It gets pretty old writing the book every day on how the media is fucking up. Two chapters from the last 24 hours:
One: Maggie Haberman of the Cancel Your Subscription Times bemoning and decrying the awful act of using public records to name maxed-out Trump donors. Do I need to point out that public records are the basis for a huge amount of journalism (including the ever-present mugshots of accused, not convicted, individuals):
Don’t want to RT this because I don’t want to put these people’s names in my feed but this is dangerous, by any campaign.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 6, 2019
Two: CBS News with the evergreen “Today Trump Became President” take (and Jay Rosen’s take on it):
Here is CBS News: “When he heads to Dayton and El Paso on Wednesday… the president — who has been accused by his critics of inflaming white supremacists and sowing division — will be assuming the role of consoler-in-chief.” https://t.co/TMwDWjslAj Really? Just like that, huh?
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) August 7, 2019
I’m sure there are many others, but they’re all symptoms of a disease that’s pretty easily identified but apparently hard to cure. Jay Rosen’s list of the top problems in pressthink is a pretty good roundup of the major symptoms. Here are his first two issues (read the whole thing):
1. The entire system for covering the Trump presidency is wrongly conceived. It needs to be rebuilt, faulty premise by faulty premise. But there has never been such a rebuild while the story is running hot. No one knows how it can be done. Reporting what he said today amplifies his falsehoods and hatreds, which is unacceptable, but ignoring what he said pretends it never happened, which is unacceptable in a different way. (Here’s my thread about that problem. Here’s an article about it. This podcast is also good.)
2. Explicitly or implicitly, it seems likely that Trump is going to run a racist re-election campaign in 2020, in which “othering” (not a word I like, but it’s the best I can do…) is basic to his appeal to voters. This goes way beyond noisy controversies like whether to use the term “racist.” Is the press ready for a campaign like that? Does it have the people and practices in place to respond? Is it willing to break with precedent to meet a threat without parallel? I doubt it.
Mike in DC
Media reform is one of the most important and challenging issues for the present and future.
Hildebrand
Many in the press only seem to care that Trump’s ghastly behavior prints money for them. Since they are generally inoculated against any real danger to their way of life, they find all of this a delightful show. Covering Trump is the functional equivalent of sending the helicopters up for car chases. Sure, someone is going to get hurt, but it won’t be them.
Sorry – feeling extra cynical this afternoon.
MJS
We have been told forever, by conservatives, that money = speech, and any attempt to limit money in the political sphere = limiting speech in the political sphere. Therefore, Rep. Castro is actually doing these fine patriots a service by elevating their “speech.” How else would we know that the fine establishments listed support our President and his policies?
Balconesfault
Perhaps Maggie should be asking why the media hasn’t spent more time publicly discussing who is still supporting Trump, despite all of his overt racism.
And I’m not talking about the folks the times can dig up in a West Virginia diner.
Perhaps it’s just afraid of shining the light on anyone who might actually contribute to the reporters financial success in the future?
Bill Arnold
@Hildebrand:
What part of “enemy of the people“ do they not understand? It’s only four short words.
Jeffro
I’m sorry, but where was #MAGAHabs when abortion providers’ home addresses, home phone numbers, and names of their family members were routinely being posted in public in order to terrorize them?
And even that isn’t a fair comparison, because said providers were performing a legitimate health care service and otherwise minding their own business, not taking the time to donate the maximum amount of funds to a white supremacist terror-inciting campaign.
Keep it up, Joaquin! Keep it up, Dems! Let GOP donors worry about losing business and being publicly shunned for their support of Miller’s Puppet.
Jerzy Russian
The president gave an inspiring eulogy at the memorial service for the victims, and ended it by singing “Amazing Grace”.
patrick II
Why does Maggie think there are laws that make political donations public?
MattF
Rick Wilson has the definitive response to Haberman.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1158928847338954754
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Axis Sally Haberman
Mayur
The hell with that ratfucking right-wing dirty tricks man, but still, yes that’s a good response.
As to Maggie:
1) IT. IS. PUBLIC. INFORMATION.
2) Your own paper published the ENTIRE list of Clinton Foundation donors including the people who gave as little as $1, and tried to make innuendos about influence-buying (because, of course, when I donate $10 or $20 to an A-rated foundation doing global poverty and disease relief, what I’m doing is buying access to the State Department).
3) I hope there’s a Shake Shack within easy reach of the Times building next time I walk west.
rikyrah
I might have to get This
Breaking: Disney announces $12.99 bundle for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ https://t.co/d8OEqj98n2 pic.twitter.com/cEloSMGsK9
— The Verge (@verge) August 6, 2019
rikyrah
Haberman is nothing but a phucking Dolt45 Stenographier.
OzarkHillbilly
Members of the Press, WTF Indeed!
-Brian Beutler
germy
Don’t worry, the media will get tough in time for the next Democratic administration.
BC in Illinois
They use the word “consoler” to describe Trump.
I don’t think that word means what they think it means.
Roger Moore
I think a key thing is to stop repeating what he says verbatim when you know it’s untrue. If he says something that you know is untrue, report that he said something untrue about topic X and then report what the truth is. That avoids the danger of repeating his lies without covering up what he was lying about.
Steeplejack
@Mayur:
Get the Vanilla Cement Toss. I hear it’s popular now.
Mandalay
Oh the ironing of Haberman bemoaning the publishing of publicly available information.
She has been making her living for years by defending Trump and attacking his opponents through the use of anonymous sources.
Haberman’s fucked up world:
– Publishing anonymous sources = good.
– Publishing publicly available information = bad.
Hoodie
Reform would be great, but the bottom line is that national media generally make high salaries and/or hang with rich people and generally live in a bubble of affluence, irrespective of whether they are nominally conservative or nominally liberal. At the national level, they are nothing like the rumpled courthouse guy for the morning paper.
