This:
“I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”
is not, in any way, shape or form, a joke about someone's "looks."
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) April 29, 2018
If conservatives really thought Michelle Wolf insulted women and mocked their appearance, they would have elected her president
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) April 29, 2018
It must’ve had some utility at some point, back when it was a standard trade-association awards shindig. But ever since it became a fantasy evening for the Media Village Idiots to work out their adolescent traumas — mostly by Vast! Performative! OUTRAGE! cheerleading each other, over the ensuing week, concerning whichever horror the other side was averred to have committed — it’s become both tedious *and* aggravating.
Every year, sensible press people suggest it be shitcanned entirely; every year, the sensible people have been ignored. But since we’re now in the “Everything Trump Touches Dies” era, perhaps we’ve actually seen the last of this farce?
Michelle Wolf didn’t fail just because she was (spectacularly) one-sided. It was because she was unnecessarily cruel on a night the WHCA was trying to showcase decency and purpose.
Undermined an otherwise meaningful night.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 29, 2018
“This is supposed to be a night of speaking power to truth!” https://t.co/eLD9Hgyawr
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 29, 2018
How dare that comedian use humor to accurately highlight the completely ridiculous and sad reality in which we now live. Glad to see everyone’s outrage is in the right place today.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) April 30, 2018
Margaret Sullivan, at the Washington Post:
… It never has been a particularly good idea for journalists to don their fanciest clothes and cozy up to the people they cover, alongside Hollywood celebrities who have ventured to wonky Washington to join the fun.
But in the current era, it’s become close to suicidal for the press’s credibility.
Trust in the mainstream media is low, a new populism has caught fire all over the Western world, and President Trump constantly pounds the news media as a bunch of out-of-touch elites who don’t represent the interests of real Americans…
Its defenders say that it’s perfectly all right to have “just one night” to enjoy a break from the supposedly adversarial relationship between government and press. But that relationship isn’t always as arms-length as it should be in a town noted for its mutual back-scratching.
Talev and her cohort certainly are dedicated reporters and editors. But this festive night, always unseemly, is now downright counterproductive to good journalism’s goals. It only serves to reinforce the views of those who already hate the media elite…
Can’t the correspondents’ association come up with better ways to do its good work, ways that show journalists at their best?
That they are in the trenches digging out the truth.
Not schmoozing in the swamp while the president hustles the heartland.
There were two speeches last night:
Michelle Wolf – “Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells lies”
Trump- “Mexico is World War Z and I will shut the country down if Congress doesn’t pay for my wall”
Press Coverage – MICHELLE WOLF IS A MONSTER
— Robin Thede (@robinthede) April 29, 2018
Create one night a year where all the people who control the direction and narrative of society gather in opulence. On the one condition they have to listen to a third party.
Then get super mad when the person given that platform doesn't 'play the room.'
— Actually Krassenstein's Monster ?? (@Zeddary) April 29, 2018
James Poniewozik, NYTImes media critic:
One of Michelle Wolf’s first jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner involved a certain vulgarity that rode into widespread public use aboard Donald Trump’s “Access Hollywood” bus. To this crowd, it was apparently still a bit shocking. “You should have done more research before you got me to do this,” she said.
It was funny because it was true. The association invited Ms. Wolf, a political comedian, to its annual shindig Saturday night. She performed a political comedy routine. It was scathing, confrontational and impolite.
It was, in other words, about what you’d expect from a correspondent who once called President Trump “a racist fake gynecologist” on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah,” an American news-comedy program that I suspect even the busy members of the W.H.C.A. have caught once or twice…
Was Ms. Wolf’s set vicious? Absolutely… But was it gratuitous? Not at all. It drove mercilessly toward its themes: that this administration lies; that its female members are covering for a sexist president; and that journalists have enabled it all with breathless coverage…
As for political balance, it should be noted that the W.H.C.A. invited America’s premiere conservative insult comic, and he chose to do a rally in Michigan instead. Mr. Trump knows the political value of a Don Rickles zinger. He intuits that audiences grant comedians a leeway they don’t to the stuffier professions.
Comedians are powerful — and sometimes more trusted and respected than journalists, as “The Daily Show” and company have shown — because they can say uncomfortable things flat-out, ditch the euphemisms, call a “falsehood” a lie. Comedy isn’t reporting, but it is testimony. (Ms. Wolf ended her own routine with a straight line: “Flint still doesn’t have clean water.”)
The irony of the association’s disavowing Ms. Wolf is that her routine, whether you agree with it or not, was ultimately about defending the mission of the White House press: sticking up for the truth. Michelle Wolf had the W.H.C.A.’s back Saturday night, even if it didn’t have hers the day after.
weekend really highlighted huge disconnect between Dems/liberals and DC press: Dems/libs have grave concerns whether US democracy survives under Trump. DC press sees it as heckuva fun story to cover
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) April 29, 2018
“Wolf called the Trump administration out for tearing down democracy. Then, the people who are supposed to care most about holding autocrats to account called her out in turn for, essentially, not being chummy enough.” https://t.co/TWFO7odI8g
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) April 29, 2018
My problem with last night’s dinner is not that we had a comedian who told some nasty jokes. It’s that we did not really address the nearly constant attacks on the press from the president. The dinner should change with the times so we send a strong message to the world. #WHCD
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 29, 2018
Let me clue you into something, Washington press corps. Because you may cover politics, but you have no political sense of self. The people who support what you do are outraged by @PressSec's normal behavior. The people who support @PressSec's normal behavior are outraged by you.
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 29, 2018
This Michelle Wolf/Sarah Sanders thing reminds me of when Obama said 'you can't put lipstick on a pig" and conservatives swore he was calling Sarah Palin a pig rather than mocking McCain's desperate decision to choose her for VP.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) April 30, 2018
The most upsetting thing Michelle Wolf said last night was the reminder that Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have clean water.
