Category Archives: media news

media news

‘Leaks are real, news is fake’ Huh? What?

I’m trying to digest the contents of Donald J. Trump’s press conference today.

It’s upsetting my stomach.

The president has declared all-out war on the media, which he calls “dishonest” and “fake.” The very men and women who cover the president’s statements and actions are told to their face that they are out to get the president, that they have an anti-Trump agenda.

One of them asked Trump today about the leaks that have allowed information to pour out into the public. Trump’s response is utterly mind-boggling on its face: “The leaks are real. The news is fake.”

I don’t even know what that means.

My media activity these days is confined exclusively to this blog. I did spend nearly four decades covering and commenting on local and state governments in two states — first in Oregon and then in Texas. I didn’t have the honor of covering the White House or politics at the highest level imaginable.

However, I do share a bit of empathy with the reporters who are doing their job in the face of withering attacks from the president of the United States.

He should seek to use the media to his own advantage. The president has a message to deliver, or so I am presuming. He must rely on the media to deliver it to the public. Why, for heaven’s sake, does he insist on the ad hominem attacks on the media? Why does he insult the men and women sitting in front of him with labels such as “dishonest” and “fake”?

This guy — the president — cannot remove himself from flat-out campaign mode. He used that tactic against his Republican Party primary opponents and then against the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The media now have taken over the role political opponent.

I think I am picking up the scent of Steve Bannon, the White House senior strategist, who has called the media the “opposition party” and suggested that the media should keep quiet.

The media are nothing of the kind. Nor should they keep quiet; the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the media’s right to pose probing questions of those in power.

If only the president of the United States could demonstrate an inkling of knowledge of the media’s role in a modern society.

media news, national news, political news

Let’s set the record straight, Mr. President

I know it’s not a hu-u-u-u-ge deal.

However, I feel the need to set the record straight on another one of those prevarications that flew out of Donald J. Trump’s mouth.

The president called a press conference today and spoke — and jousted — with the media for more than an hour. Among the mistruths he spoke today dealt with his assertion that his Electoral College victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton was the biggest “since Ronald Reagan.”

Uh, Mr. President, no sir. It isn’t. Not by a long, long shot.

Let’s review, shall we?

1984: President Reagan was re-elected with 525 electoral votes.

1988: Vice President George H.W. Bush was elected with 426 electoral votes.

1992: Bill Clinton was elected with 370 electoral votes.

1996: President Clinton was re-elected with 379 electoral votes.

2008: Barack Obama won with 365 electoral votes.

2012: President Obama was re-elected with 332 electoral votes.

2016: Donald Trump won with 304 electoral votes.

There are the numbers. Trump’s victory wasn’t the biggest since Reagan. Oh, here are some more numbers to put Trump’s victory into, um, a little different perspective.

Clinton collected 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump. The president’s victory was sealed in three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — which he won by a total of 77,000 votes, out of more than 120 million ballots cast nationally.

If Clinton had won those states, she would have been elected. She lost them to Trump. I am acutely aware that Trump won the contest where it counted, so please spare me the lecture and accusation that I’m still choking on all those sour grapes.

A reporter — NBC’s Peter Alexander — today challenged Trump’s statement about the size of his victory. The president said he was referring only to “Republican” presidents. Oh. I see. Then Bush 41’s victory didn’t count?

Trump’s bogus assertion about the size of his victory isn’t a big deal by itself. It does illustrate the man’s propensity for playing fast and loose with facts.

Perhaps, though, they merely are those “alternative facts” to which his senior policy adviser, Kellyanne Conway, referred.

International news, media news, national news, political news

Here comes another ‘gate’ scandal

The “gate” suffix no doubt is going to be attached to the brewing controversy boiling up out of the Trump administration.

Russiagate? Flynngate? Hackinggate?

I grew annoyed long ago at this media concoction to put the “gate” suffix at the end of every scandal that comes down the pike.

The Watergate scandal that brought down a president in August 1974 stands alone. It began with a “third-rate burglary” at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office complex. It morphed into something, well, much bigger than the metro desk crime story that the Washington Post considered it initially.

However, the controversy involving Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and his alleged contacts with Russian government officials smells like a story that could rival Watergate in its gravity.

Some veteran journalists who covered the Watergate scandal are beginning to pick up the scent of something quite serious. Flynn’s contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign could involve collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to, um, influence the election.

We’re a long way from drawing such conclusions. There needs to be a thorough, aggressive and independent investigation into what Flynn did and what he told those Russians. Congressional Republicans have joined their Democratic colleagues in calling for such a probe.

Let it commence, but please — no “gate” references.

media news

Is there no end to POTUS’s sophomoric tweets?

I get that Donald J. Trump is proud of his daughter.

Moreover, I also understand that he wants her to succeed to the fullest.

But for the life of me, I do not get why the president insists on using Twitter in the fashion he uses it. Now he says Nordstrom is treating Ivanka badly and he has taken to Twitter to make his feelings known.

The president has a full plate of issues to consider. You know, things like war and peace, the economy, getting his Cabinet picks confirmed by the Senate. Small stuff, right? Um, no. They’re real big!