Haberman’s mom is a big NY pr flack. Habs looks at Castro’s act as violating the rules of the club and that it might affect people like her mom’s friends, who are the kind of people who can max out their political donations. Why, it’s so unfair that these people should suffer any consequence for their actions! Right, like any of these people are going to lose a job because their boss doesn’t like their politics. These folks usually never get negatively affected by the things done by politicians like Trump, and often gain from them. Sure, their sensitivities may be hurt by Trump’s manners and they can even have sympathies for his victims, but they are never the victims themselves. His real victims are FDA employees forced to quit or move to Kansas City because of Mick Mulvaney’s clever little bureaucratic games, folks sitting in cages at the border without toothpaste or toilets, or folks lying in the morgue because of an unfortunate trip to Walmart.
Everything the national press does tends to be formulaic because that’s generally how people who are comfortably ensconced in a corporate cocoon do their jobs. You go to college, learn some standard techniques, and then you apply them in a generally rote manner and get paid handsomely as a functionary. In that sense, these “journalists” aren’t much different from mid-to-high level execs at Proctor and Gamble or whatever corporation you care to name.
I would say the only way it could conceivably change in a significant manner is to just stop subscribing, e.g., boycott the Times. However, they have plenty of totebagger types who will still subscribe because they’re part of the hive. They also are kind of a vampire squid with tentacles throughout media. For example, local papers, which have been gutted by budget cutting, tend to run a lot of NY Times, AP and other copy in place of their own original reporting about anything that isn’t local. The Times doesn’t have much real competition in its sphere other than the WaPo.
Doug R
CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION
COMMISSION
Amir Khalid
This is, as I understand, information gathered by a government agency and made available for the public’s knowledge and reference i.e. it’s a function of governance. There is nothing scandalous about sharing it publicly: that is what it’s for. It seems that there is no function of governance this Republican party will not oppose if it suits their purpose.
Kay
She is really something special. It’s just this fresh way of looking at things that she has – there’s a lot of joy there and it comes across.
If Republicans had a young politician this talented they, and all of political media, would be promoting her 24/7. That’s why they attack her- she scares the hell out of them.
Patrick
I’m FB friends with Dahlia Lithwick, who posts political stuff several times a day and is very liberal. For the most part, I think she’s a terrific writer and thinker, but I’ve noticed that she studiously avoids any type of media criticism unless it involves Tucker Carlson or the like. My guess is that she’s got friends at the times and doesn’t want to rock the boat, but that insular, cop-like mentality is really dangerous.
rp
@Hoodie: Member of the club is right. I’m FB friends with Dahlia Lithwick (don’t know her in real life), and she posts political stuff several times a day and is very liberal. For the most part, I think she’s a terrific writer and thinker, but I’ve noticed that she studiously avoids any type of media criticism unless it involves Tucker Carlson or the like. My guess is that she’s got friends at the times and doesn’t want to rock the boat, but that insular, cop-like mentality is really depressing and dangerous.
Redshift
Ah, nothing like having the fire alarm go off at work and walking out of the building to police with shotguns (I think) and a helicopter circling. ?
“Investigating reports of a man with a weapon” is all I’ve heard.
zhena gogolia
@Redshift:
We had a fire alarm at work last spring, and we all went out on the street. After we came back in, one of the students said, “I wonder if we really should go outside when that happens. It could be someone pulling the alarm to get us out where we can be picked off.” That never occurred to me — this generation really has a different view of the world, and it’s horrifying. It’s also horrifying that our employers haven’t told us what to do in such a situation. I’m sure it’s on a website somewhere.
Cathie Fonz
OK here is the challenge, Front Pagers — what SHOULD the media be focusing on in this election? Rosen talks about a “citizen’s agenda” approach and maybe this would work for a news organization but I’m not sure whether blogs like this one could use it.
The most effective responses to the Romney campaign were things like the “how many houses” coverage – which was not, as I recall, merely the happy accident it appeared to be, but rather the result of a focused campaign which targeted Romney’s wealth. Is such targeting still possible with Trump?
Mandalay
Just to keep Haberman’s pearl clutching hypocrisy in perspectine, in 2008 when Bill Clinton published a complete list of donors to the Clinton Foundation, the NYT still thought it was still necessary to reproduce that list on their own web site. It was nearly 5,000 pages long, and it’s still there!
And despite that, the NYT still squealed that Clinton hadn’t done enough:
I wonder what Haberman thinks about that.
cain
@Mike in DC:
It starts by breaking up the media companies and actually regulating them. eg no one company should be able to own multiple media outlets. (newspapers, radio etc) Shit like Clear Channel should never happen. While the govt no longer owns broadcasting like the old days, (eg we can’t use fairness doctrine) we should have some way to make sure that if they want to be reported as a news organization recognized by the govt that they adhere to some strict standards.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s the best piece I’ve read in a long time.
mrmoshpotato
@germy:
And they can practice by yelling about the Dems in the meantime! Sorry – practice by continuing to yell about the Dems in the meantime.
Roger Moore
@rp:
There’s definitely an attitude among too many journalists that members of the club can do no wrong. Look at the mini scandal surrounding Jill Abramson earlier this year. She was caught dead to rights plagiarizing large parts of her book and there were glaring inaccuracies, but a huge chunk of the media establishment defended her because she’s part of the club. Instead of asking how she could do such a thing, her defenders were outraged that anyone would make such accusations against her.
That cluby atmosphere is prevalent in way to many areas of our society. Look at how many members of the Democratic establishment were willing to defend William Barr during his confirmation. Even though he had helped cover up Iran/Contra in his previous term as AG, they were willing to back him because he’s part of the club.
Eljai
@Kay: That tweet is really kind of amazing. She’s empathetic but not in denial that the hatred exists.
zhena gogolia
@Eljai:
Why, it’s Obama-esque!
Baud
@Mandalay:
Thank you for bringing the receipts.
rikyrah
Chicago Immigrants Losing Jobs Due To No-Match Letters
August 5, 2019
TenguPhule
We already know the cure. Tumbrels. Lots of them.
TenguPhule
@Mike in DC:
How do we return them to the sender for a working one?
Roger Moore
@Cathie Fonz:
If anything, it’s the kind of thing that blogs ought to be good at. Bloggers don’t usually get as much chance to ask candidates questions, but they can focus on their policy speeches, white papers, etc. rather than just repeating sound bites. Blogs with a particular focus, like healthcare or justice reform, can hone in on where the candidates stand on that one issue.
