Give the media a break, will ya? Trump and his crew are threatening to sue, jail, harass, and even deport reporters and editors who write things Trump et al. don't like. And the owners of the media, well, they're caught between a rock and a hard place, too--after all, the choice is to serve the public interest or salivate over more millions in tax cuts. So what's a poor billionaire to do?
Jeez, I thought the Left was the folks who know what empathy is!
Maybe I should also crank down the cynicism on Wednesdays for the exhausted workers here? Me, I just happy that the Social Security hand out came through today. I mean, the time around the second Wednesdays are stressful as fuck...
But I'm going to maybe go, like, cynicism-lite.
One problem, such as shown in today's post, is that the establishment media mostly never engage in honest framing these days. The ur-example is that when a serial liar makes a statement, it shouldn't be reported as "says" but "claims", noting that that said liar is credibility-challenged. Or maybe all tariff reporting should note that what Trump's doing goes against the most basic economics and therefore cannot work. Simply, facts without proper framing is bullshit full stop.
Meanwhile, there are subjects that have remained off limits to said media like is an economy in which the businesses are or should be above the law a good thing or are our national security policies really as flawless as they appear from said media's reporting? And so on and so forth.
Or as I like to think of it, it's less producing reporting than producing a news-like product.
I'm telling you, I miss Cockburn's Press Clips more and more every day...
"Meanwhile, there are subjects that have remained off limits to said media like is an economy in which the businesses are or should be above the law a good thing or are our national security policies really as flawless as they appear from said media's reporting?"
Same re Cockburn. OT, but for a laff: I still remember his snark about the formulation "Am I the only one who..." His example: "Am I the only one who finds child rape an objectionable mode of conduct? In your last issue, Alexander Cockburn...(etc.)"
But what I miss is the benefit of his POV in the column which was to focus periodically on media reporting in the context of the owners’ commercial interests. If not an orthodox Marxist take then a pseudo-Marxist one. Which approximately no one outside extreme niches is doing. (And yes, I’m implying that the Voice back then kind of only borderline niche, maybe like mainstream adjacent.)
What I also appreciated and learned from was his focus on what (prejudicial, pseudo-objective) words were used in a given story, in order to identify the medium's bias. Our genial host continues that important service.
You know, a citizen may want to know WHY Medicaid cuts are "a critical piece of Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill," may want to know where the money that will allegedly be saved kicking millions off healthcare is going to go?
Spoiler: billionaires. But it would be RUDE of the NYT to point out who will benefit. It's important to reflect both sides: 330 million Americans on one side, roughly 90 billionaires on the other. Fair and balanced.
As long as there is some rhetorical fig leaf (e.g."we are cutting the illegal immigrants and the able bodied who won't work")(for Medicare), the credulous 30% will nod and say hallelujah...and the media won't dispute this easily disproved nonsense...
Mentioned not is whether they were in those chairs BEFORE they were dragged out in them...Let's just say I would not be surprised if the building staff starts stockpiling wheelchairs on spec.
Jeez, we give 'em these free government wheelchairs right after we gave 'em (for FREE!) the NEED for a free government wheelchair, and are they grateful? I don't think they said "Thank you" ONCE during the whole thing.
I despise the media. And that's coming from someone who was a journalist for 20 years. They have consistently undermined democracy in countless ways, and I still blame "All The President's Men" for it. All those Ivy Leaguers who watched the movie and saw journalism as a powerful and potentially lucrative career path! Jimmy Breslin is rolling in his grave.
I’m trying to imagine St Bob Woodward’s iconography for when he’s enshrined in a statue on a public building. Maybe a beatific expression on his face, a steno pad in one hand, and a cartoonish sack of cash in the other? Not quite St Denis holding his own head, but you work with the material you’re given.
Sometimes I think the NYT sugarcoats this evil, evil Republican stuff so in six months they can run a Cletus safari piece on why the Black Lung victims in Muhlenberg County didn’t think their Congressman would take away their health insurance.
I'm so sick of the both-siderism, it isn't funny. A day or two ago--it all blurs into itself, at this point--I saw a Bluesky post from a NYT writer saying they wouldn't "yet" label Tubby's crypto scandal and impending Qatari luxury-jet gift as "corruption" or "bribery" because neither met their stringent house definition of either term until and unless there was something already received by the players in return for their "gifts" to Tubby. IOW, until there is a proven Quid in existence as a result of the already-happened Quo, they'd stand back uncritically, no matter what "social media wants to say".
Yeah, I kinda let him have it, quoting a few quaint journalistic standards they used to teach back in my day, but as we all know, it never lands.
Yeah, tho they could At. The. Vary. Least. say "with all the appearance of corruption" or some such. Pattern recognition either counts or it doesn't...
