Tag Archives: mainstream media

media news

‘Russia thing’ is producing a form of vertigo

I no longer am an active member of the so-called “mainstream media.”

Thus, I am merely a watcher and reader of news. So help me, though, the speed and intensity of the “breaking news” that keeps busting out is making my head spin.

I refer to the Donald Trump/Russia/Jared Kushner/Michael Flynn/FBI director firing/special counsel elements that keep bursting out with bombshell after bombshell.

I’ll just say that I am immensely proud of the media’s role in revealing these stories. The New York Times and the Washington Post news staffs have been performing an immense public service in their work to root out all the information they can find.

Good on ’em. Keep up the great work.

For now, though, I think I’ll need a dose of Dramamine.

media news

Thank you, mainstream media, for doing your job

The media keep getting a pounding from those who hang nasty labels on them.

Enemy of the people. Biased. Unfair. Mean.

I want to give them a serious shout out for the job they have been doing in reporting some of the most explosive news stories in, oh, a couple of generations.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal … the big guns of the so-called “mainstream media” have served their craft well. They make those of us who toiled in that craft — and are doing so to this day — so very proud.

Donald J. Trump’s tenure as president might be in serious jeopardy. Why? Because big-city newspaper reporters and editors are telling the public what they need to hear about the president of the United States. They are reporting on incidents that could result in charges of obstruction of justice; they are chronicling events and reporting the news to the public that must always be informed about how the government is being run on its behalf.

A former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, said recently — and quite stupidly — that he is “personally offended” by the media. He just cannot stand reading negative news about the president and so, as is customary among some thin-skinned politicians, he blames the messenger. Gingrich ignores the undeniable fact that all of Trump’s wounds — every one of them — have been self-inflicted.

The president himself has labeled the media “the enemy of the American people.” Why? Again, because they are doing their job. They are reporting to the public the mistakes that the president is making. Trump’s senior political adviser, Stephen Bannon, has referred to the media as the “opposition party.” What absolute crap!

Conservative media outlets have waged war against the so-called “mainstream media” for years, using that very term as an epithet against media outlets that dare to tell the truth.

It’s far too early to know where all of this reporting will lead. As the current House speaker, Paul Ryan, has implored, “We need the facts” before making judgments.

I am going to rely on the media to keep presenting the facts. They make me proud. I plan to keep reading … and learning.

media news, medical news, national news

Trump assails media yet again

Why is it that the Fake News rarely reports Ocare is on its last legs and that insurance companies are fleeing for their lives? It’s dead!

That, dear reader, is one of Donald J. Trump’s latest tweets in a Twitter tirade he launched late today against the national news media.

I find it fascinating.

The president accuses the media of failing to report that the Affordable Care Act is collapsing.

Excuse me, Mr. President?

Trump and his allies keep saying it. The media keep reporting it. It’s no longer a novel notion.

I happen to disagree with the president’s assertion about the ACA. Isn’t that fair enough? He’s entitled to his opinion, while others are entitled to theirs — even if they are at odds with what the president says or believes.

The road ahead for the bill that the House approved to replace the ACA remains full of land mines. The U.S. Senate isn’t likely to adopt the House’s version of health care overhaul.

The media’s job is to report the progress of that journey regardless of whether it’s positive news or negative news for the Trump administration.

You can bet your last nickel, though, that the media are reporting precisely what the president is saying, which includes pronouncements about the future of the Affordable Care Act.

media news, national news, political news

Do as Trump says, not as he does

Donald J. Trump cracks me up.

Except that I’m not laughing with the president, but rather I’m laughing at him for the preposterous declarations he makes about the media — and what he does before and after he makes them.

Trump stood before the Conservative Political Action Conference audience this week and excoriated the media — the “enemy of the people,” remember — for using anonymous sources.

What, then, occurred that makes this attack so laughable?

His White House staff talked to a select group of media on the grounds that they be allowed to speak anonymously.

D’oh! Huh? Eh? What the … ?

Trump’s CPAC rant was the latest ramping up of his war against the media, the folks whose task is to report to their own constituents what is going on with the White House, the president’s staff and, by golly, the president himself.

This ridiculous and nonsensical rant in which he blasts the media for granting anonymity to sources only demonstrates the president’s utter ignorance of the traditional role between the media and the White House.

It’s supposed to be adversarial. Every single president — regardless of party or ideology — has bitched about his treatment by the media. Some have taken that complaint to more intense levels than others; President Nixon’s troubles come to mind.

However, every single one of them has said essentially the same thing: The media treat me unfairly; they’re too harsh; they’re too probing; they pry too much and too deeply.

The treatment Trump is getting is really no different than what has occurred since the founding of the Republic.

Now, for him to blast the media for granting anonymity — while allowing his staff to request it of the media — simply makes me shake my head in sheer amazement at this president’s ignorance.

media news

Mr. President, now that you are talking about ‘fake news’ …

I would love to meet the reporter who stands in front of the president of the United States and asks him the following:

Thank you, Mr. President. You are complaining about “fake news,” which I take to mean is news with which you disagree.

I’m wondering, sir, how would you describe the “news” you kept promoting for about a half-dozen years that President Barack Obama was a foreign-born individual who wasn’t constitutionally qualified to serve in the office to which he was elected twice?

Was that news “fake,” sir? And how do you compare that outright lie with what you contend is taking place today?