Betty Cracker
Here’s an example of how to do journalism under stringent character restrictions (I try to call out the good when I see it along with denouncing the bad, not that either amounts to a hill of beans):
BTW, if you’ve got sucky media fatigue, do not go to the Columbia Journalism Review and read the pathetic excuse-making from NYT officials. Also stop reading this comment right now because I’m going to highlight a couple of idiocies from Dean Baquet:
Insulting, unserious and wholly unsuited to the moment. FFS, we don’t want Baquet to be the vanguard of the resistance to Trump; we want him to do his goddamned job and present the facts within their proper context, something Manu Raju — who is far from perfect, God knows — managed to achieve in that tweet above.
The problem as I see it is this: Trump isn’t a normal president, and the MSM insists on covering him as if he is, with all of the assumptions and benefits of the doubt that entails. Trump isn’t abnormal because he’s an asshole or I disagree with his policies (though he is and I do). He’s a corrupt, lawless demagogue who is openly undermining democracy, destroying standards and hollowing out vital institutions.
If the MSM can’t grok that, they can’t cover Trump effectively, hence the suckage. And at this point, harboring hopes that they’ll wake up is becoming as dumb as waiting for Trump to start acting like a president. He’s called them the “enemy of the people” repeatedly and inspired nutjobs to send them bombs in the fucking mail. They don’t get it. They never will.
TenguPhule
@Hildebrand:
Provided they play their role appropriately. And even then, the crocodile will occasionally eat one of them anyway for shits and giggles. But they’re all sure that they will never be that specific unlucky bird.
hueyplong
All you have to do to understand the Melania tweet about Chicago crime is to consider the two simplistic concepts of (1) diversion and (2) filling in a mad libs with the town most closely associated with Trump’s nemesis.
It’s not chess, it’s full-contact checkers.
As for the threatened suit, I not too long ago had to sit with a scared student newspaper editor and tell her to ignore threats of suit by a RWNJ local politician angry that she had published in the paper publicly filed documents he did not like.
This is apparently a thing now — bad faith Trumpian litigation as a strategic weapon.
(In our example, no retraction, no suit.)
zhena gogolia
Speaking of idiots,
cain
@rikyrah:
Why would i want Hulu? Streaming TV w/commercials? Forget it. Secondly, we all know that $12.99 is hte introductory price that will increase in about a year and continue onward. Netflix has probably changed their prices 3 times their entire existence while increasing the value over time. Plus, it was Netflix that put brown people front and center – eg Indians as talk show hosts, comedy series etc. Meh.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
So this is a confession that they’ve always been this bad and have no intention to change?
Burn them down.
zhena gogolia
I’m in moderation because some Cyrillic got mixed up in my comment. Trying again.
Speaking of idiots,
Cheryl Rofer
@Cathie Fonz:
@Roger Moore:
Can you be more specific about how you’re thinking about this? Maybe a series of posts in which we ask what topics commenters want addressed, with expansions on particular topics?
Or something else?
(Yes, I sign up for too many things.)
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
And one workplace shooting. So far.
TenguPhule
@Bill Arnold:
All of them, Katie.
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong:
It was Ivanka, not Melania. Melania’s doing her nails.
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Kay:
Both great perspectives.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think the problem is worse than that. Even before Trump, the media had a serious double standard, wherein everything the Democrats did was scrutinized for the tiniest point that could be criticized, while everything the Republicans did was scrutinized for the tiniest excuse for giving it a pass. Their treatment of Trump is just the logical endpoint of the trend.
A Ghost To Most
I am impressed at the level of animus many of you have managed to keep for various press members, after keeping up the MDR of nazi animus.
rikyrah
@cain:
I already get Hulu, but, I do want Disney.
TenguPhule
@Jerzy Russian:
Man, I miss Obama.
cain
@rp:
I think you outed yourself as both rp and Patrick :D
TenguPhule
@A Ghost To Most:
The modern day Goebbels are no less evil then the Fat One they serve.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Yep. It’s a classic Conservative approach to problems. They’re happy with where we are, and that’s all the justification they need for refusing to change anything.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: And, somehow, Trump’s evil behavior isn’t the story that the media need to cover. How does that make any sense?
SiubhanDuinne
@Redshift:
Do you work for Gannett, or in/near their building? Just heard (vaguely, in the background) there’s an active shooter situation there.
ETA: McLean, VA
TenguPhule
@zhena gogolia:
I’ve got bad news for you. They know about it because this tactic has already been used by mass shooters.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Sorry, Conservatives are no Darth Vader. They’re
young SnapeKylo Ren.cain
@rikyrah:
It’s all bait and switch. Start adding HBO, and all the others, and next thing you know, you’re back to paying $100 a month because you want one show from this place, one show from that place, etc. :( If you decide noe to do it at least market forces will force them to do something else.
Amir Khalid
@A Ghost To Most:
In these times it seems vital to keep one’s animus levels high.
hueyplong
@zhena gogolia: Oops. All Trumps look alike to me.
scav
Consoler in Chief? Well, he’s certainly lower than the soles of our shoes, prone to walk all over people nonetheless and does he bring the con to it.
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m not saying that every blog needs to do it, or even that Balloon-Juice in particular should, but it’s the kind of thing a blog could do. As an example, you could pick a topic of the week- international trade, healthcare, criminal justice, etc.- and compare the different candidates stated positions on the issue. If you wanted to emphasize the “citizens response” side of things, you could start by asking the blogitariat what their big issues are and focus on those first. It would be a nice break from the incessant focus on the latest outrage.
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid:
Only if you believe in a working government where informed voters can make rational decisions.
opiejeanne
@Jeffro: She forgets that time when the NYTimes printed out the list of HIllary’s donors. It was fine back then, but how dare some of us promote the public records of Trump donors!
Also, she was very snotting to Joy Reid, condescending is the way Joy put it, and offered to take it off of Twitter to explain it to Joy. Joy told her she has no problem discussing this issue in public on Twitter. .