As my Mum advised the wee teenaged litbrit: "If, after a dinner date, a man invites you up to his flat for a nightcap, he's not talking about making you a nice cup of tea."
Yes! Lipton. To be honest, I replied to him not with exact quotes from my JM 101 prof, but with quotes from my own stating-the-bleeding-obvious standards:
"I grew up in the so-called Third World.
I do not say this as a member of this or that social media site--I'm saying it as an educated person with a functioning brain:
Trump accepting the $400K Air Corrupto jet is blatant corruption.
What is the quid for this quo? Are you bloody thick?"
I'm so old, I remember the press lecturing Bill Clinton about "the appearance of impropriety" after Kenneth Starr had failed to find anything wrong with Whitewater.
After Kenny Star spent millions of (taxpayer) dollars and Congress wasted hours and hours of time on the subject, at which point the net was cast for anything, ANYTHING they might pin on him, and they all did the happy dance when the blue dress appeared...
(BTW just yesterday saw a "REMEMBER BENGHAZI" sign on the back of a construction pickup. I mean, really? REALLY? In 20-fucking-25?)
My theory, which is mine: the Starr investigation and subsequent report was designed by Republicans (led by Newt Gingrich) to discredit any future Congressional-appointed independent counsel. That way they could literally do future crimes and get away with it without being bothered by Congress.
Maybe we need a few years of Meemaw in the Man Cave. Imagine the the raucous give and take as families spar over whose turn it is to wipe the old lady's butt.
OH COME ON! The Times is just openly trolling now. It takes serious effort to squeeze this story into he said/she said straightjacket. Between this and the "it's not bribery unless it's cash in a sack with a dollar sign on it" is there some office pool thing going on over there?
“Across the world, we’ve seen democracy in retreat,” writes A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times. “This anti-press playbook is now being used here in this country — and it could not come at a more difficult time for the American press.”
Um... please tell me that sentence was followed by a stirring statement of determination and resistance? Or did he just let out a long, deflating sigh and sit down?
Give the media a break, will ya? Trump and his crew are threatening to sue, jail, harass, and even deport reporters and editors who write things Trump et al. don't like. And the owners of the media, well, they're caught between a rock and a hard place, too--after all, the choice is to serve the public interest or salivate over more millions in tax cuts. So what's a poor billionaire to do?
Jeez, I thought the Left was the folks who know what empathy is!
I hear "poor billionaire" to the accompaniment of Poor Butterfly, but I can't choose between the Sarah, the Tony and the Frank.
Ah crap, what was I thinkin'? Of COURSE it's the Sarah.
So much for the tolerant Left!
So shrill, Roy! You’re going to give Peoni the vapors.
Read all about it! Right here in the papers!
Mean old Edroso gave Peoni the vapors!
Oh. And that illustration up top? Is that from the Baltimore Museum of Industry? They have a fine buncha stuff about linotype.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HroEK1umUVc
Tubby and Cosby are a couple of ...
ESCAPERS!
Maybe I should also crank down the cynicism on Wednesdays for the exhausted workers here? Me, I just happy that the Social Security hand out came through today. I mean, the time around the second Wednesdays are stressful as fuck...
But I'm going to maybe go, like, cynicism-lite.
One problem, such as shown in today's post, is that the establishment media mostly never engage in honest framing these days. The ur-example is that when a serial liar makes a statement, it shouldn't be reported as "says" but "claims", noting that that said liar is credibility-challenged. Or maybe all tariff reporting should note that what Trump's doing goes against the most basic economics and therefore cannot work. Simply, facts without proper framing is bullshit full stop.
Meanwhile, there are subjects that have remained off limits to said media like is an economy in which the businesses are or should be above the law a good thing or are our national security policies really as flawless as they appear from said media's reporting? And so on and so forth.
Or as I like to think of it, it's less producing reporting than producing a news-like product.
I'm telling you, I miss Cockburn's Press Clips more and more every day...
"Meanwhile, there are subjects that have remained off limits to said media like is an economy in which the businesses are or should be above the law a good thing or are our national security policies really as flawless as they appear from said media's reporting?"
Magnificent sentence. 2 marks.
Same re Cockburn. OT, but for a laff: I still remember his snark about the formulation "Am I the only one who..." His example: "Am I the only one who finds child rape an objectionable mode of conduct? In your last issue, Alexander Cockburn...(etc.)"
I remember this from what--40 years ago? More?
Cockburn was something to understate things.
But what I miss is the benefit of his POV in the column which was to focus periodically on media reporting in the context of the owners’ commercial interests. If not an orthodox Marxist take then a pseudo-Marxist one. Which approximately no one outside extreme niches is doing. (And yes, I’m implying that the Voice back then kind of only borderline niche, maybe like mainstream adjacent.)