Imagine if the DC press corps & political chattering class had spent today performatively upset about *that* https://t.co/YiPOykpyLG
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) April 30, 2018
rikyrah
Gotta keep that school to prison pipeline going ???
https://twitter.com/Bakari_Sellers/status/991303218058670081?s=19
aimai
I would like to point out that the White House Correspondents are, by this time, definitionally not journalists at all. They are simply stenographers who send back dispatches from the White House as a kind of foreign country–that is what “correspondents” means. They have lost any but the most vestigial relationship with the idea of journalists as brave truth seekers or speakers of truth to power.
rikyrah
Man,
When Maddow started reading those questions on the air, I couldn’t stop laughing. They were well thought out. They had context. They were direct.
And, they’re being posed to a man who needs pictures in the Presidential Daily Briefing and doesn’t want it to be longer than, what, 2 pages? On page 3, he skips out…..
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Rational, thinking people, will look at the questions and say – Yes, a President of the United States should be able to answer these questions.
I wasn’t including the GOP, who will be screeching that this is a ‘ perjury trap’ list.
Nicole
Not to be a classist, but this is what happens when journalism stops being a middle-class job and becomes something rich kids who aren’t good at acting or singing decided to do so they can still get their faces on the teevee.
rikyrah
Dave Chappelle says Michelle Wolf ‘nailed it’ at White House Corresponde… https://t.co/d2FRaUQJVh via @YouTube
— Mary Frank (@Fran_Neena20409) May 1, 2018
Neldob
I thought she was pretty funny and truthful to power and all that … and that Stephan Colbert was amazing lo those many years ago. I hope this tradition continues and that Flints water gets cleaned up and it’s residents get reparations (as much as is possible since your child’s health is basically priceless).
rikyrah
They are evil azz demons.
They are phucking OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!
1,475 children. That’s how many DHS took custody of at the border — whose location it now says it’s “unable to determine with certainty.”
In other words, 1,475 children DHS lost. https://t.co/VdXWP81y4S
— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) May 1, 2018
Droppy
I’m a librarian. I am going to have a get-together with a bunch of other librarians. To this get-together, I am going to invite a speaker who tells lots of funny stories about access to knowledge. Then when she says that it is our duty to provide access to knowledge and to fight against the forces seeking to thwart that and points out that we could be doing a better job of it, I am going to stomp my foot and say she shouldn’t be so mean to the thwarters.
randy khan
The most striking thing to me about the caterwauling following the Wolf’s routine is that I don’t recall anything similar any of the hundreds of times that Republicans (including Republican comedians, if you can find any who are any good) have made nasty jokes about the appearance of female Democratic politicians.
(I will say that personally I didn’t find the smoky eye joke that funny, mostly because the setup was a bit convoluted, but thought the Aunt Lydia joke was quite good.)
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Policy put in place by the great Marine General who is now the CoS.
rikyrah
AKA sorority chapter at small Georgia college embroiled in sexual misconduct investigation
Kyle Swenson, Amber Ferguson
Late last March, before a gymnasium packed tight with friends and family, 21 young women from Fort Valley State University in central Georgia marked a milestone.
Glowing with pride, wearing matching black dresses, pearls and pink hats, the undergraduates were officially “crossing over” into the campus’s chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc., one of the oldest and most-esteemed black Greek campus organizations in the country.
But just a month later, the Fort Valley chapter of the same sorority is now bogged down in a scandal over allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment.
Rolling Out, an Atlanta-based online magazine, reported that the controversy involves allegations that recent members of the sorority were involved in a sex ring to pay for pledging the organization. Citing unnamed sources, the magazine alleged that customers included local businessmen and politicians.
The controversy currently centers on Alecia Johnson, a Fort Valley State employee and graduate adviser to the campus’s AKA chapter, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Johnson, an AKA member, resigned her position in the university’s president’s office as news of a criminal investigation broke on campus in April. The scandal has lit a firestorm of speculation on social media and in the tightknit world of historically black colleges and universities.
Kay
Some of the women on twitter were saying that it was a kind of projection- that maybe members of the media think Sander’s makeup is bad so they inserted that meaning. There’s some truth to that- people do do that. I’m sure it’s happened to some of you- where you only find out what someone thinks of you because they over-react to someone else saying something they perceive to be “hurtful” to you. It’s a funny thing – I’ve experienced it myself- where I didn’t take offense but someone else took it on my behalf and I think “oh, they must believe that’s an issue with me- they think it’s true”.
schrodingers_cat
The second year in a row that the current President has missed this event. How come these fucking stenos are not insulted by that. He fucking refused to come to your party, twice. Still they lick his boots and God knows what else. Cowards and flunkies, that’s what they are.
Yarrow
The courtier press gets angriest when someone points out how they’re failing to do their job. When that happens it’s outrage, indignation and circle the wagons.
schrodingers_cat
Beltway media finds the President amusing. Based on their behavior I would say that they don’t particularly care about the groups he denigrates.
Cermet
Can not believe the extreme snow flakes these jackasses are; makes one proud to be a member of this Jackal pack.
Yarrow
@aimai: If they were really journalists they’d stop going to those ridiculous press briefings. Send one person to record what’s said, or just view the tape, and go do some real journalism instead.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
He bamboozled them too. Sanders was his proxy. The proxy is there as the Administration. But she can’t be safely attacked at a “roast” like the President can, so he successfully gamed them again.
50 years of practice at gaming them successfully- it shows. It may be his only real skill, but it’s a good one!
LAO
Tonight I’m attending a small event and I know that there will be a number of NYT reporters present, it’s going to be a struggle to be on my best behavior.
rikyrah
Oh, the shade…
LarryO talking to a reporter on last night’s show:
” I doubt that the President has READ all the questions…do we know if they have BEEN READ TO HIM?”
