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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Small Ray of Sunshine Open Thread: Is Trump Making Reporting “Sexy” Again?

Small Ray of Sunshine Open Thread: Is Trump Making Reporting “Sexy” Again?

by Anne Laurie|  February 19, 201710:51 pm| 52 Comments

This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Media, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Clap Louder!, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All

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On @FaceTheNation #Priebus re Trump tweet that press is "enemy" of "American people:" "I think you should take it seriously." #NotTheEnemy

— Lynn Sweet (@lynnsweet) February 18, 2017

.
“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”
.

During “normal” times, people tend to regard the press as, at best, a bunch of prying busybodies, and at worst a pack of tattle-tales. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) But for a brief shining moment after Watergate (and not, I would add, necessarily to the benefit of the profession), investigative reporters were swashbuckling young rebels who brought down an evil cabal which had threatened the very foundations of our democracy. Since some people mistook the movie version of All the President’s Men for a documentary, earnest suburban youngsters with adequate SATs dreamed of becoming the next Robert Redford Bob Woodward or Dustin Hoffman Carl Bernstein. Journalism became a credential-requiring career, not just a job for oddballs too literate for the factory floor and too stubborn or damaged to climb into the better white-collar ranks.

But if Trump and his handlers, on both sides of the Atlantic, are determined to reenact Watergate (second time as farce!), maybe we’ll at least get an influx of bright young minds interested in actual investigative reporting, as opposed to cocktail-party scrumming to join the ranks of the Media Village Idiots…

Reince Priebus makes Ron Ziegler look like Abraham Lincoln

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) February 19, 2017

Was there in 1970 at Nixon’s San Clemente w/ Herb Kaplow, Tom Jarrel, WH traveling press & beleaguered Ziegler. Seeing lots of parallels. https://t.co/b6gyNxQN71

— Wayne Slater (@WayneSlater) February 19, 2017

What did the President know and when did he interrupt who was telling him about it to brag about his terrific Electoral College victory?

— Rocky Mountain Mike (@RockyMntnMike) February 17, 2017


"Why don't we all get a member of the press and beat him up?" an Agnew advance man once asked. https://t.co/lSAy3sMRjH (h/t @YAppelbaum)

— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) February 19, 2017

When reporters say “#NotTheEnemy,” they must remember how “Not a Crook” worked out for Nixon. #ProtectTheTruth https://t.co/PNWF28x91H pic.twitter.com/w8Yce11g6y

— George Lakoff (@GeorgeLakoff) February 19, 2017

Good @GlennThrush explanation of efforts to fact-check, and also how Trump is merely throwing accelerant https://t.co/wmusPSY0TT

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 19, 2017

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Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike J

    February 19, 2017 at 10:58 pm

    The main thing I’ve noticed with Trump’s war on journalism is that the most serious journalists are livid. The more livid they are, the more likely you are to be able to look back through their stories and see, “Republicans say X, Democrats say Y, how are we ever to to know what’s really true?”

  2. 2.

    mb

    February 19, 2017 at 10:59 pm

    Personally, I’d much rather have Trump berating the press than smoozing with them — which would probably work great, don’t know why he doesn’t. I do not think it was an accident that the press started turning against GWBush after he started jailing journalists. I like an adversarial relationship between the press and the powerful — and now more than ever since we have a press that has never been more easily co-opted. Kind of baffling to me that Trump has decided to be so combative when he could have had them eating out of his hand — just had to pivot just a little. Instead, he’s going to keep them riled up and investigating every little thing. LOFingL.

  3. 3.

    misterpuff

    February 19, 2017 at 10:59 pm

    Oh Boy….Junior “Both Siders” streaming into J schools. That can only be Good News for John McCain.

  4. 4.

    lollipopguild

    February 19, 2017 at 11:01 pm

    Drip,drip, drip. From nixon’s plumbers to today. So many ways to get information out to the public that were not around in the 1970’s. So many ways/tools that reporters can cover a story today. Trump is already deep in Big Muddy.

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    February 19, 2017 at 11:01 pm

    Spicer and Priebus, competing to see who can be the Baghdad Bob of the Titanic…er, Hindenburg…er, Trumpov administration.

  6. 6.

    sigaba

    February 19, 2017 at 11:02 pm

    I don’t worry about a dearth of Woodsteins, these people will pop up. What is more troubling are the absence of Katharine Grahams.

  7. 7.

    lollipopguild

    February 19, 2017 at 11:02 pm

    @mb: EVERYBODY’S JOB is to worship trump, no exceptions.

