I guess I should be amused by the amount of attention that Trump is getting for his confabulated story about the helicopter crash that wasn’t with the black guy that wasn’t Willie Brown (Nate Holden) when they spoke of not Kamala Harris (it was 1990 and she was getting started as a deputy DA in San Francisco, not LA, where Holden was from). But I’m not, because it’s a symptom of the sickness that infects the press corpse — they get spun up by trivia rather than substance, and they’ll drill in forever on shit like this. (Though, to be clear, I’m glad Willie Brown is enjoying his moment in the spotlight at age 90.)
Compared to the other shit Trump said at his press conference, this helicopter nonsense is trivia. He fabricated a story about immigrants from the Congo being sent to the US, couldn’t give a straight answer on banning mifepristone, and doubled down on the racist “is she really black” attacks on Harris. Plus, he doesn’t seem to know Tim Walz’ name.
That all said, I think the outrage at the press is having some effect. Here’s the initial headline on the Walz education story at the Post:
Here’s the headline now:
The story (gift link) isn’t bad — it’s the absolute inability of the headline writers (and the political press in general) to put the facts before the analysis, or skip the analysis entirely, that’s really killing political journalism. The second headline is just a much better piece of journalism than the first, no matter what your political leaning.
One of my high school writing teachers always said that the hardest thing for a writer to do is to crank out a simple declarative sentence. That’s evident in spades in today’s political coverage. Every editor at the big rags should send out a one-sentence memo to their political correspondents: “Five W’s and an H, motherfuckers!”
Trumpers aren’t going to pay for subscriptions to the Post, Times or any other “librul” rag. We are their customers. We’re paying for information, not half-baked, uninformative analysis.
(Atrios made a similar point in a different way and it’s worth reading.)
stinger
Hey, way to go, NC Black Alliance and Balloon Juice! Goal achieved!
Ken
My cynical side wonders if someone decided the original “Walz moved Minnesota schools to the left” headline might lead people to think “increased funding and on the side of teachers? This left stuff sounds pretty good!”, and that’s why it was changed.
twbrandt
@Ken: nah, they’re just unprincipled hacks
Chip Daniels
The NYT and WaPo also seem incapable of stating that one party is objectively illiberal, or that one candidate is objectively deranged.
The closest they can come is by putting it in the third person, like “Some say Trump is deranged” as if it were just an opinion.
And rather than simply quoting him verbatim in his incoherent ramblings, they always launder it into paraphrases.
They are absolutely wedded to the idea that both parties are normal and equal.
grumbles
I’m past that point, honestly. The NYT will not make another dime from me while Kahn is editor.
And the hereditary publisher needs to decide if he really wants the paper to be seen as a political actor in the same way people see Fox. Because that’s how I and a lot of folks I know see them now. When I read NYT political coverage, I’m trying to read through it to understand what they’re playing at, not be informed.
I don’t necessarily hold it against the journalists, but tend not to read the ones that stay long enough to pick up that signature arrogant/nihilist smirk in response to criticism no matter where they land. It is not a healthy atmosphere for them.
BR
I’m just assuming from here to the election that the NYT and WaPo will be incompetent at best and hostile actors at worst. We have to win despite them. They will for sure flog some October surprise that the GOPers concoct. We need to lay the groundwork for them being untrustworthy before then.
Kay
I’m thrilled that Walz is pro public schools.
Most people are pro public schools. The anti public schools media are to the Right of most people on this, I think because most of media attended private schools.
Kay
Harris went to public schools too.
like the vast, vast majority of Americans, but not media.
Baud
It would be nice if something this absurd were his downfall.
Steve LaBonne
There have been a lot of those WaPo and FTFNYT headline changes. Working the refs works. Our side should not have left that field wide open to the right all these decades. But thank goodness we finally got the hang of it.
TBone
Thank you for this post, MM! Without it, I would have missed my Christine Nangle fix 😆💜
https://x.com/nanglish/status/1821279287615651947
Rocks
@grumbles: KHAN!!!! (well, they sound the same)
KatKapCC
Like Willie Brown said in another quote, if he had been in a helicopter crash/near-crash, we would all definitely have heard about it. Mayor Brown is not a shrinking violet and he loves to talk!