BWA HA HA HA HA H AH HA HA HA
The Moar You Know
This from the guy who routinely shows up with kneepads autographed by Sanders herself. The punching bag who, instead of saying “have you at long last lost all decency” instead bleats “just one more question, Ms. Sanders!” He’s one of the biggest parts of the problem.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
OH MY GOD. The level of evil is staggering.
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
The “smoky eyes” joke may have a bit of a gender divide, because I immediately heard it to the tune of the Maybelline jingle in my head when she said it.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Michelle Wolf nailed it when she said the press really loved Trump because he increased their clicks and eyeballs on their stories. He made them and they love him for it. They need him.
The way our media is currently structured as a profit-required entity is a big part of the problem. If they didn’t have to make every story generate views to pay the bills then they might be able to focus on actual investigative reporting.
randy khan
One other thing: The WHCD is one of a group of events in D.C. for or by movers and shakers (or people who think they are or hope to be movers and shakers) that follow more or less the same template. They usually don’t get much publicity outside D.C., but they’re all once a year dinners with some kind of humorous entertainment that usually pokes gentle fun at the people there. Most of the time, the entertainment is amateur; occasionally somebody spends money to hire one of the local satirical troupes, like the Capitol Steps. One of them – the Gridiron Dinner, which is named for a waffle iron, not a football field – even has the slogan “to singe, not to burn.” I attend one of them, an annual dinner for people who are involved with the FCC, where the FCC chair gives the funny speech. (Well, at least sort of funny, and we all laugh at the designated points.)
The thing is, they’re mostly harmless, and they typically do raise a decent amount of money for charity, usually scholarships because everyone loves scholarships. That’s really how the WHCD started, but now it’s morphed into this awful national spectacle, with pre-parties and after-parties, live TV coverage and a red carpet. (I assure you there’s no after party for the FCC-related dinner, let alone live TV coverage or a red carpet, for which everyone should be grateful.) If the WHCD went back to its original conception and was like the other dinners, it would be fine, but when what happens there is national news, and when reporters feel responsible for reacting to it, it’s a disaster.
rumpole
This was prob’ly not the farce that it is now because there was a time when both parties agreed on certain basic principles. (The Birchers, Klan et al were always there, but were much more heavily marginalized). When the press and the president shared the same values about what the function of the press was, some fun-poking was, though not ideal, not terribly harmful.
That’s no longer true. It wasn’t really true during the Bush era either, but it’s not at the same level that it is now. In both cases, that’s why the criticism of the press stung them–because it was accurate. They really don’t understand (and Trump does) that their relationship with this Administration has gone beyond adversarial to abusive. If he could lock them up, there’s no doubt that he would.
Conservatives may have hated Obama, but he wasn’t calling the press enemies of the people or any of that crap. In that context, the WHCA apology was a national embarrassment.
MomSense
@LAO:
Please do not be on your best behavior unless your best behavior means NFLTG LAO.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
I hadn’t thought of it in that context, but that makes sense.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
We are going to find out that Republican politiicans at high levels are involved in child sex trafficking, because that’s what “Pizzagate” was created to conceal and distract from.
different-church-lady
1) Media types think Sarah Sanders is ugly.
2) We’re not supposed to comment on a woman’s looks if it is held that she is ugly.
3) Therefore, in their minds, any reference to Sanders within the context of a joke must be a joke at the expense of her ugliness.
It’s a giveaway: if you think it’s about her looks, you’re giving away the fact that you think she’s ugly.
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: It’s all fun and games until someone reduces the planet to a smoldering pile of rubble.
But her emails!!!
@Yarrow:
There. Fixed it for you. This does not happen when the criticism comes from the either the right or the extreme left.
Major Major Major Major
Me too!!!
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Yep. It’s always projection with them. Trump Models will be involved for sure but that won’t be the only business or person doing it. It will be just awful.
LAO
@MomSense: That is pretty much my standard mode. hahahaha
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I give you exhibit A. Justin Harris gives adopted daughters to rapist
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
“Maybe she’s born with it … maybe it’s Maybelline.”
It’s kind of reminding me of a legendary unused joke on “Saturday Night Live” in the 1970s that got deleted because only the women on the show knew what a pomander ball was, so the men didn’t understand why the joke was funny.
Mike in DC
@different-church-lady:
I don’t think she’s physically unattractive. Just morally, mostly.
father pusbucket
@Nicole:
If you want to call that journalism. Sadly I perceive that real journalism is not even a middle-class job. /not a journalist
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
I knew what one was, back in junior high. In fact, I learned how to make one. [Not that I ever would.]
What do I win?
ETA: I hope it’s not a laurel, and hearty handshake.
HeleninEire
@Mnemosyne: Very good point. I also heard the jingle immediately. Age gap, too.
;(
Kay
@different-church-lady:
Well said. It was what I saw on twitter and what I thought was amusing because it’s true- that DOES happen.
“Are you calling her FAT?” “Well, no, but obviously you think she is” :)
That happens in real life. Well, mostly high school but it is true.
Wolf’s take on it was interesting too. SHE thinks it’s about proper roles for women- as in, she’s one. Women aren’t supposed to do a routine like that. She referenced it in the bit – she said “you should have researched me more” – they should have been familiar with her style- she used the word “brand”, which is not self-deprecating or lady-ilke.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s classic behavior of the victim in an abusive relationship. Part of the pattern of abuse is the abuser blaming the victim for their own victimization and the victim internalizing that and starting to believe it. They believe if only they treat the Republicans perfectly, the abuse will finally stop. Trump is both an abuser himself and the beneficiary of generations of Republican abuse laying the groundwork for him.
different-church-lady
eric
SHS is not ugly. She has a nasty snarl while she lies to the detriment of the country. It gives away her character and makes her unattractive.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
There the British museum you tube video on the leading expert of the Epic of Gilgamesh and he was pointing it was very likely the target audience was the royal courtiers. Gilgamesh’s heterosexual life partner Enkidu goes a long with the Gilgamesh’s stupid shit, says nothing even though Enkidu knows it’s stupidity and Enkidu ends up dead and Gilgamesh can do nothing about it.