Ruckus
@Hildebrand:
That’s not extra cynical. In this up is down, humanity is backasswards world, no level of cynicism is too much. Because just as you think they can’t go any lower, they once again prove that your absolute bottom is miles above their will never reach again top.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker: Yes, it looks like Manu Raju is making a real effort to include some context in factual tweets on Trump. Here are a couple more of Raju’s tweets from today:
All completely factual, but much more informative than if he had simply quoted Trump’s remarks. Good for him.
Doug R
@cain:
Carriers should NOT be content providers. Warner should not own a cable company, Comcast shouldn’t own NBC/Universal and Disney shouldn’t own a streaming service and Marvel and Star Wars and Fox.
Cheryl Rofer
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I thought the first was what you intended. I’d rather go with the second, where we hear what the commenters want to hear the media ask the candidates, package it up, and send it to Jay Rosen and others.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: I agree there have long been double standards, but I see that as a separate problem, and I believe our current conundrum is an order of magnitude worse. We could function as a democracy when the media gave passes to GWB that it would never give to PBO. What’s happening with Trump is a framework problem; the real story is being ignored altogether and a cover story — constructed entirely of foolish assumptions and unearned benefits of the doubt — is put forward by the media itself, wittingly or unwittingly.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Maybe that list of trump supporters is striking a bit close to home for ole Mags.
rp
@cain: oops. I go by rp on this site. Not sure where patrick came from.
Rick Smeltzer
This is example 999,999,999,999 why this sick asshole will be re-elected. He’s great for the bottom line, so why give up all that sweet,sweet cash?
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
That the cover story is so obviously bullshit, because there is no reasonable cover story is the major issue here.
Ksmiami
@Mike in DC: burn it to the ground
Kay
@Eljai:
It is a tweet but it links to video of some event of her saying this – I think the “we” she’s using there means the people she was speaking to.
Imagine if Donald Trump or anyone who works for Donald Trump could convey that kind of decency :)
I think conservatives really miss what is appealing about her, because they see her as some shrieking scold because they portray her that way. She goes about this with a lot of joy! That’s what people are attracted to.
Part of what is wearing about Donald Trump is the relentless nastiness. I just don’t think you can beat that with “mean”. The Trump people will out-mean you every time :)
Gelfling 545
@zhena gogolia: Even years ago when I was still teaching – I’ve been retired for 13 years – we were warned not to immediately evacuate in case of fire alarm or bomb threat but to wait for directions for just that reason.
Yutsano
@Rick Smeltzer: Will he? Please show me his direct path to winning the Electoral College when he’s underwater in three of the states he barely won in 2016. Don’t forget to show your work. I’ll wait.
Inb4 never seen your nym before.
Redshift
@SiubhanDuinne: Yup. Now getting reports that it was a false alarm.
germy
TenguPhule
There’s probably an abortion joke in there somewhere.
germy
Elizabelle
WUSA (local DC news):
TenguPhule
@Doug R:
Well I’d give them Marvel for doing a good job with it, but the rest of it needs to go.
germy
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Sorry, have to disagree with you there.
the foundations of the nation were seriously undermined by the media fluffing Bush the lesser. Trump could never have gotten his foot in the door if the media hadn’t paved the way for him by making Republican crimes as well meaning “political activism”.
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: I have no problem with them holding the Star Wars franchise. But yeah, all the networks that are producers need to drop their streams. Too much rent taking and virtually strangles businesses already handling that.
Brachiator
I guess I’m missing something or I am not up to all the informal social media rules.
If Haberman is covering Trump, then she should cover Trump and STFU. Or she should be pulled and assigned another job. I am not interested in her opinion. She can’t pundit and also be a reporter.
It also comes across as though she is protective of Trump. Either way, this undermines her and the NYT.
Maybe I’m too old school. Maybe her editors think that her Twitter presence helps sell the Times. For me, it does exactly the opposite.
Brachiator
@Doug R:
Someone may have noted it already, but back in the old days I think laws prevented movie studios from also owning movie theaters.
brettvk
@Betty Cracker: The pretense that nothing abnormal is happening, that Trump doesn’t represent a huge and traumatic break from governing traditions and that irreparable damage is not being done to the nation, is the NYT’s way of defending its revenue and the tottering towers of our oligarchs. The NYT is the instrument to soothe the fears of the thinking middle sort while the laws and customs are changed to facilitate our conversion to Russia 2.0.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
/looks at cable news
Too late.
hueyplong
Shorter Maggie:. I refuse to do my job and you can’t do it either.
It must remain undone.
different-church-lady
@Kay: No, they attack her because it gives them kicks.
What really scares them is that someone will take their kicks away.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano: Other then Rogue One and Rebellion, the rest have been completely terrible.
gvg
Something about that Rick Wilson twitter thread made me think Maggie H is a Trump donor and she is afraid it’s going to be published.
Immanentize
@cain:
Yes, he is his own sock puppet.
TenguPhule
Man body-slammed boy after national anthem snub at Montana rodeo, prosecutor says
TenguPhule
Mission accomplished
Omnes Omnibus
@Gelfling 545: A long time terrorist tactic has been to detonate a small bomb or shoot and injure a few people and then wait for first responders. At that point, they launch the big attack.
Bill Arnold
germy mentioned the The Onion treatment of this yesterday; still sorta funny:
‘New York Times’ Amends Recent ‘Hero Trump Disarms Would-Be Shooter’ Headline (Aug 6, 2019)
The meta here is that The Onion headlines are always an accurate shorter version of the joke. (Their rule.)
trollhattan
@Kay:
Agree completely. She’s remarkably good at the job and yet has only been in office a little over half a year.
I was in “show me first” mode in response to the fawning over her after winning, and my reservations now seem unnecessary. Something good out of New York, how about that? [Now, about that guy from Queens….]
Sure Lurkalot
So, it’s fine to write article after article about Trump supporters in the heartland, but you can’t reveal the public records of those of apparently greater wealth who support Trump with their cash (i.e. freeze peach)? I may be influenced by currently reading Nancy Isenberg’s book White Trash, but it seems as if what’s implied is that it’s understandable for the heartland folks to embrace Trump’s racism…but those donors are their betters and they couldn’t possibly support Trump’s more heinous views.