Also, I love this section on his “personal style” from Wikipedia:
Kay
Minnesota rans 4th of 50 states in public education. Does the WaPo really want us to compare the anti public education voucher states on rank?
Let’s go.
matt
Funding schools is moving them to the left! Holy shit, media have gone off the rails. They’re so pissed Harris didn’t pick Voucher Guy.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: It won’t by itself but it’s part of the steady drip drip drip of stories driving home the fact that he’s quite a few bricks short of a full load. If only that had been the narrative in 2016.
Elma
@grumbles: A friend gives me her recycled NYT. It doesn’t have much of interest for here in WI. I will occasionally read some of it, but I never finish any articles because they are mostly navel gazing by a bunch of pampered neurotics. Useful for cleaning out the cat litter box though.
Eyeroller
@matt: I think it’s the Josh Marshall effect–the “elite” media are so wired for Republicans that anything Republicans don’t like is “left.” It doesn’t matter that many Democratic policies are moderate and have significant mainstream support among the public.
Ken
You may have grounds for a lawsuit.
TBone
@matt: and yet, we don’t have vouchers in PA. There was a line item veto. Please, no more relitigation today like the last thread.
piratedan
Have to applaud the savviness of the Harris/Walz event in Glendale last night.
They touched on all of the “local” issues here…
immigration, climate change, tribal sovereignty, affordable housing
made sure to include Dems up and down the ticket, from local tribal council members to GOP Mayors supporting the ticket. There was Kate and Ruben Gallego, the shout outs to the contested Congressional races and the Dem candidates. Kept it local, invested in the state and how that expands nationally.
There was Mark Kelly out there, focusing on the gun control issue (yes its STILL a thing) and his support of the ticket, not a glimmer of awkwardness or butthurt. Then Ms. Giffords, who has an iconic appeal in the state among Dems, spoke (which she doesn’t do a lot of) and the place just went to 11 based on what I saw. Then Harris and Walz maintained that passion, joy and intensity.
I will say that the GOP slate of candidates makes Dems excited to run against because almost to a fault they are all pretty loathesome.
Kay
@piratedan:
I think gun control is going to be our sleeper issue in 2024.
TBone
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/10/the-battle-of-the-vibes/
My mom gave me this book long ago. It is love.
https://billmoyers.com/series/the-language-of-life-with-bill-moyers-1995/
🎶🇺🇸💙❤️
https://youtu.be/F_HoMkkRHv8
scav
@Ken: A mitigating factor, perhaps?, is the paper layer really helps when putting down cardboard to kill weeds. I mean, there are not enough birds in the world for the other use.
3Sice
@Eyeroller:
They are wired to defend the American institutional status quo, which is white supremacist.
So in the next week, one or both will do profiles of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, the purpose of which will be, to politely point out to their politely racist readership, he is in fact black.
Marmot
Hear me out hear me out. It struck me the other day that maybe the major media are actually liberal, but in temperament and not crass political slant. They cannot take their own side in an argument—or really, concentrate heavily on where “we” might be going wrong.
The right is unscrupulous and crass, of course.
Geminid
@piratedan: I’m curious: how is it looking for Dave Scweikert’s Democratic challenger, in the AZ 1st(?) CD? That is a flippable seat for sure.
piratedan
@Kay: I would not be shocked if it was. I think that the continual denialism of the GOP to do ANYTHING about the issue frustrates a LOT of normies. This should be a bipartisan, no one NEEDS a fucking AR-15. The Dems are the only ones talking about it unless you talk about the potential outrage of someone equating keeping said AR-15 as a violation of their rights (that is never extended to women and their bodily autonomy, funny that). Guys like David Hogg still have a fair amount of juice with the youth of today who see that clinging to the old ways literally get their peers killed.
Baud
More like marks, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
different-church-lady
Why is headline writing a separate job anyway?