*sigh*
What I also appreciated and learned from was his focus on what (prejudicial, pseudo-objective) words were used in a given story, in order to identify the medium's bias. Our genial host continues that important service.
Agreed, specially about Roy’s writing.
You know, a citizen may want to know WHY Medicaid cuts are "a critical piece of Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill," may want to know where the money that will allegedly be saved kicking millions off healthcare is going to go?
Spoiler: billionaires. But it would be RUDE of the NYT to point out who will benefit. It's important to reflect both sides: 330 million Americans on one side, roughly 90 billionaires on the other. Fair and balanced.
I was deeply worried about their threatened access to British luxury automobiles.
(Reminder that Jaguar Land Rover are owned by India's Tata Motors, Bentley is owned by Volkswagen, and Rolls-Royce is owned by BMW.)
Germany Rides Again! The auto-cracy edition...
Next time those two go to war, who gets the Merlin engines?
Ukraine?
Not to mention the tea-partying of alla that reet, poteet and sweet government cheese. I mean, no more grilled cheese sandwiches?!
Will no one think of the billionaires?
In our dreams maybe no one will but themselves.
You mean what they'll taste like after being slow-roasted over a spit? Yep, they're both spit-roasted and spit-marinated.
"Piss on 'em", he said gravely.
"Billionaires" . . . like the owners of the NYT. Whose mandate is now to "afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable".
"...with as much fear and/or favor as is absolutely necessary."
Fair and balanced.
well except that those billionaires have more total money
When Congress gets ready to rumble all raucus
The actual plan is to grumble and faucus
Prove me wrong.
This is a must share.
As long as there is some rhetorical fig leaf (e.g."we are cutting the illegal immigrants and the able bodied who won't work")(for Medicare), the credulous 30% will nod and say hallelujah...and the media won't dispute this easily disproved nonsense...
Oh, it's gonna be all "we're just addressing fraud", when CME has an *aggressive* Waste, Fraud, and Abuse dealing-with system already.
“three in wheelchairs”
Mentioned not is whether they were in those chairs BEFORE they were dragged out in them...Let's just say I would not be surprised if the building staff starts stockpiling wheelchairs on spec.
It was an image that made me think of Richard Widmark with an evil grin wearing a big fedora.
During Vietnam, reporting mentioned protestors "dressed like nuns."
Why were they dressing "like" or "as" nuns?
Could it have been they WERE nuns? Father Berrigan asks!
When in Rome, dress as a nun dresses.
Jeez, we give 'em these free government wheelchairs right after we gave 'em (for FREE!) the NEED for a free government wheelchair, and are they grateful? I don't think they said "Thank you" ONCE during the whole thing.
I despise the media. And that's coming from someone who was a journalist for 20 years. They have consistently undermined democracy in countless ways, and I still blame "All The President's Men" for it. All those Ivy Leaguers who watched the movie and saw journalism as a powerful and potentially lucrative career path! Jimmy Breslin is rolling in his grave.
(I wonder what Jimmy Breslin and Molly Ivins would have to say about Elon Musk.)
Nothing good! ;>
Au contrair, mon frere, the woman who dubbed George Walker Bush "Schrub" would have some good ideas.
I’m trying to imagine St Bob Woodward’s iconography for when he’s enshrined in a statue on a public building. Maybe a beatific expression on his face, a steno pad in one hand, and a cartoonish sack of cash in the other? Not quite St Denis holding his own head, but you work with the material you’re given.
I've often wondered what Bernstein thinks of his erstwhile co-writer.
The erster the better.
I hear ersters are some kinda aphroDEESiac.
Sometimes I think the NYT sugarcoats this evil, evil Republican stuff so in six months they can run a Cletus safari piece on why the Black Lung victims in Muhlenberg County didn’t think their Congressman would take away their health insurance.
Oh, Christ, now "Cletus safari" reminds me of "Surfin' Safari" and I may "have to" write new lyrics accordingly. Thanks for nothing, Doc.
I’m going on a Cletus Safari.
Come along, New York Times on a Cletus Safari.
Let’s go hunting down
Yokels in Southern town
Come to West Virginia with me…
In Alabama and Georgia,
In the backwoods of Maine,
They’re hanging out in the diners
Talking like they’re insane.
They all voted for Donald,
They wanted “them” to
be gone.
Now they’re losing their healthcare, it’s a different song.
Let’s find Cletus, you
Know the readers need us to
Come on and safari with me
(Come on and safari with)
Flyin’ to Montana we’ll be rentin’ a car
And we’re drivin’ while the sun’s on the rise
My photographer and me, we know we needn’t go far
For a diner full of regular guys.