SiubhanDuinne
@Redshift:
Better an annoying, misleading false alarm than another disgruntled shooter on a rampage.
But I do wish news outlets — NPR in this instance, but could be anybody — would run the “all clear/false alarm” headline after having reported “active shooter” an hour ago.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
JFC
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Everybody wants to have their own streaming service. I still see most Disney and Marvel movies in the theater, so if the Disney service is the only streaming alternative, then I won’t be seeing them again.
I think I’m leaning towards a rule that would encourage studios to make content more widely available after one year.
Hoodie
@Roger Moore: Human nature. We’re social animals, we tend to give our tribe members more latitude than outsiders, look the other way when they transgress. We do this because we have some fear of ourselves being ostracized for something and seeing it happen to others in our affinity group makes that seem more like a real possibility. This is the case even if we haven’t done anything that would be a reason for expulsion, kind of like people get antsy when a police car is following them even if they haven’t done anything.
On a related note, Rick Wilson’s series of tweets on this included allusions to death threats and other pleasantries he’s experienced as an outspoken Trump critic. Given his past, there are reasons to be skeptical and wonder whether at least some of this is hyperbole, but it does seem possible that anti-Trump conservatives catch more of this type of shit from the cult than Democrats or other non-Trumpers, as people like Wilson may be viewed as apostates or turncoats. Another aspect of clubbiness, when your’re out, you become a non-person, or worse.
Betty Cracker
@brettvk: You may be right. I’m not yet convinced that inadequate coverage is a conscious decision since so much can be explained by stupidity, cowardice and laziness.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Since you’re in the hood, check this out.
Miss my Swedish Quirkmobiles.
Fair Economist
I suspect Maggie Haberman is afraid of publicizing publicly available Republican donation records because something will come up involving her – like some close friend or family member of her has been laundering her contributions to Trump so she can pretend she hasn’t already taken a side.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
jonas
@Mandalay:
Oh that was totally legit. Because Clintons. Duh.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Yep. Double fuck the NY Times.
Trump ain’t smart. He ain’t a good politician. And certainly he is a terrible president.
But he has a dull, criminal like cunning when it comes to fucking with his enemies. The fucking MY Times was stupid enough to give him a club and he will beat the shit out of them with it.
Barbara
@Fair Economist: I have no idea. I do know that this is publicly available information, unlike, for instance, the names, addresses and phone numbers of doctors who provide abortions, which have been publicized by anti-choice activists specifically to terrorize them and their families. I don’t actually think publicizing a record of donations is likely to be injurious, but if people feel the least bit of anguish or fear at having their names in the public space, perhaps they will begin to empathize with those who routinely live in fear. She really is an idiot.
Kay
@Mandalay:
LOL. Come on. They walked right into this! None of them said “omg, as it turns out we have an entire dossier of Clinton donors on our website” ?
OTOH, their weird Clinton hatred is a thing apart, so maybe they don’t put the Clintons in any ordinary category.
MattF
@Bill Arnold: My understanding is that the Onion comes up with the headline first, and then writes a story to fit. Hey… if it works for the NYT, why not the “O”?
Larry B
“Othering,” an example of what the OED would classify as “verbify-ing.” Horrible. I might suggest “in-group/out-group” as an accurate but less offensive option.
Hoodie
@Fair Economist: I could see her mom being a contributor. Her firm (Rubinstein Associates) did PR for Trump, and people in business often give donations across the board to grease the skids for business. I’ve seen law firms where lawyers get pretty heavily leaned on to donate money to various candidates that serve the firm’s (i.e., their clients’) interests. It’s what they do in the club, it’s all in fun.
Kay
With the NRA imploding into a mess of grift and fraud and 5000 lawsuits you wonder if this is a bad bet for Republicans. I guess the gun makers themselves can set up an alternate money laundering org quickly, though.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule:
“I’M LISTENING TO THE FUCKIN’ SONG!!”
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: If they had to airlift the kid to Spokane…that’s NOT good. That’s the closest Level 1 Trauma centre to Montana. And why the asshat wasn’t immediately arrested for assault is unconscionable. I really hope the kid will be okay but if he dies and the jerkwad isn’t arrested for murder, fuck Montana.
VeniceRiley
@rikyrah: I already get Hulu for the $1 a month promotion that just expired. Going to have to unsub and sign up for the package … maybe about when the next season of Handmaid’s starts up. I can see the appeal of the package for sports nuts with children … it’s a great value.
I think anyone whose name is on the NYT website as a Clinton Foundation donor should sue.
James E Powell
@TenguPhule:
Agreed. Press/media fluffing GWB gave us Roberts and Alito. Citizens United and Shelby County and so many more awful decisions.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: FYI:
Juice Box
I just read Il Fascismo Eterno By Umberto Eco. It was written in 1997, but hits pretty close to home.
James E Powell
@gvg:
Haberman’s contributions are all in-kind donations, PR services.
Eolirin
@Brachiator: That doesn’t make sense. Streaming services aren’t carriers, they’re content bundles with a subscription fee. Basically the same as a cable channel package, just on demand.
As long as DVDs and direct digital purchases/rentals don’t go away, and I don’t see them doing that any time soon, there isn’t any reason why streaming services should be forced to open up access to their libraries, especially to other streaming services. It’s like saying HBO shows should have to come to CBS after a bit so that people who don’t want to pay a premium can still watch them via broadcast.
If you want the content you pay the content producer for it. No one is entitled to access.
Now, whether Disney or AT&T or Netflix should be allowed to have the level of consolidation they have? That’s another matter. But the use of streaming services to monetize content isn’t a part of that discussion.
smintheus
It’s not remotely as hard to report on Trump as wishy washy journalists pretend.
1) “Donald Trump told another lie today calculated to stoke hatred toward fellow Americans.”
2) “Speaking to an all white audience, Donald Trump once again demonized non-white citizens in insulting and provocative language.”
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
I might believe that if any of them ever acknowledged their shortcomings or made any effort to correct them. But what we get is denial and dismissive, disparaging responses.
CarolPW
Does anyone understand what analogy Baquet is making between newsroom reporters being drafted and what is going on today? Because I don’t remember the presidents at the time encouraging the Viet Cong to shoot up newsrooms.