***

I would bet the mortgage, the farm, my left leg that the president would go ballistic if he were to hear such a question from “the enemy of the American people.”

media news

Trump has chosen the wrong ‘enemy’

Donald J. Trump’s war on what he calls the “enemy of the American people” has taken a seriously counterproductive and dangerous turn.

It’s also patently frightening. Outrageous. Un-American. Pick whatever negative description you prefer.

The president has ordered several major media organizations excluded from White House briefings. They include CNN, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, The Hill, Buzzfeed, Politico and the BBC.

He calls them “fake news” outlets. He doesn’t like the tone of their coverage. He is limiting access to, um, more “friendly” media organizations.

So help me, I am running out of ways to express my utter outrage over this treatment of the media by the president of the United States. Not since the late Richard Nixon have we seen anything quite like this — and not even Tricky Dick managed to do what one of his successors has done.

If you think for a moment about this, you have to wonder: What in the world is Trump hoping to accomplish? White House press flack Sean Spicer will deliver his briefings to certain media outlets; meanwhile, those that are left out will be left to write about their being excluded. That reporting, then, might simply anger those Americans who understand the meaning of the First Amendment’s protection of a “free press.”

Trump’s bullying of the media is an outrageous act of a thin-skinned narcissist who doesn’t comprehend — seemingly at any level — what the nation’s founders envisioned when they provided for a press that should be free of government intimidation.

We now are hearing the president of the United States of American declaring that the media are the “enemy of the people.”

Are you kidding me?

The irony of this approach is mind-boggling in the extreme. It can be argued that Trump owes his ascent to the pinnacle of political power to the media, which covered his every utterance for months without ever challenging their veracity.

Now that they have done what they should have done from the beginning, the president has decided he doesn’t like being challenged.

Mr. President, that’s what the media do. It’s their job.

You, sir, do not get it.

legal news, media news, national news, political news

‘Enemy of the people’ talk is way overblown

All the recent “enemy of the people” discussion prompted by the president of the United States has caused me to think about the career I pursued.

I worked in the mainstream media for 37 years. I got to pursue some great stories. I was able to see and do some fascinating things and meet some remarkable individuals.

I never considered myself an “enemy of the people.” Donald J. Trump has labeled the media as such, while proclaiming he doesn’t think the media are his personal enemies.

When the president of the United States impugns the integrity of the individuals who are doing what I used to do, well, I take it personally.

Did I make everyone happy while pursuing my job? Not in the least. I angered some public officials, made them squirm. For instance:

* I once wrote an investigative piece about a trial judge in Oregon City, Ore., who had developed a reputation as a jurist who lacked the temperament to do the job properly. I interviewed fellow judges, prosecutors, defense counsel and, of course, the judge himself. We published the story.

Then the judge died. My editor then assigned me to write his obituary. Who did I call to collect information about the judge? His wife. We had a nice visit and she told me she didn’t harbor ill feelings — let alone hatred — for me.

* I moved later to Beaumont, Texas, and then got another judge quite riled at me when I noticed something in a news story we had published one day. It spoke of the district judge getting a permit to operate a private business on the ground floor of the county courthouse where he worked as a state employee.

Big deal, you say? Well, yes. You see, he used facsimile state letterhead stationery to communicate with the county auditor, who had to approve the bids; the auditor — who reported to a panel of district judges, including the judge who was bidding for the permit — then granted the judge the permit.

I wrote some editorials calling this activity into question. The judge took great offense at it and, from what I heard, wanted to sue the newspaper and yours truly for libel.

* I moved to Amarillo after that and promptly got sideways with a former city commissioner who was appointed to the board of a public district that oversaw the then-publicly owned hospital. The problem, though, was that he was employed by a competing for-profit hospital, which seemed a tad inappropriate; he shouldn’t have served on a public hospital district board while working for a competitor. I wrote an editorial calling attention to that conflict of interest — and incurred the wrath of the former city commissioner.

I was doing my job as I understood it in all those cases. I never thought of myself as a purveyor of “fake news” or someone who “had an agenda” that differed from the public I sought to serve.

When the president assumes such things about the media and then challenges them in such a direct manner, a lot of us with ties to this particular craft take it all quite personally.

I am one of them.

I might have angered my share of officials along the way. As for “the people,” well, they cannot live without a free and aggressive press … no matter how mad the president says they might be in the moment.

media news

Trump performs a one-80 on the press

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from dealing with politicians over the years, it’s that the only thing guaranteed to force them into action is the press, or more specifically, fear of the press.”

— Donald Trump, “The Art of the Deal”

Imagine that. The man who — at the time he made that statement — likely didn’t envision himself as the president of the United States of America.

It’s all different now for Trump the politician as he stumbles and bumbles his way past his first month in office as the Leader of the Free World.

The very same media upon which he has declared war are doing the very thing he seemingly praised in his talked-about book. They are seeking answers to difficult questions. They want all the information they can gather so they can inform the public — the folks to whom they and, oh yes, the president answer — about the performance of its most visible institution.

Let’s all consider just for a moment that the public and the president serve the same masters. That would be you and me. The public.

Yes, I understand that media companies are privately held, for-profit organizations. The public they serve, however, make it possible for them to earn the income they want.

Trump now has gone to war with the “fake news” media. Someone will have to explain to me what he means by that, although I think I have an inkling of an idea. He appears to refer to those media organizations that don’t report only the “good news” he says he deserves.

The rest of it is, well, fake. It’s phony. It’s bogus. It’s not real.

With all due respect, Mr. President, you are full of crap.

The man had it right in that book of his. The media are forcing the nation’s No. 1 politician “into action.”

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

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.