So why is the president taking on a department store company because it no longer wants to market Ivanka Trump’s brand of products?

Honestly, I am tired of commenting on this baloney. I feel I must protest, given that the social media maven happens to be the president of the United States of America, the guy who governs the country of which I happen to be a taxpaying citizen.

Someone coined the term “diplomacy by Twitter.” That’s a dangerous practice. The president shouldn’t use this social medium to communicate foreign policy. He shouldn’t use it to criticize federal judges. He shouldn’t use it to boast about crowd sizes and poll numbers or blast those who dispute them.

The presidency is an office that compels maximum respect and dignity. Its current occupant clearly — in my mind — is denigrating the decorum that this high office commands.

media news, national news, political news

Feuding in Trump White House? Go figure

No Drama Obama has given way to All Tumult Trump.

CNN is reporting that the president of the United States is unhappy with the performance of White House press secretary Sean Spicer. What’s more, there appears to be a turf war building within Donald J. Trump’s inner circle: The Reince Priebus wing vs. the Steve Bannon wing.

Who knew?

Does anyone really doubt any of this?

Trump himself has demonstrated an amazing capacity for stirring up controversy. He seems unable to control his own mouth, let alone anyone else’s.

This all occurs, of course, after Trump pledged to surround himself with the “smartest people” on Planet Earth.

The Priebus wing of the Trump team seems to be the more reasonable folks. Priebus is the former Republican National Committee chairman whom Trump hired as his chief of staff. Priebus is a party guy, well-connected to the GOP’s “establishment wing.” He’s always seemed reasonable to me … even if I have thought he was wrong.

Bannon? He’s of another stripe altogether. He was a flame-throwing editor of Breitbart.com, and a purveyor of white-nationalist rhetoric. Bannon strikes me as a dangerous individual who’s now on the “principals committee” of the National Security Council.

Ye, gads, man!

Trump administration officials dispute the CNN report about Trump’s supposed unhappiness with Spicer. Sure thing. Of course they would.

The rumors and innuendo persist. Ironic, yes? Trump won his party’s nomination largely on the basis of the innuendo he tossed around against his foes — and then he did the same thing to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the general election.

It’s coming full circle.

entertainment news, media news

Arnold vs. Donald: so ‘unpresidented’

Donald Trump has become tweeter in chief.

His latest foil is another former prominent politician, a guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two men connected by a reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” have been tweeting back and forth for a couple of days now.

Honestly, it is so damn “unpresidented” — to borrow a term — that it’s driving me batty.

Trump is telling us how “Apprentice” ratings have tanked since he left the show to become, um, president of the United States of America. Arnold — the current host of the show — has responded with a seemingly tongue-in-cheek attack on the president, suggesting the two men switch jobs; if only the U.S. Constitution would allow the Austria-born Schwarzenegger to do the job that Trump now holds.

I know this plea will fall on deaf ears. My Trumpkin friends who read this blog will scoff at me; the anti-Trumpkins out there might express some sorrow for my persistence.

Still, this activity by the president of the United States is so unbecoming of his office. I get that Arnold bears some responsibility as well, given that he once was a consequential governor of the nation’s most populous, wealthiest state — and who once was married to a member of two of the nation’s most prominent political families: Maria Shriver.

Maybe I should just heed my own advice and ignore this ridiculous behavior. I should stop commenting on it with this blog.

I guess I have to acknowledge that I am doing Trump’s bidding by calling attention to it, no matter how negatively I feel about it.

There, I just did. I still don’t like it.

Put down the Twitter device, Mr. President. You’ve got many more infinitely more important matters to occupy your waking hours. This is no way to “make America great again.”

media news

‘Fake news’ has become a conspiracy

TIGARD, Ore. — I have just spent a wonderful afternoon catching up with members of my family who came together to celebrate my uncle’s 90th birthday.

We laughed, hugged, expressed our love for each other and shared plenty of memories.

I’ll likely have more to say about that later, but for the moment I want to pass along a comment I heard from one of my cousins.

Jim said he reads this blog “religiously.” He likes my take on the state of the world and the nation. Thanks, Jim, I appreciate it more than you know.

Then he offered this observation. He wants me to keep fighting against what he believes is a “conspiracy” to build up “fake news” that he thinks has become so pervasive that it is dumbing down society so much that we don’t know “real news” when we see it.

“Am I right?” he asked. Well, I don’t know precisely if he is correct. It might be a bit early to determine the pervasiveness of fake news and whether it has overwhelmed our information flow to the extent Jim — and likely others — believe it has.

I do believe this: It is that the presence of fake news has made most — if not all — of us more wary about the items we read on the Internet. Digital sources have proliferated to such an alarming degree it has become next to impossible to discern fiction from fact on many of these “news” items that are bouncing around in cyberspace.

Fake news has put me on my toes. I intend to stay there probably for the rest of my life as a full-time blogger. If it overwhelms me, then I’ll just have to shift the focus of this blog to more “life experience” kinds of topics.

I’m not yet ready to give up the fight to keep filling cyberspace with my own view of the world.

Thanks for the show of support, Jim. As someone once said, “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

media news

Trump’s policy guru steps up media fight

Steve Bannon’s role as the Trump administration’s chief strategist now appears to involve his taking on a new duty as attack dog.