Wakeshift
@Juice Box:
Eco is a great writer, and/or has a great translator.
I liked Foucault’s Pendulum as an antidote to the Da Vinci Code hype.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
While of course he loves the money, McConnell would toss gun control legislation in the shredder for free. He’s an evil old shit who glows with happiness when he commits acts of cruelty, and as an Alabama born, Kentucky bred rich white boy older than desegregation, electing a black man as his boss was an insult he will make America pay for.
EDIT: Seriously, think about that. Just think about what having to personally deal with Barack Obama felt like to a man from McConnell’s background. Corruption is a minor issue. This is about revenge. We will suffer for the humiliation of McConnell having to work for and frequently be publicly defeated by a black man.
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
But it doesn’t have to be that way; we just need to make sure there’s a strong countervailing professional ethic. Journalism is supposed to have that. Journalists are supposed to be angry at their colleagues who engage in plagiarism and falsification because they bring the whole enterprise into disrepute. That their first reaction is to ignore the evidence and protect the transgressor is a terrible indication about the state of journalism as it is practiced.
sdhays
@Cathie Fonz:
I don’t want to let the “Toledo” bullshit go. It should be brought up every time Dayton is. The President and his shitty hires didn’t care enough about a terrorist attack in Ohio to get the f*cking city right. He should be hounded by that. It wasn’t some off-the-cuff mistake. It was an explicit f-you, and he should be held to account for it.
For any other President, that would have been talked about all week and for any Democrat, it would become part of their persona in the right-wing-o-sphere.
cain
@Doug R:
Exactly! They should divest themselves and pick one or the other. You don’t get both.
humboldtblue
Monica Lewinsky wins the week for this tweet.
cain
@Rick Smeltzer:
Because fascism is terrible for the bottom line.
different-church-lady
@Hoodie:
Unless, of course, we’re Democrats.
cain
@Brachiator:
Don’t we owe Clinton for de-regulating telecommunications? Some of this stuff is on his administration.
humboldtblue
The Washington Post isn’t having a good day when it comes to making corrections to an article.
From the link — https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/black-families-once-lived-off-their-southern-farmland-their-descendants-are-struggling-to-hold-onto-it/2019/07/22/37b3132a-a975-11e9-86dd-d7f0e60391e9_story.html?noredirect=on
opiejeanne
@zhena gogolia: in the late 60s when my husband was in college, the school had just gone coed. The boys in the 3 male dorms decided they’d have a water balloon fight with the single girls dorm, and got a girl to leave the back door propped open. The boyfriend came in and pulled the fire alarm at midnight, so all of the girls in their pjs and robes trooped out onto the front lawn where they were ambushed. My husband was involved. It started to rain, the way it does in California sometimes, by the buckets full. The girls fought back and one of the girls named Rosie threw him through a natal plum hedge. I met him the following year and he was quite sheepish about the incident, and admiring of Rosie.
Brachiator
@Eolirin:
It’s a brave New world.
As I mentioned earlier, movie studios used to be prohibited from also owning movie theaters.
Some of what is happening now reminds me of the same thing.
And requiring wider access still would let these companies monetize their product through licensing deals.
Hell, I think that if you buy a movie from a streaming service there should be some way for you to get it without downloading even if the service later shuts down. Yeah, this is a tough one, but we are moving away from physical media.
cain
@Yutsano:
The fucker can rot in hell, he seems like he can survive prison. Getting him off the streets is perfectly fine by me. Hopefully the kid pulls through, but no doubt he will be traumatized. Either way, there is going to be a lawsuit against the man.
cain
@VeniceRiley:
Sports have always been how they fleece the rubes. You used to have to pay extra for HD, not sure if that is true now. But you have all these idiots paying $120 a month so they can get all channels of ESPN. In the end though, it makes these sports only available to upper middle class. This is why video game streaming and what not have become popular and stuff like baseball and football no longer matter so much for these younger generations. Twitch.tv has changed how we watch “sports”.
Brachiator
@cain:
The decision involving movie studios was a Supreme Court decision from 1948. United States v Paramount Pictures.
We don’t have to bring up Clinton for everything. Also, I was listening to a tech podcast recently that noted all the wise pundits who predicted that Netflix would fail when they switched from being a DVD service to a streaming service. Also, the wise heads who insisted that the Internet would never supplant cable.
Hell, it may be that current lawmakers and regulators don’t understand tech well enough to deal with it effectively.
VeniceRiley
@cain: Yes I’m astonished how the kids these days love to watch people play video games. They fill stadia and do it! But then, their elders are watching “reality” tv, so. I’ll just be an old over here watching dramas, comedies, action, and scifi – written and performed by (hopefully) talented professionals.
LesGS
@sdhays: I read an article last night about how some of Trump’s weirdest traits and goofs could be due to his poor vision, such as his fear of using stairs. He needs glasses but he’s too vain to wear them, by his own admission. They have images of the teleprompter where it reads “Texas and Ohio,” not “Toledo.” The author of the article, some sort of eye doctor, speculates Trump saw the capital T of Texas, a blur of letters, and then the O of Ohio and decided it said Toledo. (Of course, the speechwriters can’t come out and say, “Hey, we got it right! He read it wrong!” Emperor’s New Clothes, etc.)
On the other hand, his vision is good enough to play golf reasonably well. I dunno. Maybe he’s far sighted..?
cain
@VeniceRiley:
Every time you add gatekeepers the market will find some other way for those who don’t have access. If I were the MLB and other organizations, I would be concerned.
Brachiator
@cain:
There are a lot of forces at work here. A lot of younger people who are into video games aren’t into other sports at all.
And one of the factors that spurred the rise of streaming services were geek cable subscribers who hated the idea that their cable subscriptions included any sports channels at all.
And times change. Horse racing used to be one of the most popular sports in America. Boxing and track and field were popular enough to attract sizeable broadcast tv viewers.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@TenguPhule: @Yutsano: The eyewitness heard the kid’s head go “pop” and he was bleeding out of both ears. So the attacker cracked the victim’s head open….And the guy is a previous violent offender, out in public on a 10 year suspended sentence but his lawyers are still trying to get his bail reduced to allow him out of jail. The court needs to tell them ‘hell no’ and then send him directly to prison to start serving that 10 years while waiting for the trail on this crime.