  8. 8.

    sigaba

    February 19, 2017 at 11:03 pm

    @Mike J: “Here we played false equivalence with Republicans for all those years and THIS is the thanks we get?”

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    February 19, 2017 at 11:04 pm

    @mb:

    Kind of baffling to me that Trump has decided to be so combative when he could have had them eating out of his hand — just had to pivot just a little.

    He can’t pivot. This is who he is. This is who he’s been for the last several decades. There is no pivot and there will be no pivot.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    February 19, 2017 at 11:05 pm

    Also, with the perspective of a few decades, could we please just get the Bernstein and skip the Woodward?

  11. 11.

    efgoldman

    February 19, 2017 at 11:07 pm

    @dmsilev:

    This is who he’s been for the last several decades. There is no pivot and there will be no pivot.

    And some day, maybe the Chuckles Toddlers of the world will realize that. I’m not holding my breath.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 19, 2017 at 11:08 pm

    It doesn’t completely hold up, but I’ve always kind of liked the old quick-and-dirty analogy: The press should not be lap dogs, nor attack dogs, but watch dogs.

  13. 13.

    sigaba

    February 19, 2017 at 11:16 pm

    @dmsilev:

    Also, with the perspective of a few decades, could we please just get the Bernstein and skip the Woodward?

    Without Woodward there’s no Deep Throat. Woodward was and is an ingratiating puppydog with peerless stenography skills but at the crucial moment that’s exactly what broke the story open.

    People like this are essential, just as long as they aren’t the only people.

  14. 14.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 19, 2017 at 11:17 pm

    @dmsilev: And there is no mustard.

  15. 15.

    amygdala

    February 19, 2017 at 11:20 pm

    And maybe these hungry young reporters will come from ViceNews or BuzzFeed, rather than than the WaPo, NYT or cable news.

    Having said that, given the complexity and actual danger of reporting this story–Putin, after all, has no problems offing reporters–investigating this wouldn’t happen quickly, right? Unlike Watergate, this would take travel to Russia and quite a bit of care, for one’s own safety, as well as that of one’s sources. There would be the language barrier to manage. Editors would probably demand more than the usual fact-checking. Everything about getting to the bottom of this would be more time-consuming than Watergate.

    Not that I’m particularly optimistic someone is aggressively on this, but if that’s the case, I wouldn’t expect the story to drop for quite some time.

  16. 16.

    lollipopguild

    February 19, 2017 at 11:22 pm

    Trump is blaming Fox for the “Swedish attack”. I cannot wait for Fox to report that the Martians have landed in New Jersey and are advancing on New York.

  17. 17.

    sigaba

    February 19, 2017 at 11:23 pm

    @amygdala: Vice is the Uber of news, I’ve done gigs for them. The CEO is a sorta legendary creep.

    @lollipopguild: Grover’s Mill.

  18. 18.

    patrick II

    February 19, 2017 at 11:27 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Good watchdogs are important, but when someone is attacking you (or in this case the country, civil liberties, the order of the western world) give me a German Shepard with titanium teeth.

  19. 19.

    XTPD

    February 19, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    @sigaba: Michael Tracey and Gavin McInnes can suck shit out of a shotgun (although I’ve always liked their TV channel).

  20. 20.

    Pogonip

    February 19, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: And the Subaru is in the field.

    The spook monitoring this blog must have gone through 10,000 code books trying to decode these cryptic sentences. I imagine him yelling across the office, “Hey, Jane! Does Putin like mustard? How about Kim? Has either of them ever owned a Subaru?”

    My actual reason for interrupting, if you will forgive me, refers to actor Andrew Robinson’s book about his Deep Space 9 character, discussed in a previous topic. He, or his ghostwriter, is good. I read the sample and despite the typos, forked over $9 for the book.

  21. 21.

    Taylor

    February 19, 2017 at 11:30 pm

    @sigaba:

    What is more troubling are the absence of Katharine Grahams.

    Bezos has deeper pockets than the Graham family ever had, and I’m personally grateful that little Donny Graham is no longer running the DC industry paper.

    NYT is so bad that I would not be surprised if Russian oligarchs had them by the financial short and curlies. However it’s probably just some kind of upper East side “above it all” arrogance, mixed with pride that the local boy beat the bitch from Chicago.

  22. 22.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 19, 2017 at 11:34 pm

    @patrick II:

    give me a German Shepard with titanium teeth

    What would you call it? Jaws?