Sounds like Gilgamesh should be standard reading for the DC Press Corp.
father pusbucket
@different-church-lady:
I kept hearing “burning fat” until I figured it out, perhaps because it’s such a common “fitness” buzz-phrase, and thought “fat-shaming???”.
@Kay: I get this, and was probably affected by it in my confusion. And I don’t think SHS is ugly.
Kay
Younger (than me) feminists have this concept where they say one of the roles women have is they are directly responsible for how everyone feels. It’s their job to monitor the emotional weather and make sure everyone is happy. I don’t know who to credit it to because I don’t read them- my daughter does and she explained it to me. I think it’s fascinating and somewhat true. That’s WHy Trump can say what he says but the female comedian can’t- it’s her job to suss out feelings and fashion her words to protect people. He doesn’t have to care how you take his words. She does.
different-church-lady
@Kay: It’s a woman’s job to make sure everyone is happy. It’s a man’s job to make sure everyone is miserable.
Nicole
@father pusbucket:
I was going to say working-class, thinking of the reporters of old who had to actually, you know, go outside and report on things, but “working-class” has evolved as a term over time to mean, often, jobs that don’t pay enough to make ends meet. Reporters used to get paid, not a lot, but enough to make ends meet, anyway.
But people on teevee get paid a lot, ergo those jobs must go to the children of the already well-off. Sigh.
Someone on one of the former Gawker sites (I think it was) made a comment about how while the courtiers cluck about Michelle Wolf insulting the Dauphin, the people gather at the Bastille.
LAO
O\T — I just post a “tongue out Tuesday” picture to Maggie’s Instagram and an account called “How to Train a Wife” liked the picture. I feel mildly sick about it. What is wrong with people?
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
I was thinking organ harvesting and that the youngest ones are being sold on the adoption market.
I wouldn’t be surprised by sex trafficking.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Amen. He put it so well. My thoughts exactly.
Kathleen
@aimai: @Nicole: Nailed it. So true.@rikyrah: This subject may now be officially closed.
Nicole
@Kay: Sociologists talk about this (in fact, I was just reading a chapter about gender in a soc textbook yesterday and they discussed this very topic!). It’s been a long time in shaping into what it is today (since the Industrial Revolution took a lot of men away from home to work, and home/work became divided, and gendered, places), but it’s only recently that people have really recognized how much “emotional work” is placed on women. Women aren’t really any “naturally” better at reading people than men; we’re just socialized to be that way from a very young age, and, like most other things, the more you do something, the better you get at it.
And it’s why women being direct and abrasive freak people out so much. They’re flat out NOT doing what we are all socialized to expect women to do. It’s also interesting because generally, the gender revolution of the past 50 years has been more about women moving into men’s spaces than men moving into women’s (girls are encouraged to play soccer, but boys aren’t encouraged to learn to knit), but I guess there are some lines that scare people when women try to cross them. Probably because of what it says about power and who wields it. A person who’s doing emotional work for others is working for free for them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@eric: Yes, this, there is something mean spirited about SHS that really comes threw in her expressions and body language. Ugly to the bone as they say. Likely why Spanky thinks SHS is fantastic since Spanky is so into domatrixes.
zhena gogolia
@randy khan:
The joke about Kellyanne and the tree was much better constructed but she didn’t deliver it well.
trollhattan
@eric:
She did not benefit from the Hope Hicks effect. That era has passed.
MomSense
@LAO:
Yikes. Just read his bio. ?❌???
rp
The silver lining is that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the pushback on the pushback, even within the media. So the initial pushback and complaints have given Wolf and her comments a much larger platform and opened the door for a broader discussion of the press’s role.
hitchhiker
@Kay:
Yup.
They all (privately) agree that SHS is not pretty and not feminine — and the “they” here is everybody who works in the WH and in the press. Every criticism of her is therefore instantly coded as an attack on her (understood to be inadequate) looks. It wouldn’t have mattered what Wolf said — it would “really” be about how SHS is ugly and/or fat.
That people like Andrea Mitchell and Mika whatever-her-name-is and Maggie Haberman instantly went there only means that all 3 of them have spent some time wondering how exactly that sort of face and body ended up on television every day.
low-tech cyclist
@eric:
Let’s just say that what makes her ugly is that she is unable to keep the ugliness in her soul out of her face.
Her looks would improve significantly if she realized what a nasty piece of work she’s become, and had a change of heart.
LAO
@MomSense: Super creepy. Like the Vice President.
germy
I read some transcripts from Michelle Wolf’s “Fresh Air” interview, and she said something I didn’t know (because I didn’t watch the whole Prom, just Michelle’s monologue):
During the awards presentation segment of the Prom, journalists received awards. CNN won awards for something or another. People would stand up and congratulate each other. SHS remained seated the entire time. Didn’t interact or acknowledge any of them.
Just One More Canuck
@MomSense: seconded – let your freak flag fly
trollhattan
@germy:
Good stuff. She’s smart, focused and unafraid, as anybody who’s watched her already know. Like she said (from up top), “You should have done more research before you got me to do this.”
Yarrow
@low-tech cyclist:
Exactly right. I have seen a few photos of her where she’s with her husband, one from before they were married. I almost didn’t recognize her because she looks so happy. The happiness radiates from within her and changes completely how she looks on the outside.
JGabriel
So let me get this straight: Flint still doesn’t have clean water, and much of Puerto Rico is still without power. But DC reporters are outraged by Michelle Wolf’s comedy routine at the WHCD?
They should be fucking ashamed.
Brachiator
As shitty as the NerdProm might be, if you kill it, you are handing Trump a victory.
And everything that Margaret Sullivan wrote is bull shit. Including the punctuation.
Reporters cozy up to politicians all the time, especially when they are mutually masturbating, the reporter to get a story, the politician to get coverage for his or her agenda. It’s not like the first time these people are meeting is at the dinner.