TBone
@Baud: 👍 instead of complaining about the MSM, deprive it of as much oxygen as possible. While pointing and laughing from seats at the non-MSM sites.
Kay
@piratedan:
All true. I also think it’s one of our stronger issues with parents.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Different skill set, more about marketing than news reporting.
different-church-lady
@Elma:
Everyone needs to see that again and again.
PsiFighter37
Political reporters have been ingrained in simply reporting what is said and heard, without doing any critical analysis. That’s probably because they are hiring average students out of school who maybe majored in journalism but otherwise don’t have the sufficient knowledge or context to write or speak about the topics they are covering with any depth whatsoever.
3Sice
@PsiFighter37:
You don’t get those gigs if you aren’t connected and committed to defending the status quo.
KatKapCC
@different-church-lady: I worked as an editor for a while (not in the news biz) and the general belief is that writers can’t write headlines. It is…neither wrong nor right, but it’s a pretty common tenet.
Eyeroller
@different-church-lady: Because it’s supposed to be a separate skill. It’s intended to summarize an article in a few words, which can be quite challenging. Traditionally it was an editing type position, as I understand it. I’ve been reading Josh Marshall’s Xitter (on Nitter) and he had a discussion of this. He has expertise since he owns and operates a media company. He noted that a really big problem now is that media companies refuse to admit how influential the headlines are, much more so in the digital age than when we were reading them on physical paper. Back then, if a headline caught your eye, you’d probably at least glance at the first few paragraphs of the article. Now it requires that you take extra action (that click they supposedly always want) to go to the article. Most people don’t bother. So their perceptions come from the headlines.
piratedan
@Geminid: I don’t know as much about the Dem candidate Dr Amish Shah as I should.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-amish-shah-wins-congressional-primary-will-face-republican-david-schweikert/ar-BB1r5v09
It was a primary that offered a LOT of choices but I suspect that the Dems will coalesce behind him without issue. Per the article linked, he sounds like a worker, someone who is goes old school in his outreach to voters and is more pragmatic than idealistic. The fact that he’s an ER Doc means that he’s seen the ugliness of our health care system and COVID up close and personal.
tomtofa
@Baud: I think this one may have legs. There are multiple witnesses to the real event, and Trump is still sticking to his fantasy.
Holden (the real Black passenger) is mocking him, and the media seem to be joining in. And we know how much he likes to be mocked . . .
twbrandt
@different-church-lady:
Back when newspapers were actually printed on paper, the amount of space available for a headline to a story wasn’t known until the last minute when the paper was laid out. So the editors wrote the headlines at that time.
ETA: now that we are in the web era, what others have said above is true.
Eyeroller
@3Sice: I don’t buy that they are explicitly white supremacist, but I agree that they are steeped in and unable to see beyond their white, and mostly male, privilege. Fish, water, etc. The lack of diversity in newsrooms has been discussed for years but the elite press keeps hiring the same type of connected prep-school guy (usually a guy, still) from an Ivy League school.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Agreed.
bbleh
I’m gonna guess that SUBSCRIPTIONS don’t matter to them nearly as much as READERSHIP, which includes subscriptions AND clicks / page views, cuz I’m guessing that’s what drives ad revenue and I think they get the huge majority of their profits from ad revenue. And I’ll also guess that they’re getting a lot less of both. I just don’t look at their homepage nearly as much as I used to, and I click through to an article even more rarely — like a few times a week. (And I gave up my subscription years ago.)
And it does seem like they’re reacting, whether to fall-offs in viewership or online criticism or both.
But I also think it’s not just revenue that motivates them. They want ACCESS, which is necessary for content AND to develop individual careers, and they want to be seen as PLAYERS. I think both of those — in addition to the usual biases toward horse-race “journalism” — motivate them to normalize Republican behavior and bothsides every issue they can. And I don’t think any amount of online criticism will ever compensate for those.
And I’ll say again, it’s a real shame what’s happened to them. The Vichy Times still does excellent investigative journalism and overseas reporting (although the political stuff is starting to go the same way as the domestic political stuff), and their arts, etc., are still really good. But the political, and now domestic news, coverage has gone far downhill.
