Tag Archives: media

media news, national news, political news

Trump finds an old nemesis: the media

doanld

Donald J. Trump is not known for his self-awareness or for an ability to look inward.

He likes to assess blame everywhere else, even where no reason exists to assess such blame.

The Republican presidential nominee has launched another tweet storm in which he blames — get ready for it — the media for his collapsing poll numbers.

There you go. Blame the media.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-on-nyt-their-reporting-is-fiction-226988

It’s a time-honored dodge that politicians use on occasion whenever they seek to divert attention from the real problem at hand — which usually happens to be the message they’re peddling.

He said the media are giving Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton political cover. Trump said the media don’t cover his rallies in an appropriate fashion. He said the media are distorting his message.

It’s the alleged Clinton-Mainstream Media alliance that I find most interesting.

I guess Trump hasn’t read much about the coverage the media have been giving to — in no particular order:

Benghazi, the e-mail controversy, the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, her husband’s dalliance when he was president, the Whitewater real estate probe, her reluctance to meet with the press regularly, her own negative poll numbers, the public perception that Clinton isn’t “trustworthy.”

So now he’s suggesting the media are to blame because his own poll numbers are plummeting and that he cannot seem find a message — let alone stay on one?

The word “delusional” comes to mind.

national news, political news

TV news ‘contributors’ need to come clean

hillary

Even as a longtime print guy — someone who earned his living writing for newspapers for more than three decades — I remain quite respectful of broadcast journalists and their craft.

I say that even as broadcast journalism is morphing into something few of us barely recognize from the days when we broke into journalism three, four, five decades ago.

The cable and broadcast news networks now are full of “contributors,” pundits who often come to their new calling from the partisan political world.

An online report brings to light a fascinating and troubling trend in the TV coverage of the presidential campaign. It is the absence of full disclosure by political pundits to the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/25/tv-pundits-praise-hillary-clinton-on-air-fail-to-disclose-financial-ties-to-her-campaign/

Viewers are listening to “contributors” such as, Stephanie Cutter, say that Hillary Clinton has done “nothing wrong” in her presidential campaign. They do not hear Cutter — or her employers at CNN — reveal that she has financial ties to the Clinton campaign.

CNN recently hired former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a “contributor.” It didn’t reveal that Lewandowski was still getting paid by the Trump campaign even after he was let go as its campaign manager.

The broadcast and cable news outlets are full of these contributors, though, who have some form of financial connection to Clinton.

Honestly, I am troubled in the first place by all these political hacks who find themselves offering analysis on the state of the campaign. My own preference would be for the networks to rely more on think tank types, journalists who make their living offering such analysis and perhaps academics.

Sure, they need to be “telegenic” and be able to present themselves and their views in a cogent and understandable manner.

Does any of this pro-Clinton slant — and the financial connections to the candidate herself — doom or candidacy? Should it? No to questions.

Consumers of news and analysis, though, would be served far better if the contributors revealed their own financial interest in the candidate they are praising.

media news, national news, political news

‘Thin skin’ label gets under Trump’s thin skin

donald-trump

Elizabeth Warren calls it as she sees it.

Donald J. Trump, says the senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, is a “thin-skinned racist bully.”

So the attack continues. It will continue through the rest of this political campaign as Trump runs for the presidency against his certain Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump’s camp needs to worry about their guy.

The presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee has demonstrated time and again an inability to answer criticism of his statements and what passes for “policy” without resorting to name-calling and insults.

Take his standard-fare response to Warren’s criticism. He keeps referring to her as “Pocahontas.” Why? It’s because Warren claims to have some Native American ancestry in her background.

When the criticism comes from Clinton, Trump responds with “Crooked Hillary” barbs. Former GOP foes Ted Cruz became “Lyin’ Ted,” Marco Rubio became “Little Marco,” and Jeb Bush became “Low Energy Jeb.”

Trump has labeled the media as “sleazy,” “dishonest,” “pathetic,” and “phony.” Why? Because the media have shown the temerity to report on negative elements of Trump’s past.

I’m sure someone within Trump’s inner circle — if he’s actually got one — will need to inform him of this truth.

“Donald, it’s not going to get any easier from this day forward. In fact, dude, it’s going to get even rougher. The more insults and pejorative labels you sling at your critics, the more they’re going to come back at you.

“It’s long past time, Donald, for you to start arguing policy differences with Hillary.

“However, first things first. You’ve got to come with a set of policies you can call your own.”

Will he heed that advice?

I’d wager — if I were a betting man — he’ll ignore it … at enormous political peril.

media news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Media simply ‘afflicting the comfortable’

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donald-trump

Journalism has its share of clichés that seek to define its mission.