What credibility?
Yeah? And so?
Trust is the mainstream media is always low. I used to work at the LA Times. There would always be cancellations of subscriptions when Paul Conrad put out a new editorial cartoon mocking then Governor Ronald Reagan. And angry letters protesting the Times’ out-of-touch liberalism. A newspaper or newscast knows that it has done a good job when it puts out the truth and makes readers and viewers uncomfortable, not when they are in touch with the narrow interests of the fearful and the ignorant.
Reporters are elites? I hope so. They should be smarter than the ignorant assholes who want the news to reflect their stupidity and their backward “values.”
Real Americans? Every American is a “real American.” There ain’t nothing in the Constitution that says that some citizens are inherently more American than others.
There ain’t no arms-length relationships in journalism. Ain’t no Santa Claus either.
Trump hates the media whenever it does not kiss his ass, and he loves it when it does. And this is the permanent situation that he is trying to engineer.
There is only one time when a journalist is at his or her best. It’s when they have produced a goddam good, accurate, honest, complete piece of reporting. All the rest is punditry.
Not when they are meekly sitting and accepting the lies of the White House Press Secretary.
Not when Maggie Haberman is embedded in the White House and defending Trump or his coterie of thugs.
Not when reporters allow themselves to be used by their sources in order to get a meaningless scoop.
Not when reporters lazily regurgitate the lies, press releases and bland statements emitted from this nest of vipers.
There are reporters who are threatened, beaten, murdered while trying to do their jobs. They do what they do even when the people and governments are hostile to them and try to block their efforts.
And, strangely enough, these reporters do not always work in the “Western World” that Sullivan seems to think sets the standard for journalistic integrity.
The swamp is all over the world. And we need good reporters everywhere to help drain it.
Steeplejack
@rp:
I agree with this.
burnspbesq
@aimai:
That “idea” was always a pious fantasy. The job of the journalist is, and always has been, to provide content that sells advertising. If useful information is transmitted in the process, that’s a happy accident.
germy
glory b
@rikyrah: Yikes! My sorority!
The Moar You Know
@Mnemosyne: You and a couple of others have said this. Adam has implied it. Until yesterday, I thought it ludicrous. I had a revelation (nature and process shall remain private to protect my anonymity). I’m now pretty sure it’s true. And not just at “high levels”. I suspect there’s a lot of this going around and it’s being covered up very well.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@The Moar You Know: Are you able to comment on this question? Do you think that law enforcement is going to do anything about this trafficking and/or that it will become public knowledge? On a time scale of months? Or a generation from now after people take it to their graves?
rikyrah
Coach fired after losing two games in 4years, cause……
His team was ” too Black”
https://twitter.com/TwitterMoments/status/991080867710681089?s=19
germy
No reason to read The Hill.
Mandalay
Marco Rubio goes rogue on International Worker’s Day:
Not that he’s wrong, but it does invite the question of why the gutless prick supported the tax bill a few months ago.
The Moar You Know
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Law enforcement is an integral cornerstone of the problem and will never do anything about it. The rest I cannot speak to.
Brachiator
@burnspbesq:
More since the 19th century. The early (post Renaissance) news media was subscribed to by merchants, to get advance information that might affect trade. News and gossip were extra spice.
MomSense
@The Moar You Know:
See my comment at 36 for just one example of a Republican state legislator.
When Roy Moore was outed, a number of escapees from the evangelical community said that the idea of older, prominent religious men seeking out young girls/ women who are virgins to sort of teach them how to be submissive wives is pretty common. I found the acceptance of Moore to be shocking but then I was never steeped in that culture.
Then you look at the revelations about the Duggar family and I bet this is a massive problem.
Fair Economist
I like the nerd prom because the only time the public EVER hears about how bad the media is is when there is a good routine there.
The Moar You Know
@Mandalay: From the right’s perspective, this is pretty much the ideal result. I don’t think Rubio finds this outcome a problem…I think he’s bragging about it.
Mandalay
Just seconds ago John King said this on CNN:
Why can’t he just say “The president in his tweets often makes false statements” or “The president in his tweets often lies”?
What is the point in dressing things up with a phrase (“not factual”) that nobody ever uses in everyday conversation?
SFAW
@Mandalay:
You answered your own question, more or less.
SFAW
@Mandalay:
They’re trying to one-up Rubio as gutless pricks?
Mandalay
@The Moar You Know:
Heh. That hadn’t occurred to me, but you may be right.
I wondered whether he was lobbing a populist bomb and waiting to see how it was received by the public, with an eye on the presidency in 2020. Haley is already playing that game.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: It’s not a lie if you believe it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
PIzzagate was founded out in the stinking right wing fever swamp, and is certainly not directly related to anything Republicans in power are doing. There is very little conventional America freaks out about faster or agrees is evil more unanimously than pedophilia, so it’s a standard ‘What is the worst thing I can think of? I will accuse my opponent of it.’ However, the Republican Party is rank with corruption, hypocrisy, and abusers. Their base, as was demonstrated with Moore, knows that underage sex is publicly taboo, but is mildly in support of it personally. Trump personally has a suspicious history in this regard. Directly, I am convinced it was not created to conceal or distract. Indirectly, the conservative culture that launched the story is at major risk for having that kind of skeleton in their closet.
But her emails!!!
@aimai:
I’m pretty sure this has always been the role of political comedians, starting with the court jester, not the media.
Mike J
@Brachiator: TV and radio news used to be done because the fcc required public interest programming. For decades it lost money and people assumed it had to.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
It’s not “our media.” It don’t belong to you. Newspapers have been kicking ass or kissing ass for generations even as they made money.