Eyeroller
@bbleh: FTFNYT keeps gaining subscribers (mostly digital-only). I have read that their games and recipes subsidize the “news” operation at this point. So a lot of the subscribers probably mostly want the games and puzzles but just sign up for “all access” since I’m sure they offer a good introductory deal for that.
Geminid
@Kay: Ten years ago, Virginia Democrats would steer clear of the gun control issue. That changed in 2017 when Ralph Northam and House of Delegate candidates made gun control a primary issue, alongside abortion rights and Medicaid expansion. It worked, especially in suburban battleground districts.
The gun “safety”* issue worked again in 2019, when they won a majority in both General Assembly houses. Gov. Northam signed 6 gun control bills the following Spring. A Wason Center poll taken before the legislature met showed 75% approval for these measures.
* Democratic politicians here seem to talk about “gun safety” instead of “gun control.”
PsiFighter37
@3Sice: I don’t think that is necessarily the case. One of the current members of the editorial board of The NY Times was a high school classmate of mine that I knew personally. They were the editor-in-chief of the middle school paper, the high school paper, and probably college (if I had to guess), worked as a beat reporter for multiple major papers before eventually landing the gig. Definitely someone who earned their place through hard work and dedication and not because of any special shortcuts. However, while this person is (or at least, was) even more liberal than I ever was, I also think that being someone who has specialized in journalism has probably given them (and others in the same spot) the impression that, because of the voluminous amount of stenography that they have done, that this imparts some sort of special expertise. It 100% does not.
There are definitely nepo babies in the industry, and, like everything else, there is probably an unfair amount where having connections or the right last name count more than they should. But I have no doubt there are a lot of journalists who earned their way into their position, but they simply are unaware that the primary job of the journalist is not only to report what is being said but to report on what is TRUE.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Dobbs is… and Project 25
VeniceRiley
@grumbles: I just said Joe Khan gives “Voldemort on Tinder vibes.”
Here https://x.com/VeniceRiley/status/1822279424475029701?t=jnNdT0oqldYjILKpFGeRfw&s=19
AM in NC
Yeah, the comments under that first headline pretty much ALL read the Post the riot act. After they changed it (and the second headline here is actually a different changed one from the one I saw) I commented with congratulations to commenters for forcing the change, and exhorted WAPO editors to do better.
Working the refs works. We have so much evidence of this from the fascist side, it’s nice to see our side jumping on.
Bill Arnold
@grumbles:
I’m done with being apologetic (NY-er, so habit died slowly) about the NY Times.
To me, and many others, the New York Times is now “Fox News with a thesaurus”.
3Sice
The political press corpse spent the last week with their pants around their knees waiting for Trump to have his Sister Soulja moment. Then that shit show fail conference at Mar-a-Lago happened. They are going to get their pound of flesh off of him for that.
Bill Arnold
@BR:
This is a ratfucking-heavy election. It would be political malpractice for Democratic Party operatives (and/or allies) to not prepare and deploy several anti-Trump/Vance October surprises.
Fortunately for the forces opposing evil, the Trump/Vance[or whatever :-)] ticket and the GOP in general is very target-able.
Bill Arnold
@3Sice:
I refuse to call it a press conference. Most of the questions were inaudible (and don’t appear in any transcripts), so those watching the audio/video (live or recorded) have no clue whether what he blathered was even attempts to answer questions.
Geminid
@piratedan: Dr. Shah sounds like a solid candidate. I hope he can knock Schweikert out, same with the Dem running against Ciscomani. I’m hoping Ruben Gallego will have coat tails. He seems like a formidable politician.
coin operated
Don’t know about y’all, but my distrust of the NYT started with Judith Miller.
They’ve been practicing this Right-wing Stenographer crap for quite some time.