  23. 23.

    amygdala

    February 19, 2017 at 11:34 pm

    @sigaba: I hear you. Still could happen that the story gets broken by a nontraditional outlet, I think. If anyone had said to me a couple of years ago that some of the best reporting about the awful state of women in academic STEM would be from BuzzFeed, I would have choked. But so it has been.

  24. 24.

    sigaba

    February 19, 2017 at 11:34 pm

    @XTPD: See that’s the thing they know how to keep it flash and easy to watch. I think their biggest problem long-term is like BuzzFeed’s– half the Vice business is essentially an advertising branded content agency and they really don’t pay attention to the distinction.

  25. 25.

    XTPD

    February 19, 2017 at 11:35 pm

    @Taylor: Their wall of shame.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    February 19, 2017 at 11:36 pm

    @Taylor:

    How ironic would it be if Jeff Bezos turns out to be the 21st century’s Katherine Graham?

  27. 27.

    different-church-lady

    February 19, 2017 at 11:37 pm

    @mb:

    which would probably work great, don’t know why he doesn’t.

    Because assholes gotta asshole.

  28. 28.

    patroclus

    February 19, 2017 at 11:46 pm

    @sigaba: Not necessarily. Mark Felt could have found another reporter had he felt like leaking info – and he did because he was angling to be Hoover’s replacement. Woodward just happened to have met him in the WH one day and was the reporter covering the break-in, so he called him up and asked Felt to confirm info that he and Bernstein had already found elsewhere. If you read Woodward’s books, Felt rarely gave them new stuff, he just confirmed some details and provided guidance as to where to look next (i.e., “follow the money”), which they might have found in any event. The idea that Deep Throat was the key to the whole thing mostly came from the movie.

  29. 29.

    Renie

    February 19, 2017 at 11:46 pm

    anyone following the twitter storm about milo? will he be cancelled from cpac? or do conservatives not care what he says about 13 yr old boys as long as it annoys liberals

  30. 30.

    efgoldman

    February 19, 2017 at 11:47 pm

    @lollipopguild:

    I cannot wait for Fox to report that the Martians have landed in New Jersey and are advancing on New York.

    Not until Halloween. It’s a glorious holiday in Martian.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    February 20, 2017 at 12:04 am

    @Renie:

    or do conservatives not care what he says about 13 yr old boys as long as it annoys liberals

    Yes this.

    They will all tire of Milo quickly enough. The dude has a schtick, but nothing of genuine value. I predict that it will become uncomfortably evident (to themselves) in fairly short order that the right wing needs to get it together. I have a feeling that, in four years, admitting that you voted for Trump will be like admitting that you still wet the bed. Already, I’m seeing the most passionate sTrumpets I know they to equivocate with statements like, “Well, we really didn’t have ANY good options….”. To which I reply, “We had the equivalent of two options for dinner: Brussels sprouts and dog shit. You may not like Brussels sprouts, but at least they’re FOOD.”

  32. 32.

    Peale

    February 20, 2017 at 12:04 am

    @Renie: I mentioned this earlier. Milo is acting like our detractors think we really are. So no, they won’t care about that.

  33. 33.

    permafrost

    February 20, 2017 at 12:11 am

    I can’t imagine Lakoff being a more useless nit.

  34. 34.

    permafrost

    February 20, 2017 at 12:12 am

    Milo is in deep shit.

  35. 35.

    patrick II

    February 20, 2017 at 12:17 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Eichenwald

  36. 36.

    Jerzy Russian

    February 20, 2017 at 12:21 am

    @permafrost:

    Milo is in deep shit.

    Somehow, I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for him.

  37. 37.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 20, 2017 at 12:21 am

    @Suzanne: And you could probably put something on them so that they would taste ok, the dog shit will still taste like dog shit.

  38. 38.

    efgoldman

    February 20, 2017 at 12:31 am

    @permafrost:

    Milo is in deep shit.

    How? He travels around being a provocateur, likely on someone else’s dime. Is there an arrest warrant out on him somewhere? Is he being sued by someone?
    I mean, he’s an asshole of assholes. Unfortunately, that’s not prosecutable.

  39. 39.

    Mike J

    February 20, 2017 at 12:35 am

    Will the CPAC organizers come down on the side of antifa or paedophiles?