And generating views ain’t paying the bills. The old business model collapsed and the new one has not shown itself to be viable. I guess the New York Times could try to use the Patreon model, but they would probably become extinct in a matter of months.
rafaelh
A question, I recently moved to Arlington and just saw in an email that there is an election for local positions today. But the list of candidates has everyone listed as independent and I can’t find anything on their positions. Anyone here from Virginia that can point me to some website listing candidates and their leanings? Even if it’s a right wing site, then I’ll know who not to vote for. Thanks
bemused
@low-tech cyclist:
Exactly. SHS has a mean prune face most of the time. I have rarely seen her smile. I remember watching a clip of trump, iirc, with SHS sitting behind him along with other WH aides. Trump said something awful, no surprise, and she immediately looked up with a big gleeful grin on her face. She wouldn’t be called ugly if her face didn’t expose her inner self.
Bobby Thomson
The first time i saw the bit I thought Wolf said Sanders “burns fat,” not “facts.” I think we all can agree that would be a different joke. But since Wolf didn’t tell that joke, the outrage is as fake as Trump’s wealth.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Trump’s original doctor says Schiller and another guy took all Trump’s medical records after the doc said publicly that Trump used a hair growth drug. Apparently that doc wanted to be the WH doc.
different-church-lady
@Frankensteinbeck:
…as of now, but they’re working on it.
Elizabelle
I still haven’t seen the WHCD. Was watching the C-Span video (includes about 9 minutes of nerds and DC stars milling around) and the opening remarks by WHCD president Michelle Talev (Bloomberg News) stopped me cold. The same moron who later apologized for Wolf’s remarks.
She stood there bravely, affirming an assault on one journalist is an assault on all. However, aren’t we greatly in this terrible position because the divas in the press corpse will not call out Fox News and other purveyors of fake news and squid ink?
They all want to stand proudly behind correspondents in war zones, actual journalists, when they’re really — too many of them — Access Hollywood types at best. Even if they’re swimming in “Hollywood for Ugly People” (ie. DC).
I does not like Ms. Talev. She is a great deal of the problem, is she not? We should save the shocked, shocked, shocked tweets and apologies to remind us who are the fakers.
ETA: Here is the C-Span video, of whole program. https://www.c-span.org/video/?444555-1/comedian-michelle-wolf-headlines-white-house-correspondents-dinner
Kay
@Nicole:
I think reading people has to do with power. It’s really true what they say about the maids in the cellar knowing much more about the people upstairs than the people upstairs know about them. It’s defense. They HAVE to read people, be aware, stay on their toes. A lot of people don’t have to- the maids aren’t holding any information they give a shit about- so they don’t.
I think it’s why people are uncomfortable with “palace intriuge” type political stories. It means we’re lesser- peering thru the glass, outsiders. That’s what “Kreminology” WAS, right? It meant there was no transparency and no truth so people had to read mysterious signs and try to figure out actions and motives. Powerless people have to do that. Powerful people just ask the questions and they get an answer.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
HOW DARE YOU MOCK SARAH SANDERS’S LOOKS!!1!
JustRuss
Spoiler Alert: No. Because they’re not doing the first thing, and the second thing is their business model.
Brachiator
@Mike J:
Yep. And tv news used to be 15 minutes. It could lose money as long as the station itself was profitable. And there were only 3 national networks. And news anchors and journalists would work programs on the entertainment side. Of course, some news “personalities” are entertainers, not journalists, so the old regime was probably much more honest.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: yeah, really. LOL.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
@Brachiator:
Don’t kill it; it serves a purpose just as any other industry fundraiser does. Just kill the tradition of inviting the president. The current one has the world’s thinnest skin and no sense of humor, so he’s never going to attend, and why would any future presidents subject themselves to it if he doesn’t?
It’d really be cool if the WHCA disinvited the president—and then packed the room with all the Hollywood A-listers who’ve been avoiding him. Then any carping on his part would be put down to sour grapes. Of course, this would call for a modicum of self-awareness on their part, so I don’t actually expect it to happen.
Brachiator
@Bobby Thomson:
“How broke is he?”
patrick II
That journalists at the dinner consider being polite is a higher order function that telling the truth is not a surprise. Nor is their outrage at someone who considers truth the more important quality. But that they would then lie and say Michelle attacked Huckabee’s appearance in their (faux?) outrage did surprise me. The prefer polite liars like themselves to truth tellers.
Aleta
“trying to showcase decency and purpose” -Kyle Cheney
You must be thinking of President and FL Obama. And of how often the press failed to support their decency and purpose. Instead the press showcased their star broadcasters and ad revenue.
Here’s a test for Kyle Cheney: In those days, did you fear a loss of influence, retaliation, if you did not defend the Obama administration against humor or meanness? Or do you only feel this pressure now?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay:
The clever slave taking advantage of his witless Patrician master was a standard figure in Roman comedy.
Speaking as someone who runs a lot of role playing games, everyone fancies themselves as the special powerful person.
Powerful people get told what ever fable they demand to be told since they will fire any employee of their who dares tells them the truth (just look at the reaction a court jester like Wolfe is causing). In reality it’s amazing how the Masters of the Universe are utterly dependent on some “clever slave” of their’s. I would dare say Mueller has been methodically picking off Spankies’ clever slaves.
NotMax
Merry Lei Day, y’all!
WhatsMyNym
@Brachiator: The newspaper industry just got used to making fantastic/unsustainable profit margins in the ’90s. Now they have come down to earth to live with the rest of the corporate world.
FTFNYT has 2.6 million digital-only subscribers.
And yes, vampire capitalists are buying up papers on the cheap to suck them dry; like the Denver Post.
trollhattan
@Bookeater (formerly JosieJ):
Even if it only occasionally spits out a new comedy hero (Colbert, now perhaps Wolf) we’re better for their careers.
Just need to add that one of the reasons it’s such an odd event is that we’ve transitioned from the journalist as a gatherer and reporter of news and other events to a very Hollywood-like pyramid of workerbees and wannabees topped by a relative few and phenomenally well-paid stars, working for organizations that demand their news generate profits. Hannity today and Trump back in his Apprentice days had precisely the same job.