One of them is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

It doesn’t betray a bias, per se. It simply defines one of the tenets that drives journalists to do their job with thoroughness, while being fair to those they are examining.

Thus, a group of journalists sat before Donald J. Trump on Tuesday and grilled the presumptive Republican presidential nomination on donations he said he made to veterans organizations.

Trump’s response was to throw a tantrum.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/01/opinions/donald-trump-tantrum-media-role-louis/index.html

The issue at hand dealt with whether Trump actually donated the amount of money he said he had donated to veterans organizations.

Washington Post reporters had detected a discrepancy in what Trump had said, that the money went to the organizations many months after he said he made the donation. So, media representatives questioned him about that discrepancy, only to have Trump respond with another round of name-calling and insults.

Trump seems to demonstrate a casual disregard for the facts. He said after the 9/11 attacks that he witnessed “thousands and thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

He didn’t witness anything of the sort.

Some pundits have accused Trump of being a “pathological liar,” defining it as a case in which the candidate tells a lie knowing it to be a lie and understanding full well that others who hear it also know it to be a lie.

It’s the media’s responsibility to ensure that candidates be held accountable for statements they make.

That’s what happened at the news conference Tuesday as the media grilled the candidate on what he said he’d done on behalf of veterans organizations.

Sure, they have “afflicted the comfortable.” It’s their job.

 

media news, military news, national news, political news

Trump wins by not showing up

150915_POL_RepublicanDebate2.jpg.CROP.promo-xlarge2

And the winner of last night’s Republican Party presidential debate is . . . ?

The guy who wasn’t there.

That would be Donald J. Trump.

Why did he win? Because he’s the individual most of American political pundit class is talking about this morning.

This individual’s ability to manipulate the media, those in the know, the public is simply astonishing. It’s the sole reason he remains the Republican frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination.

His ability to control the media narrative, of course, has not a single thing to do with any single idea he’s put forth. Trump’s showmanship is beyond belief.

He staged a rally for veterans while the rest of the GOP field was bashing each others’ brains in. Trump even lured a couple of his rivals from the “undercard” debate — Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — to the vets rally to yammer about how they, too, were going to be faithful to veterans’ concerns and needs.

The veterans rally, of course, was a plug for Trump and had little to do, really, with the issue of veterans care. Every American already wants to do all they can to care for the veterans who are returning home from war. It has become a mantra — as it should.

Trump’s manipulation of this event, though, is what is so astonishing and is what gives this guy his political staying power.

The record is full of events that would have doomed a candidate who didn’t have Trump’s self-promotion skill set. The insults he has hurled at his foes, at media representatives, at foreign leaders, at voters themselves would have sent any other candidate to the proverbial showers long ago.

Not Trump.

He’s still standing at the head of the line. He boycotted a GOP debate because he’s feuding with one of the moderators.

But we’re still talking about him.

The guy’s a genius at one thing . . . and it has nothing at all to do with becoming president of the United States of America.

 

media news, national news, political news

Trump vs. Kelly: Round Two

donald

It fascinates me to no end to watch Donald Trump lash out at the media.

The leading Republican presidential candidate (depending on whose poll you believe) is going after Fox News’s Megyn Kelly yet again.

He’s chiding her for not citing a poll she once cited when his poll standing was slipping. Now that he’s back up again — for the life of me, I don’t understand this — he’s calling out Kelly for ignoring the survey data.

This begs the question about how Trump might react to media criticism in the event hell freezes actually over and he gets elected president of the United States a year from now.

What on God’s Earth is he going to do when the heat gets really, really hot and he makes a serious blunder and insults the wrong individual here at home or abroad?

And as every president since the beginning of poll-taking has observed, their approval ratings go up and down. President George H.W. Bush was at 90-plus percent approval — remember? — when he launched the Persian Gulf War and our troops kicked the invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

That was in early 1991; the president lost his bid for re-election the following year.

This is a strange political season. The kinds of insults and personal attacks that used to scar candidates for life now have  become the preferred method of campaigning … or so it appears.

What has become of us?

 

media news, national news, political news

Trump is driving the media crazy

Donald Trump is confounding everyone who observes politics for a living … or for a hobby.

The most profound impact might be on the media and how they seek to cover this guy.

The New York Times has published an interesting analysis of the media coverage of this individual’s amazing rise to the top of the political heap.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump%e2%80%99s-wealth-and-poll-numbers-complicate-news-media%e2%80%99s-coverage/ar-AAdtnhP

It notes that his wealth and poll numbers are giving the media fits as they try to make sense of what this person means to the 2016 race for the presidency. Is he for real? Is he a showman who is seeking to elevate his real brand, which is as a reality-TV huckster? Or is this guy really in it for the long haul, seeking to change the course of American history?

