of criticism in return for our comments.

The difference, though, lies in our reaction to that criticism. Grown-ups just let it ride and not fire back angrily. The more childish response is to do what Donald J. Trump has been doing.

In the words of Vice President Biden: “Grow up, Donald. Grow up.”

media news

Trump-Media feud will poison the nation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdNjK4UoWxk

I was quite uncomfortable watching this exchange the other day between Donald J. Trump and a reporter for CNN.

It speaks so brightly to what we can expect from the next president of the United States. He called CNN a “fake news” organization because it reported on a story published by another media outlet regarding allegations that Trump has improper dealings with Russian government officials.

Oh … my!

Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter, sought to ask Trump a question after the president-elect had criticized CNN’s credibility and its newsgathering and reporting. He deserved to ask whatever question he wanted to pose and Trump needed to respond directly to whatever question Acosta would ask.

No. Instead, he chose to outshout the reporter and turn to someone else. This is not how you act “presidential,” Mr. President-elect.

media news

Trump continues his war with media

Dearest Reader,

Ladies and gents, today we witnessed the opening act of what we can expect will be a long-running melodrama featuring the president of the United States and the media that report on his comings and goings.

Donald J. Trump convened a press conference and began by attacking the media. It’s no surprise, of course, given his campaign-long attack on a media he accused of “rigging” the election in favor of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump%E2%80%99s-news-session-starts-war-with-and-within-media/ar-AAlMcQz?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Trump won the election, though, but that hasn’t dissuaded him from continuing his full frontal assault on the media. Now he’s accusing some news outlets of putting out “fake news” relating to reports of Russian involvement in the hacking of Democratic computers.

He outshouted a CNN reporter today who wanted to ask him a question, calling his organization one of the bad guys among media organizations.

Today’s testy exchange with the media, I believe, signals a continuation of an assault by the president-elect. I expect it fully to continue once he actually becomes president.

It’s part of the formula that Trump parlayed to the Republican Party nomination; he appealed to the base of his party that hates the media as much as Trump now says he despises them. This is so very interesting to me, given the president-elect’s ability to play the media like a fiddle during his nomination fight and then his winning presidential campaign.

So … let’s all strap ourselves in for what appears to be a wild ride atop a rip-snorting bull.

The media’s job is to probe, to question on behalf of the public. The president’s job — whether he likes it or not — is to answer the media’s inquiries. Something tells me the new president will resist answering those questions whenever he can.

media news, national news, political news

Now, about the new first lady …

With all this chatter and clatter about Russian hackers, conflicts of interest, White House nepotism and controversial Cabinet picks, I want to look briefly at an individual who stands near all this commotion.

Melania Trump, I’m waiting to hear more from you.

The incoming first lady put forward an interesting and provocative goal for her first ladyship: cyber bullying.

She made her statement, drawing some rather mixed responses across the land.

Why not start with your husband, Mrs. Trump, who campaigned as a primo cyber bully through his use of Twitter as an insult machine? Many of us thought and said as much in reaction to Melania’s initiative.

But there’s another reality to consider. She’s actually picked a legitimate and noble issue to pursue as first lady.

Young people are victimized by Internet bullies, she said. It must stop. We must educate our young people about how destructive such conduct can become and the consequences of bullying.

To that extent, I stand 100 percent in support of what Melania Trump wants to accomplish.

She’ll assume her place on the national stage on Jan. 20, when her husband takes the oath office to become the 45th president. It will be time for the new first lady to turn up the volume on her worthwhile effort on behalf of young people — around the world!

But … first things first. Tell your husband, Mrs. Trump, to knock off his ridiculous and potentially dangerous Twitter tirades.

entertainment news, media news, national news, political news

Yes, Donald, you ‘mocked’ the NY Times reporter

I awoke this morning to news that the great actor Meryl Streep tore Donald J. Trump a new one at the Golden Globes awards ceremony.

She called him a bully and some other fitting epithets. I don’t want to comment specifically on the totality of her comments, but I do want to offer a brief critique of part of the president-elect’s tweet-storm response.

He said “for the 100th time” he didn’t mock a New York Times reporter’s physical disability while delivering a campaign-rally speech en route to his election as president.

Actually, Mr. President-elect, you did mock Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a debilitating muscular disease that inhibits his arm movements. It was a disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of childish petulance the likes of which many of us never have seen coming from a major-party presidential nominee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/movies/trump-meryl-streep-golden-globes-speech.html?partner=msft_msn&_r=0

For Trump to suggest — as if we’re all a bunch of rubes — that he merely was showing how the reporter was ” … ‘groveling’ when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!”

Trump said he “would never do that,” meaning mock someone in such a hideous manner.

Actually, I believe he would. And I also believe he did!