Amir Khalid
@Bookeater (formerly JosieJ):
Ironically, if Obama hadn’t gotten his goat at the 2011 WHCD, Trump would never have bothered to seek the presidency.
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
You can block people on Instagram. Do it.
Brachiator
@Bookeater (formerly JosieJ):
Oh, no. I want Trump to keep getting an invite. I want his refusal on the record.
Because they are not cowards?
trollhattan
A (shitty) reminder that we need journalists and that the act of journalism is fraught with risk.
Here is a sample what we lose along with Mr. Marai. He also has six children.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
or shipped to Republican sex slave bunkers.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
This is also why people of color are usually good at “reading” white people and adjusting their behavior accordingly. Their lives can depend on it. ?
rikyrah
.@DrJillStein on Russian interference: “Interference is wrong & it’s an assault against democracy, & it should be pursued, but we should pursue it knowing that we do it too.”
CUOMO: But isn’t that basically Putin’s talking point?
STEIN: Sure, but it’s mine too! pic.twitter.com/dU4NoTMEpV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2018
rikyrah
Not long ago I was approached by somebody who I suspected was a Russian directed asset who tried to get me to say the same thing Stein is saying (the US interfered in elections so what’s the bfd). She is parroting Russian talking points. https://t.co/8e82O3qzGB
— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) May 1, 2018
TenguPhule
@Mandalay:
Rubio wants his cake and to eat it too. No matter which way it breaks down, he wants all the credit and none of the blame.
MisterForkbeard
@germy: Oh, fuck The Hill. There are serious reforms that should be applied to the WHCD (and also to just the White House Correspondents themselves), but reforming the truth-telling entertainer is about the most mealy-mouthed and ridiculous hill to die on that I can imagine.
Hopefully someone metaphorically hits their chair/board with a clue by four, because this kind of idiocy is exactly why people don’t trust the press any longer.
rikyrah
Why let your hand be shown on the case of the money.
Schiff: Money laundering notably absent from questions for Trump
Adam Schiff, top Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, talks with Rachel Maddow about his first impressions of a list of questions Robert Mueller would reportedly like to have Donald Trump answer, and points out that money laundering does not appear to be a theme of the questions despite promising leads on that front.
MisterForkbeard
@Mandalay: I think we all know that Rubio doesn’t actually care about this. He voted for the bill because that’s what matters to his backers, but he’s pretending he cares about its obvious deficiencies in order to win Media Points, where he can take Paul Ryan’s current media-declared position: Handsome, reflective policy wonk that really cares but somehow always votes for the worst tendencies in the Republican Party with a regretful face.
The only interesting bit here is that he’s implicitly acknowledging that Democrats were absolutely right in their criticisms of the bill. Not that he’ll ever say so out loud, but he’s basically acknowledging that Supply-side economics don’t actually work and the whole thing is a scam. How could he ever have known?
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Mueller must be still getting answers on that front if he’s not asking questions about it.
That would explain why so many Russians suddenly died in Russia. Somebody doesn’t want them talking.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Bingo.
@Amir Khalid: You know, people keep saying this, but he’s been talking about it since before then.
@The Moar You Know: As a person from NYC where the classes rub elbows in all sorts of surprising ways – every time underage me encountered someone who wished to “help” me with my art career or my professional career (I’ve been working since I was 12 and in college at 16), they turned out to be a lech. Who wanted me to also bring over my high school friends who were my models. Luckily, I already knew adults and adult males were not to be trusted before proven worthy. Edited to add that these were often men with money & power. I could feel the ooze from just their glance.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Only question with Stein is whether or not she realizes that she’s a Russian tool. She’s dumb enough that she may not actually get that Putin did not seat her at his table for her scintillating conversation.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
@Brachiator:
Don’t worry: based on past and current performance, I’m sure the WHCA and its members will continue to grovel at Trump’s feet no matter how blatantly he trolls them. They’re way too dependent on the clicks and views he gets them—money talks, amirite?!
NorthLeft12
@Kay: I agree with you 100%. I believe Ms. Wolf tweeted about that very thing.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
She seems as much smitten by flattery as Trump. Whatever her “beliefs” may be on a given day is quite malleable.
Nicole
@Kay:
I think this is true. And why, although women’s gains against men’s income has stagnated over the past 30 or so years, the overall increase in financially independent women has finally led to an awareness of women doing emotional work- men didn’t need to concern themselves with what was going in a partner’s life because she wasn’t in an economic position to leave. And we are so heavily socialized into our gender roles (which are dependent on how we see and wield power) that it takes awhile to catch up and realize woman are being socialized into the perpetually lower position of the “people reader” and the caretaker.
When my sister-in-law and brother got married, she decided that she would do thank-you cards for her side of the family and he would do the cards for his. Which meant her side got thank-you cards and his side did not. My aunt, in particular, was very upset about this and complained… to me, not to my brother. Because I’m the girl in the family. Back then, I was pissed at my sister-in-law (my aunt complained for YEARS to me about it), but in retrospect, I give her props for not doing the emotional work for her husband’s side of the family (though I did tease her about it when I got married five years later, in my thank-you card to them. ;) ).
MisterForkbeard
@ruemara: Yeah. Between this and the weird contention that “Hillary selected Trump” there’s this incredibly odd and persistent desire to believe that Trump is secretly the Democrat’s fault. Instead of, you know, the Republican voters who voted for a man who’s a criminal, liar, racist, sexist, admitted sexual assaulter, and fraudster who is also demonstrably bad at running a business.
Or the media who refused to cover or explain why those things mattered, but focused on Email Server Management Best Practices for the Secretary of State. It’s almost like they need to believe they’re not at fault, or something.
catclub
@Mandalay:
speaking of gutless pricks, I was amused to see on McClatchy “After battling Pompeo nomination, Rand Paul is now going after the Director CIA nominee”
ha ha. they left out the {and then folding}
Notable lack of learning on McClatchy’s part.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: She’s been too consistent to be ignorant.