Trump recently filed the financial disclosure forms needed to cement his run for the Republican presidential nomination. Some folks — me, included — thought that perhaps he wouldn’t file those forms, and that his campaign would go away after a suitable amount of fanfare and rhetorical fireworks.

So, he’s taken the next step.

Trump is getting a lot of ink and air time. Some pundits on the right think the media hate this guy. I disagree.

I believe the media love him, not because he’s Donald Trump and he’s going to single-handedly “make America great again,” as he proclaims. They love him because he sells newspapers and brings viewers to TV screens.

And yes, there’s a certain entertainment value associated with this Trump’s pronouncements, not to mention the angry response he evokes from his fellow Republican presidential candidates — and from those who’ve run for the office previously; Democratic candidates and “strategists,” of course, are loving every minute of this traveling carnival.

I’m going to keep believing, though, that Trump is a flash in the pan. His comments about Sen. John McCain’s war record, I believe, were too much for many serious Americans and I’ll keep insisting that his statement making light of McCain’s five-year captivity in a North Vietnamese prison cell will become the single event that dooms his candidacy for the White House.

However, until he exits the arena, the media will keep covering him — and will keep struggling with trying to decide just how to do so.

Good luck.

media news

CNN anchor ‘misspoke’ about Dallas PD shooter?

This likely will be the last thing I’ll say about this, but I must ask: How does one “misspeak” the words that CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield uttered in describing James Boulware, the man who laid siege to the Dallas Police Department before a police sniper shot him to death?

http://news.yahoo.com/cnn-fredricka-whitfield-dallas-police-shooter-courageous-brave-210006543.html

Whitfield went on the air the other day and said Boulware was “brave and courageous.” He assaulted the PD in an armored van, opening fire on police officers.

The criticism erupted. Whitfield went back on the air a couple of days later and said she “misspoke” when she used those words to describe Boulware. The media called her statement an “apology.” It really wasn’t.

My understanding, though, is that when you misspeak, you insert incorrect verbiage into sentences intended to convey another message. What did she intend to say about Boulware? Was the word “brave” uttered instead of — as a friend of mine noted — the term “brazen”?

Now I’m trying to figure out a word that sounds sort of like “courageous.” I can’t come up with one.

She misspoke? No, that’s not what I’d call it.

 

national news, political news

A more relevant question regarding Hastert

A blog that I follow, Bell Book Candle, has offered an interesting question regarding the growing scandal involving former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Hastert has been indicted on felony accusations involving sexual abuse of a student back when Hastert was a wrestling coach at an Illinois high school.

The media need to focus not on the sex, but on the money. According to the blog:

“The media will focus on Dennis Hastert’s past indiscretions if they are of a sexual nature. However, the real question that they should be asking is how a relatively obscure public servant can afford to pay $3,500,000 to buy the silence of one person. Our politics and our politicians are being corrupted by the huge amounts of cash available to them. We must rid our democracy of the ability of some to buy favoritism for themselves, be they corporations or be they the 1%.”

The media won’t trouble themselves quite so much with the money part of this matter.

As the saying goes: Sex sells.

However, money does have a corrupting influence at many levels involving those who make public policy.

This is one of the stranger stories I’ve heard in many years.

A big part of me hopes that it doesn’t pan out. A bigger part, though, fears that it will.

 

national news, political news

Why do media keep referring to 'Hillary'?

I don’t intend to belabor this point, but it’s worth noting nevertheless.

The media seem quite comfortable referring to the presume favorite for the Democratic Party presidential nomination only by her first name.

It’s “Hillary says” such and such, or “Hillary need to explain” this or that, or “Hillary has hit the road.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-election-media-strategy-117118.html?hp=t4_r

Is it a sexist thing? Or is it just that the former first lady, U.S. senator, secretary of state and 2008 presidential candidate has become so familiar that only a first name is needed. Or are media representatives seeking to knock her down a peg or two by using the first-name-only reference?

Athletes often ascend to that status: Wilt, Arnie, Magic, Julius, Mickey and Reggie come to mind.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has achieved some kind of mysterious air of familiarity with the media.

The task ahead of her, though, is to build some familiarity with average Americans. Folks like you and me.

I dislike referring to the first declared 2016 Democratic presidential candidate by her first name. I continue to believe that to treat her the same way one should treat all the men who will run for president, it’s good to refer to her in precisely the same manner we do those men.

But think about this for a moment. Republicans might have a female candidate of their own to consider during the primaries. That would be Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett/Packard and one-time GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in California.

Is she going to become “Carly”?

Somehow, the ring of familiarity just isn’t there as it is with Hillary.