Anonymous at Work
That lead-in joke just got weird looks for being too loud in a Mexican cantina with futbol on all screens.
piratedan
@Geminid: Ciscomani’s opponent is Kristin Engel. Ciscomani won largely because he painted her as a wide-eyed liberal and he had no track record and he portrayed himself as a moderate Republican. Now he has a voting record (faithful fall-in-line GOP) and Engel will hammer him on that. Considering the accomplishments of this Congress, that ain’t much. Ciscomani is running ads about our “border crisis” and backing support for rebuilding the wall.
I think Engel beats him this time.
I think Shah has a rougher road, but he seems willing to invest in the ground game to get Schweikert out and AZ keeps changing and shifting bluer. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the GOP has spent so much political capital doing insane shit unapologetically.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@coin operated: Just as the Iraq War was gaining steam, my PoliSci 101 teacher recommended the NYT as the gold standard of reporting.
I’ve never had a trusting relationship with the media.
Darkrose
@different-church-lady: Back in the day it was the job of the copy editor. Headlines had to fit in a certain amount of physical space while still making sense. I used to watch the Stanford Daily folks physically cut and paste the page layouts before sending them to the printer at night.
matt
@TBone: I think Shapiro will be a great bench guy for the national party and will have an important national office, Senator, maybe Cabinet, maybe VP or President someday. He’s got talent. And I will be perfectly happy to support him when that time comes.
Kelly
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I had a lifetime trust in the media until the Iraq War 2 run up. I came by it via my maternal Grandfather, a stalwart Democrat who subscribed to a broad spectrum of magazines from Mother Jones to the National Review. He taught me to hate Richard Nixon in 1968. I was 12. When he was 90 I helped him buy and use a PC.
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: I thought I’d hit paradise when I moved from my isolated town with no NPR to the Denver area in 1983, you know, back when NPR didn’t have an R dominated governing board. I quit listening entirely 2 years ago, the same time I quit twitter, and my mental health took a huge leap towards happiness. I grew suspicious of the NYTimes over the Judith Miller reporting and previously loved access to what I thought was a real paper, now I refuse to click any of their links. That’s another place where “we’re not going back” has resonance for me.
Other MJS
The helicopters are laughing?
Quinerly
@piratedan:
Thread is probably dead.
I have seen Gabby Giffords at the last 2 Indian Markets here in Santa Fe. Had a chance to have a few words with her last year. We both were admiring the same bracelet. She was smiling and interested in everything and everyone.
Hope she is around next week.
wjca
History. Because it has to be done at the very end of the (hardcopy/paper) publication process. When you know how much width, i.e. how many letters worth of space) you have available. The author, who writes the body, has no idea about that
EDT twbrandt got there first.
piratedan
@Quinerly: she’s still pretty active in the background for her Gun Control organization.
I have never met her personally but have followed her since she was in the state lege up thru her time in Congress.
she’s not as liberal as I am, but my respect for her is boundless.
RaflW
Folks may have noticed that “Maggot Hagermann” (what Trump called her on his social crapsite last night) decided to retaliate today with a longish piece on how shitty his whole campaign is.
But that in itself is a sign of how truly bad the NYT politics desk is now (there was a shared byline, and of course editors had to ok and then edit that thing). As someone pointed out, Habermann had probably been sitting on the Aug 2 quotes from the Hamptons fundraiser for days.
And, she’s way off the path of being a reporter if she writes sentences like this (the disrespect to the President is still leaving me shocked): “Mr. Trump had grown comfortable campaigning against an 81-year-old incumbent who struggled to navigate stairs, thoughts and sentences.”
It’s rude but expected that a columnist would trash-talk like that. But she’s a news reporter (or, acts like one sometimes). The Times is spinning recklessly. I kinda hope they’re gonna crack up and have to really re-group.
catclub
It will be something absurd that will finally get actual notice from the major media.
It would also have been nice if Willie Brown had been able to say “I have never ridden in a helicopter with Donald Trump.” Instead just a lot of laughing.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Kelly: Mother Jones. There’s an organization I forgot about that I should probably start reading again.
TerryC
@Baud: And originally as much to do with setting type for production as with anything else.
WaterGirl
@stinger: Yes, big thanks to all of our angels and everyone who donated
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Nominated!