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
Using “factual” to mean “true” is also terrible writing. “Factual” has more than one meaning; it can mean either “containing true facts” or “of or pertaining to facts”. Thus, calling Trump’s statements “not factual” is imprecise. It could mean either that his statements are not true or that he’s offering opinions and analysis rather than straight facts. Anyone who loves good language should avoid that kind of vagueness in favor of straightforward statements like “Trump lies” or “Trump bloviates”, depending on the sense of “not factual” your they are trying to convey.
catclub
@Amir Khalid:
you can also blame NBC for not renewing his contract for The Apprentice. But either way, he is still Prez* now.
NorthLeft12
@Elizabelle:
I will disagree with the “war correspondents” being actual journalists. I think they are so carefully managed and controlled, that the information they convey is very much what is supplied and approved by the people they are reporting on. To me, the real journalists are the men and women that work close to home to illuminate the dark and hidden parts of our society to expose corruption, injustice, and danger. The work is not glamourous. It can be tedious and time consuming, and end up in a complete dead end, but finding the truth behind the stories is the most valuable work that journalists do.
Brachiator
@WhatsMyNym:
What? Where you been. The news industry is dying. Newspaper circulation is falling to levels of readership of the 1940s. Revenue has steadily declined as well. Employment is plummeting.
There are sites like “newspaper death watch” which detail papers which have ceased publication.
A great indirect measure of the death of newspapers is to see how AP or Reuters, which supplies news to the industry, is declining as its market dries up.
It ain’t helping.
In many markets, this is a dumb move. The vampire capitalists are buying companies which have little value.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
The point isn’t profitability of individual papers, its to dominate the region by controlling the messages which are allowed to be broadcast there.
1984.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, she does. She wouldn’t be evading the question if she were too dumb to know the answer.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: Washington Post was not bought by Bezos to make money. The biotech billionaire who just bought the San Diego Union-Tribune didn’t buy it to make money either, I honestly am not sure it ever has.
They’ve both bought papers for the same reason: drive votes on their pet issues their way, and boost their industry PR. You can look at it as buying advertising more than anything else. Probably overall cheaper these days just to buy the paper/online presence than run ads.
ETA: or what TenguPhule said above.
gvg
@Amir Khalid: Trump has been trying to get enough support for a Presidential run since about the mid 80’s. We used to have enough sense to ignore him and he pretended it was all showman ship for his brand, until he hit us at just the right spot of a stupid mood probably with support from Russia. Now I think he was serious every time. Maybe Perot is to blame. I also suspect every time we ignored him, wounded him badly and we only know about the time Obama mocked his birtherism. Those prior runs where he got a percent or so of a few early primary states….and the polls laughed at him, those must have stung. If Russians told him he was great all those decades, that might explain a lot about his loyalties.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
I assume there’s a certain amount of personal prestige and the desire to own a newspaper as a personal plaything involved, too. The owner of a major newspaper gets a lot more publicity than a run-of-the-mill billionaire.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: In retrospect, the whole “give the product away on-line and then figure out how to get people to pay for it later” business model may have been a strategic error.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady: Mistakes may have been made. But nobody is to blame. We must look forward, not backwards. Profitability is in site! We will make it up in volume!
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: “I think it would be fun to run a newspaper.“
chopper
but trump doesn’t show up to the WHCD. which means it’s likely to survive forever.
Roger Moore
@WhatsMyNym:
Which includes people who subscribe only to the crossword or cooking section.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Yeah, this is what Sinclair Broadcast Group is trying to do. But you dominate nothing if your circulation base disappears.
Younger people do not read newspapers, and they are also turning away from broadcast (and now cable) TV. Of course, they often still get this indirectly from FaceBook and Twitter, but I see far more people paying attention to entertainment info than to hard news or political coverage.
Also, you have unexpected outcomes. Rupert Murdoch bought the Times of London, an important establishment newspaper since 1785 and put it behind a pay wall. It’s influence and cross-mentions evaporated. From the Wiki:
I love Murdoch’s stubborn stupidity and hope it continues.
@different-church-lady:
People think about news the way they thought about radio and broadcast television. They expect it to be free.
Also, Craigslist and other online ad services absolutely wrecked newspapers. With respect to the LA Times, this was especially brutal. The LA Times started depending more on classified ads vs display advertising. Display ads were moving more to TV and the decline and consolidation of department stores, supermarkets and other big advertisers accelerated this shift. Then the Internet came along and stole classified ads. Free Craigslist ad vs expensive LA Times classified? No contest.
The same problem rippled throughout the news industry.
ETA: The LA Times early on deliberately crippled its web product because they did not want it to compete with the physical newspaper. I got some of this directly from “people knowledgeable about the situation.”
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
I think they’re more interested in owning than hand-on running, but something like that.
Ruckus
@LAO:
Best behavior?
You taking a baseball bat?
workworkwork
@different-church-lady: Okay, I really need to upvote this comment! (I know I can’t, though.)
I was wondering to myself the other day why there aren’t more female serial killers. They’ve put up with thousands of years of shit and it’s to their credit that more haven’t just snapped.
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
They obviously are not capable of shame. Maybe it’s been bred out of them.
John Revolta
@Brachiator: I don’t suppose Murdoch could’ve bought The Times just to kill it……………….?
Nah. That’s just crazy talk.
Jager
@Brachiator: Yeah buddy
TenguPhule
@workworkwork:
They’re harder to catch.
Many of the female serial killers made their kills look like accidents or natural causes.
No One You Know
@rikyrah: I’ve heard it said that we should never sign to malice what can be explained by stupidity. This is the only reason I am not assuming the DHS fiasco wasn’t actually a fiasco. (I’m fighting an internal war against bitter cynicism, and losing.)