Nicole
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: Nope. He was released on his own recognizance, with a promise to show up for an Aug 14 court date. Ugh.
Roger Moore
@LesGS:
I’m not sure about the “reasonably well” part. My understanding is that he’s notorious for cheating at golf, which says enough about his character to know you shouldn’t vote for him.
TenguPhule
@LesGS:
We have only Trump’s word on that.
Mayur
@James E Powell: hundreds of thousands dead in a war of choice pursued under false pretenses and a city drowned.
Redshift
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, they should have said something about it. But when the police chief spoke officially, it wasn’t an all clear, just “there is no evidence of violence or injury.” I had to cab it home because they were going to be searching the building for 2-10 hours and I couldn’t get into the parking garage.
So the speculation I’ve heard (calling it that because I don’t have a source for it, even though people relayed it as “they’re saying”) is that someone, perhaps a former employee, came to the building and had a gun, but didn’t act threatening or anything, and left before the cops arrived.
So if that’s true, best case it’s probably some goddamn ammosexual who has the “right” to carry it and is too big an idiot (but I repeat myself) to consider that walking into a building housing a media outlet with a gun is going to freak people out.
Worst case it’s someone who intended to do something and was chicken enough to turn back when he saw someone calling 911.
LesGS
@TenguPhule: @Roger Moore: I also read that article by the golf pro describing how Trump cheats at golf! ? But one of his points was that Trump was a skilled golfer and didn’t have to cheat to score well. But he *has* to *win*. So he cheats.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: Cool, at a Save Saab Rally in the Chicago area back in 2010, I got to see a half million mile Saab.
Kay
They’re all completely insane. Imagine this with any other President? Trump has to SAY “look at me! people are so impressed with me!” He has to pay a huge group of people to work on that, 24/7, along with the entire FOX and Sinclair workforce(s).
hueyplong
@LesGS: If it were a vision problem we’d expect other, similar mistakes.
We’re there any?
Another Scott
@patrick II: Maggie loses power and influence if she’s no longer a gatekeeper of information. That’s why she’s upset.
I’m convinced this is why the press often refuses to give links to original documents (or posts screen captures rather than actual text), or refuses to give dates when they did interviews, or refuses to give actual names and numbers of pending legislation so that people can see for themselves what it says….
Yeah, it’s hard to click a link on a physical page of paper. But the whole point of the WWW is “hypertext” – readers can easily get more information via “links” that can point to information anywhere on the planet. Too many in the press are more interested in being gatekeepers than informing the public.
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: I see this from my insecure teenage relatives. If they tell you “I’m really popular at school” or burst out with “I’m the best soccer player” then they’re not popular and not too good at soccer.
Kind of sad that we see this in our president and his minions.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: I would assume the price point would be higher for the package with Hulu+, rather than the basic version with commercials. But it still sounds like a reasonable ask for two services of interest (don’t give a damn about the ESPN+ offer).
LesGS
@hueyplong: The article I read is on Slate, “Is Donald Trump Actually Just Blind? An Investigation.” (Sorry, don’t know how to link.) The author lays out some other oddities which could be explained by poor vision. Mostly I brought this up because his speech writers apparently did write “Texas and Ohio”, and for some reason Trump changed it to “Toledo.” Poor vision? Brain fart? Covfefe?
wasabi gasp
Castro’s gotta pack it in. Probably gives Warren a little chill. Shooting from the hip is her thing.
TenguPhule
Wheeeeee!!! Bring it on, Chaos!
chopper
@Kay:
jesus, just imagine if obama’s people tweeted something like that after he visited a hospital following an unspeakable tragedy. ffs, these people are just the fucking worst.
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: Eh. He already resigned. This is just salt on the wound for him.
jl
Haberman is full of it. I don’t see any doxing of people in Castro’s list, and it’s all public information.
When conservative thugs go and peer through the window’s of people in the news who they don’t like, and see granite counter tops, and push sheer speculation about the meaning of what they saw, then I don’t remember the press having concerns about danger of snooping and doxing. Just excited enthusiastic prattle about another problem for liberals.
Edit: and I myself am certainly aware that when I make political contributions, that can go into a public record, and I have to be prepared for public release of that info. And sometimes it is true for when I’ve volunteered. So, what is so special about these shrinking flower Trump supporters?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: @Nicole: Pretrial detention is not intended as punishment. Its purpose and the purpose of bail is to ensure that the defendant will show up for the trial.
randy khan
@Mandalay:
Listing donors by amount with no other identifying information is standard practice for pretty much all big charities. That’s how, for instance, the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center do it. Actually, pretty much every charity I know that publishes donor lists does it that way.
WhatsMyNym
@Yutsano: This is the replacement who was just sworn in. He will step down and the current Justice Secretary will be sworn in as Governor of Puerto Rico .
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Digital news sites are inconsistent about this. After all, they want you to read their site, especially if they are providing free access to some stories.
However, even the NY Times is as good about this as other sites. If there is a Supreme Court decision, they often provide a link to the SCOTUS site. Most science stories will provide a link to the science journal sites (which sometimes is itself protected by a pay wall).
The Sacramento Bee, which covers the capitol beat, regularly provides links to the official CA legislature site and direct links to bills being considered.
CNN, USA Today and other sites typically will provide links to the local site covering a story. So you could regularly jump to the Miami Herald site to follow current and past stories on the Epstein case. You could also link to off files of depositions.
One thing I have always found sad but typical about right wingers is their refusal to follow easily provided links so that they can insist on their stupid talking points. And of course Trump raises this to the level of the infantile with his crap about fake news.
Still, the bottom line is that a lot of news sites understand the value of providing links, even if it does not always benefit the site if they do so.
Brachiator
@Kay:
I remember when conservatives would blast Obama because supporters and fans were treating him like …a Rock Star.
These people are assholes and hypocrites of the highest order.