  40. 40.

    cmorenc

    February 20, 2017 at 12:39 am

    In yet another #YouCan’tMakeThisShitUp incidence of Trump’s unPresidential crassness, the Trump organization has started a singles dating site, TrumpSingles.com (http://www.TrumpSingles.com), complete with a gold American flag next to the name Trump. Other than the fact that the site actually exists, I can’t detect any obvious signs it could be a spoof, and a Google search for external articles about the site leads to numerous articles at places like New Republic, NY Daily News etc. indicating it’s a real thing. The site is oriented toward Trump-supporting singles, so assholes can find like-minded dating partners.

  41. 41.

    efgoldman

    February 20, 2017 at 12:51 am

    @cmorenc:

    In yet another #YouCan’tMakeThisShitUp incidence of Trump’s unPresidential crassness, the Trump organization has started a singles dating site, TrumpSingles.com

    I guess the next thing is the official branded Shitgibbon whore house. And he won’t pay the piano player, either.

  42. 42.

    Peale

    February 20, 2017 at 12:52 am

    @cmorenc: on the plus side, at least they aren’t advertising Russian brides (those girls…they have no morals!)

  43. 43.

    LeonS

    February 20, 2017 at 12:55 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: I like that, since a watch dog’s job is to bark, not bite.

  44. 44.

    jl

    February 20, 2017 at 1:33 am

    Saw interviews with some hard core Trumpers. These seemed to be of the knucklehead variety, not hard core racist fascists, though I am just guessing. Reason I guess that way is that they were pleading with the interviewer to understand that they believe in Trump, and they ‘understand’ what he is saying, they can ‘decipher’ his words. IIRC they actually did use the word ‘decipher’.

    The interviewer just asked them to comment on what they thought Frump meant when he rambled on about the horrible thing happened in Sweden.

    Heard a radio report of the news from the Swedish police and drunk tank beat: some guy got burned in an accidental fire, car accident, somebody vandalized a store, I think a couple of house’s got their basements flooded. I guess Muslims behind all that mayhem. I’m sure Hannity will let me know the truth behind it all.

    Edit: maybe they said that they could ‘interpret what his words really mean’. Maybe they didn’t use ‘decipher’, but their desperation was obvious.

  45. 45.

    EBT

    February 20, 2017 at 1:41 am

    I still predict Milo will start a confrontation with someone in the halls at CPAC and get kicked out.

  46. 46.

    efgoldman

    February 20, 2017 at 1:44 am

    @jl:

    Saw interviews with some hard core Trumpers. These seemed to be of the knucklehead variety, not hard core racist fascists

    You say potato….

  47. 47.

    Kat

    February 20, 2017 at 2:43 am

    @jl:

    The Sweden thing was about this:
    Alleged gang rape shown on Facebook shocks Sweden

    You have to read deep here to find out nobody has been arrested yet because the authorities haven’t received the facebook videos yet – and to find out that this was reported on one of Trump’s favorite news sites on Thursday or Friday.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    February 20, 2017 at 4:57 am

    @efgoldman

    Ancient, ancient joke.

    Man 1: Ed! where ya been, buddy? Haven’t seen you in ages.

    Man 2: Been a while. I’ve been on Mars.

    Man 1: Say what now? Mars? Pull the other one, Eddie.

    Man 2 (fishing in pocket): Look, here’s a picture of me and my bud Flrmko standing in front of his flying saucer.

    Man 1: Holy cow! So you’ve really met Martians?

    Man 2: Sure, plenty.

    Man 1: Are they all green like that?

    Man 2: Yup.

    Man 1: They all have those antennae?

    Man 2: Uh-huh.

    Man 1: And they all wear those little caps?

    Man 2: Nah. Only the Orthodox.

  49. 49.

    zhena gogolia

    February 20, 2017 at 6:48 am

    I had no idea there actually was someone named Glen Thrush. I thought SNL made him up. I have never seen such a byline in the New York Times.

  50. 50.

    msdc

    February 20, 2017 at 8:50 am

    @permafrost: No, no, if we’d just change our words from These Words to Those Words, then everything would be okay.

    Mind you, once we start using Those Words, Lakoff will show up like clockwork to tell us we need to be using These Other Words, because that’s all he’s got.

  51. 51.

    Vhh

    February 20, 2017 at 10:45 am

    @sigaba: Actually, Jeff Bezos (owner) and Marty Baron (editor) have worked miracles in re-establishing the Washington Post as a serious paper and defender of the Republic.

  52. 52.

    artem1s

    February 20, 2017 at 1:02 pm

    @Renie: they have routinely let preachers who advocate for the death penalty for homosexuals do keynote, so pretty much, I’m betting no.

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