His target? The media, which he calls the “opposition party.”

Knock it off, Mr. Strategist. You know nothing of which you speak.

Bannon said the media should be “humiliated” and should just “keep quiet and listen for a while.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump%E2%80%99s-chief-strategist-says-news-media-should-%E2%80%98keep-its-mouth-shut%E2%80%99/ar-AAmhL9O?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

That’s not the way it works, Mr. Strategist.

Here’s the deal. The media are empowered to speak freely and openly. It’s in the Constitution. Take a look at it, Mr. Strategist. It’s easy to find … right there in the very First Amendment.

Thus, the media have the protection to blab all they want about whatever floats their boat. If they believe the president is mistaken on a policy matter, it becomes the media’s job to comment and to offer a different perspective.

Just maybe, Mr. Strategist, y’all ought to hear what the media have to say, take a moment and listen to what much of the rest of the country is saying as well about your boss’s ideas.

Building the wall and making Mexico pay for it? Banning all refugees from entering the United States, if only temporarily? Rolling back trade policies? Repealing the Affordable Care Act with nothing in the wings to replace it?

Some of us out here, Mr. Strategist, think some of Donald Trump’s ideas are flat wrong. We rely on the media to speak out for us. And, oh yes, some of us have our own vehicles with which to speak. Yours truly is using one of them right now — at this very moment — to do just that.

The media aren’t the “opposition party,” Mr. Strategist. The media simply are doing their job, just as you are doing your job.

media news

Media become pols’ chosen villain

The president of the United States is taking dead aim at the national political media.

He calls them “dishonest.” Donald Trump even has called reporters “among the most dishonest people on Earth.”

Ouch and double-ouch!

Of course, I don’t believe that.

But I did scrounge up an earlier item I posted on this blog about one political medium that I found implicitly fair, honest and accurate.

It’s the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network. I had an experience with C-SPAN that I want to re-share again today.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/01/c-span-worked-miracles-with-this-spot/

I posted this item nearly a year ago. It is intended to speak the nuanced skill associated with editing video recording and making the interviewee sound a whole lot smarter than he is. In my case, that’s what C-SPAN did to near perfection.

National Public Radio did the same thing — again to yours truly — during the 2008 presidential campaign. NPR wanted to talk to two newspaper editors from disparate regions of the country. They got in touch with me at the Amarillo Globe-News, which serves a solidly Republican region; NPR also talked to the editor of the Dayton Daily News, where the Barack Obama-John McCain was much more competitive.

Again, NPR worked its magic. I stammered my way through a 30-minute conversation with the radio host and my colleague in Dayton. But you didn’t hear all that clumsiness when NPR aired on its “Weekend Edition” broadcast. Here is what I wrote about that experience:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/02/npr-reaches-out-to-the-heartland/

I want to stand up for my colleagues in the media.

They aren’t “dishonest.” Those who work for actual news organizations — not the purveyors of fake news — do so in good conscience and with the singular mission to report the truth.

 

media news, national news

Chelsea stands tall in defense of Barron

Barron Trump has joined a club that is almost as exclusive as the one his parents have joined.

He becomes one of the kids who will grow up in the White House. Thus, he has become — to the shame of many — an easy target of ridicule.

Barron doesn’t deserve such treatment any more than one of his predecessors did. And she has come to Barron’s defense. Barron? Meet Chelsea Clinton … if you haven’t met her already.

Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky sent out a tweet over the weekend urging the public to let Barron, who’s 10 years of age, to “be a kid.” If only the Internet trolls out there would back off.

His parents, Donald and Melania Trump, have assumed the highest profile possible as president and first lady of the United States. With that responsibility, though, a lot of attention gets riveted on their son.

It’s good to see Chelsea Clinton come to the youngster’s defense. She knows better than most White House kids about the hurtful things that foes of her parents can sling — not just at them, but at her as well.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chelsea-clinton%e2%80%99s-years-in-the-spotlight-%e2%80%94-from-first-daughter-to-mother-of-two/ar-AAm93OJ?li=BBnbfcL

Indeed, I was privy once to a hideous comment from a local clergyman in Amarillo about Chelsea. I called him on it later in a note I wrote to him. He apologized to me several weeks later.

This social media craze has erupted over the past decade. Barron’s mother has made cyber bullying her main cause as first lady. Barron’s father has used Twitter to insult his opponents and assorted critics during the past year and a half. Clearly there needs to be some serious introspection within the Trump household as it relates to the use of certain social media — and as the first lady starts to ramp up her efforts to end this cyber scourge.

As for the youngster — and I won’t repeat some of the crap I’ve heard said about him — he doesn’t deserve any of the kind of abuse that’s being flung in his direction.

He is a boy, for crying out loud! As for Chelsea, she’s grown into a successful woman — who happens to be a friend of Barron’s half-sister Ivanka, who grew from a child of privilege into a woman who’s carved out her own successful life.

I now will doff my proverbial hat to Chelsea Clinton for speaking out nicely on behalf of a youngster who’s now faced with growing up under the brightest glare imaginable.