Hoodie
OT, but another example of the sociopathy of the Trump administration, this time regarding the arbitrary transfer of USDA employees:
The people are fucking Stalinists. This is of a piece with separating children from parents as a deterrent for seeking asylum. These guys can’t comprehend that city residents are people, and not caricatures of effete limousine liberals, welfare queens and gang members. Kansas City is a fine place, but maybe people have roots in DC? Mulvaney is a particularly obnoxious little shit.
sdhays
@LesGS: Fair enough. So why isn’t our punditocracy melting down over the President of the United States
wearing a tan suitbeing unable to read a teleprompter? If he can’t do this very simple thing, then isn’t he too impaired to function? I’d like Democratic pundits to just talk about how Trump should resign every time they’re on TV. Highlight how shitty he is at his job. At best, he can’t be bothered to give enough of a shit to wear glasses when addressing the nation (late) about two horrific acts of domestic terrorism (I don’t care if Dayton was “personal”; you can’t kill that many random people and call it “personal”).He won’t resign, but make him seethe over it, being reminded of how inadequate he is and how we all see it.
A Ghost To Most
@Brachiator:
Facts don’t matter to fascists.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yet somehow that’s what it has become in our country.
gorram
How dare you collect and then release in an easily accessible manner publicly available information is a really intriguing take for a journalist to take, huh
A Ghost To Most
OT: Jeff Sessions and Mike DeWine appear to have both fallen from the same (Keebler) family tree.
A Ghost To Most
@Kay: The difference between a brown-noser and a shithead?
Depth perception.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: Actually if you notice the comments to which I was responding, you’ll see that the person in question was released on his own recognizance.
Now, if you want to raise the issue of how race and class can influence decision making on this, I haven’t seen numbers recently. I would not be surprised one bit if middle class and above white people are much more likely to stay out of pretrial detention.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
I understand a lot of it has to do with whether or not a suspect can make bail. Although it appears this can become an optional requirement for white people in certain places.
J R in WV
@MattF:
Matt says: “Rick Wilson has the definitive response to Haberman.”
Here’s a taste of what right-wing anti-trumper Wilson had to say:
In other words, the only people Rick Wilson hates more than Trump are all the Democrats. I wouldn’t quote that bastard for any reason this side of to avoid a beating by Trump’s storm troopers without a video to take them to court. And I’m not a big sorry he’s getting death threats from Trumpers, I got more serious death threats when I was in grade school from a crooked county politician. Fuck him and his whole profit making scheme.
No offense, MattF, I’m dumping on Wilson, not you at all. I’m just saying there are better choices to work with on Trump’s failures as a human being and not-leader.
Omnes Omnibus
@Larry B: Do you know what is more horrible than verbing a noun? Othering people and setting them up for maltreatment. Dipshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: Bail is supposed to be set at a level that will ensure that you show up. That amount will be different for different people. And yes, it often is not handled fairly.
debbie
Does Maggie publish her concern every time Soros’s name is brought up in a threatening manner? I thought not.
debbie
@Larry B:
The term “Other” has a historical context and has had a historical context for centuries. I’m not a fan of verbifying, but this isn’t in the same category in any way.
J R in WV
@cain:
This is a pretty severe misunderstand of the history of broadcasting.
The government in America has never owned any commercial broadcasting outlets, ever. In Britain this is reversed, in their beginning there was total government control of all broadcasting, which is now no longer the case.
The American government owns, on behalf of the people of the nation, the airwaves across which broadcasting occurs, which was taken to allow regulation of “Fairness” via the Fairness Doctrine and the FCC. I personally believe that since public ownership of the airwaves includes uplink and downlink to and from orbiting devices, we could re-implement the Fairness Doctrine, given a non-RWNJ Supreme Court.
[I am aware that radio waves don’t use the air to propagate, this is strictly a legal theory, not a physics theory.]
There are now public broadcasting outlets like NPR and PBS and WV Public Broadcasting, etc, which own and operate news sources and broadcasting outlets, but they are a tiny slice of the commercial outlets that control the vast majority of the news seen by the American public. They are also somewhat modern, not part of the “old days” of broadcasting. PBS started in late 1969, after many smaller local stations grew into local networks.
None of this growth of public broadcasting has anything to do with the Fairness Doctrine.
My dad was in broadcasting back in the 1940-50s and personally knew many of the early pioneers of FM and TV, some of which rubbed off on me.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
So old Dean said:
Dean, Raven and I were rounded up, enlisted, trained a little bit, and sent off to our duty assignments. In Raven’s case that meant two different war fronts, in Vietnam and Korea. Millions of men literally had to join the military, and many were killed or wounded.
What the hell is wrong with this guy??????
J R in WV
@A Ghost To Most:
What is the “MDR of nazi [sic] animus”? Your whole sentence really makes little sense to me, maybe because I don’t know what MDR references.
And Nazi is a proper noun, like Republican is…
Captain C
@MJS: This would make a great letter to the editor for any paper, and especially the FTFNYT.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore:
I think you’ve nailed the dynamic exactly.
J R in WV
@Fair Economist:
It wouldn’t be a legal problem for Maggie to donate to Trump. It would be an ethical problem that should lead to her dismissal from her current job at the NYT, and keep her from getting another job in news media anywhere in this country.
On the other hand, if she has contributed to Trump’s campaign fund using a friend or relative to launder that contribution… that’s a crime!! as well as the ethical problem a legal donation would create!!
Ocotillo
@sdhays: Like Obama’s 52 state comment?
J R in WV
@Yutsano:
No, the newly
signedsworn in replacement governor was kicked out, because he was not yet approved by the legislature in his original appointive office when the original governor resigned.So now they have gone down the chain of replacement politicians to take the place of the elected governor who resigned after weeks of demonstrations. It is a little like chaos, but the state/territory constitution worked, and the Supreme Court did its job.
ETA Signed –> sworn
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Quite true about pre-trial detention… but someone out of jail after a suspended sentence of 10 years, who allegedly commits a second violent crime, I too would think that suspended sentence would be invoked, until the offender was found not guilty of the second offense.
IANAL, but once convicted and released on a suspended sentence and then arrested on a violent offense is not the same as being arrested and released on own recognizance on a first offense.