(Chorus)
Come on, baby, it’s no joke (Cletus, Cletus safari)
Yeah, we’re gonna meet the regular folk
(Now come along)
Yeah, baby, it’ll be nifty
Ya just gotta spot a Ford 150
Let’s find Cletus, you
Know the readers need us to
Come on and safari with me
When we find the fellas they’ll be grumblin’ a bit
With their scrambled and their bacon and toast
When we ask to interview ‘em for the Times they’ll say, “Shit,
We just finished with the Washington Post.”
(Chorus)
Try to get a quote but they don’t want to debate
The economy or Trump and his fibs
They say, “We don’t have a clue what makes America great.
All we care about is owning the libs.”
(Chorus)
I yield.
2 marks to the lot of ya!
I'm so sick of the both-siderism, it isn't funny. A day or two ago--it all blurs into itself, at this point--I saw a Bluesky post from a NYT writer saying they wouldn't "yet" label Tubby's crypto scandal and impending Qatari luxury-jet gift as "corruption" or "bribery" because neither met their stringent house definition of either term until and unless there was something already received by the players in return for their "gifts" to Tubby. IOW, until there is a proven Quid in existence as a result of the already-happened Quo, they'd stand back uncritically, no matter what "social media wants to say".
Yeah, I kinda let him have it, quoting a few quaint journalistic standards they used to teach back in my day, but as we all know, it never lands.
Yeah, tho they could At. The. Vary. Least. say "with all the appearance of corruption" or some such. Pattern recognition either counts or it doesn't...
As my Mum advised the wee teenaged litbrit: "If, after a dinner date, a man invites you up to his flat for a nightcap, he's not talking about making you a nice cup of tea."
He's suggesting maybe you are HIS cup of tea...?
Lipton? His conscience has a protective coating of Prestige.
Yes! Lipton. To be honest, I replied to him not with exact quotes from my JM 101 prof, but with quotes from my own stating-the-bleeding-obvious standards:
"I grew up in the so-called Third World.
I do not say this as a member of this or that social media site--I'm saying it as an educated person with a functioning brain:
Trump accepting the $400K Air Corrupto jet is blatant corruption.
What is the quid for this quo? Are you bloody thick?"
I looked him up yesterday for a comment to make sure I was spelling his name right and learned he’s 59.
59! And still a callow credulous suck up. Just because you live on a block doesn’t mean you have to go around it even once, I suppose.
Correction: $400M air-corrupto-plane. Plain corruption!
sadly he has the backing of a unanimous SCOTUS ruling implying it is not corruption
I'm so old, I remember the press lecturing Bill Clinton about "the appearance of impropriety" after Kenneth Starr had failed to find anything wrong with Whitewater.
And, I know I've said this a million times but if they're foreign "emoluments" they're taboo whether there's a quid pro quo or not.
I had a buddy named Quo. Every once in a while I'd ask him to lend me a couple...well, you know...
After Kenny Star spent millions of (taxpayer) dollars and Congress wasted hours and hours of time on the subject, at which point the net was cast for anything, ANYTHING they might pin on him, and they all did the happy dance when the blue dress appeared...
(BTW just yesterday saw a "REMEMBER BENGHAZI" sign on the back of a construction pickup. I mean, really? REALLY? In 20-fucking-25?)
My theory, which is mine: the Starr investigation and subsequent report was designed by Republicans (led by Newt Gingrich) to discredit any future Congressional-appointed independent counsel. That way they could literally do future crimes and get away with it without being bothered by Congress.
I appreciate the hell outta your theory. Mind if I borrow it sometime?
Roy hit his head on the nail today. 2 solid marks
You gotta understand it’s nothing personal for most of them. With few exceptions, it’s just business.
I mean, you’re standing between them and a dollar. What did you think was going to happen?
Q: How do you stuff twenty congressmen into a Volkswagen Bug?
A: Toss a dollar inside.
Maybe we need a few years of Meemaw in the Man Cave. Imagine the the raucous give and take as families spar over whose turn it is to wipe the old lady's butt.
It'll bring everyone together!
The thought: "We have a free press so I guess we are getting what we pay for." Would that be inappropriate?
Fair.
OH COME ON! The Times is just openly trolling now. It takes serious effort to squeeze this story into he said/she said straightjacket. Between this and the "it's not bribery unless it's cash in a sack with a dollar sign on it" is there some office pool thing going on over there?
Fear not! Sulzberger is on it.
“Across the world, we’ve seen democracy in retreat,” writes A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times. “This anti-press playbook is now being used here in this country — and it could not come at a more difficult time for the American press.”
Um... please tell me that sentence was followed by a stirring statement of determination and resistance? Or did he just let out a long, deflating sigh and sit down?
I'm not sure anyone read past that line.
I didn't.
I'm guessing the rest was behind a paywall, because nothing says "democracy" like restricting the news to those who can pay.
"This past year has been a difficult one for both the British and French armies", said Winston Churchill before retiring for a long nap.