“What? You can fly?” ?? pic.twitter.com/UzDYRxaC2M
— Nature is Amazing ?? (@AMAZlNGNATURE) August 16, 2024
Having spent the last many years gleefully attacking Democrats and rewarding Republicans, Our Very Serious Mainstream Media cannot believe that the people in charge of the Democratic National Convention are treating them as a caste somewhere between Nuisance and Adversary…
You gotta read this. Press org upset that DNC isn't as good as RNC where things were awesomer. https://t.co/k0hcvGhrwc
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 20, 2024
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 20, 2024
To be fair, Semafor‘s Max Tani adds:
… Is there any lamer story than the media whining about access? No description of waiting in lines or searching for a spot on the ground to file a story is as annoying as it feels to do those things. As someone who was at both, the logistical experience of the RNC was unquestionably smoother than its Democratic counterpart. But the convention is a television event, and millions of Americans are going to see the convention and have no idea a few extra journalists were frustrated with the accommodations.
But beneath the press access grumbling is a bigger, more interesting story about the changing media landscape and relationship between the press and the Democratic party.
The old school news media that Democrats used to need to get their message out is no longer their only option. The DNC has made a serious, deliberate effort to make room for hundreds of content creators and influencers. These newcomers have gotten coveted passes to the convention floor and workspace in the DNC’s new creator lounge and creator platform.
The friction also illustrates the ongoing tension between the mainstream press and some parts of the Democratic Party that have played out over the course of this election. The Biden White House and his former campaign (essentially the same staff as the current Harris campaign) were deeply critical of the New York Times and other major nonpartisan media organizations over their coverage of the president, his mental faculties, and of Donald Trump, who the campaign believed got unfairly positive coverage from mainstream press. The DNC and its chair Jaime Harrison were among many institutional Democrats who criticized the news media’s coverage of Joe Biden following the debate. It’s not coincidental that the organization wouldn’t feel the need to completely bend over backwards to press demands for greater access.
[Hurried shuffling of notes, return to script]
But the last days of the Biden administration — when carefully-managed access concealed a president’s waning capacity to campaign — served as a reminder that whiny-sounding complaints are one line of the defense of a free press, if a particularly grating one…
Conservatives have been hostile to the press since Goldwater and the result is a press that desperately, slavishly seeks conservative approval https://t.co/MpRziNisRW pic.twitter.com/4fXeGXjGak
— The Great El Wokismo (@canderaid) August 21, 2024
Josh Marshall has adopted a business model suited for democracy. It reduces the status of journalists because it doesn’t purport to make them neutral elites in charge of Truth. The would-be philosopher kings like Kang hate it. https://t.co/2C8vbAx7yF
— Henry Porter ???? (@HenryPorters) August 20, 2024
Journalism isn’t in crisis. It’s in transition. https://t.co/e0vfHlDGk3
— Henry Porter ???? (@HenryPorters) August 20, 2024
Evolution is an engine which produces unintended design. Individual reporters, editors, and even publishers don’t intend to help Trump. The media ecosystem is nonetheless designed to do just that. https://t.co/qqt2CTFdNT
— Henry Porter ???? (@HenryPorters) August 20, 2024
They're so pissy right now LMAO.
Legacy media "reporters" are super mad that they can't control the narrative for Kamala Harris. She's running her campaign on her terms not theirs. https://t.co/ww35viUTC7
— DFW Sports 4Life (@Kennymack1971) August 20, 2024
HumboldtBlue
I volunteer Baud to be the one to hold the first Kamala press conference. Not for any credible or realistic reason, it’s just youse have a weird fascination with Baud.
Just sayin’.
J. Arthur Crank
I would argue that the DNC offer more press passes for the convention. By so doing, it gets the “journalists” all in one place, thereby making it easier to administer knees to the groin that are so richly deserved.
TaMara
Meanwhile, C-Span is interviewing content creators who were given premium seats at the convention. They know what they’re doing.
MSM can suck it.
Jay
Whiny media going to whinge.
They should hire some real reporters.
Ivan X
The thing is, you can’t win. You give them what they want, they write pissy articles. You sideline them in favor of people who give you what you want, they write pissy articles. So, what’s in it for a Democrat, when you’re not gonna get a fair shake from the supposedly nonpartisan press?
sdhays
Oh my god! What are the fucking “details” of the Trump campaign?!
His entire platform is literally “we’re going to say something about that soon”. Except for being a “dictator on day one”. For fuck’s sake!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TaMara:
I don’t regret watching the DNC on C-Span tonight, compared to MSNBC. No talking heads interrupting speeches
piratedan
fuck them….
you want to know what the details are? read the fucking press releases, visit the website. Note what is presented within.
There, now you have a baseline of what she wants to do? You ever work some place where someone sends you a memo on what work needs to be done. same thing here.
grow the fuck up.
Ivan X
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I did YouTube, same thing. Much better. I don’t need someone’s opinion or perspective which frankly is not much better than mine.
artem1s
There is no upside for this campaign to turn their attention away from the voters and kowtow to the likes of David Brooks, especially during their convention.
The public is beginning to enjoy not having to listen to their constant doomerism. Honestly the longer the MSM whinges and tries to draw more attention to their whinging the better. It’s like having a toddler hanging on your heals screaming “I want my treat NOW. I want attention NOW”. They are annoying their customers (yes the candidates are your customers too dumbasses) and their customers are finally telling them to get lost because they are selling a crappy product.
We’re undergoing a sort of news Reformation. We get to decide how much and when and who to listen to. We don’t always make the best choices but no one has to beg the High Priests of Broderism for permission to read the news without the benefit of the punditry class telling us how to feel about it.
NotMax
Vibes building step by step to Thursday’s crescendo.
KatKapCC
“I find that very upsetting.”
Well hey, Ian, I got a solution for you, the press could stop sucking.
TaMara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Same. I started last night because I knew they do the pre-show feed and I find that interesting. Never switched over. It was nice not to have the talking heads tell me what I was supposed to think about what I heard.
Or worse, ‘recapping’ what I just heard.
HumboldtBlue
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
CSPAN was perfect, loved the feed.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Watched (well, listened to) hour after hour on MSNBC without talking heads interruptions once the arena was called to order. About the only commentary I recall was to explain when they put up a split screen of the convention in Chicago and Harris in Milwaukee and the very short but informative asides about who some of the delegates were during the voting..
Not to imply there’s anything wrong with watching on C-SPAN.
Delk
Maybe if they didn’t hold onto news in order to push their books.
3Sice
The same industry dynamics are happening in sports media. vlogs, tiktok, hot takes, influencers, etc. are seal clubbing the traditional outlets. Leagues and local market teams are using non-traditional outlets to steer narrative because that’s where the audience is.
IMO sports media seems less pissy about these changes.
eclare
Nancy and Hakeem are on Colbert tonight.
GA roll call getting a shout out!
gratuitous
Republicans have treated the media like shit for decades, with the felon even saying several occasions that the media are the enemy of the people. And the media file and air stories designed to kowtow to that hostility.
Democrats have accorded the media the respect due the beneficiaries of the First Amendment, and those same media have kicked Democrats over and over again, giving juice to the whisper campaigns, withholding damning stories about Republicans (e.g., New York Times and their scoop on the Bush administration’s domestic spying program in 2004) while reviving the worst stories, true or not, on Democrats in election after election.
The political media are sounding like nothing so much as the domestic abuser when the victim finally and irrevocably walks out the door.
Origuy
Jon Tester’s chances just went up. Link.
eclare
Ha! Colbert: the roll call featured my favorite artist, anyone but Lee Greenwood.
Couldn’t agree more.
kindness
The MSM’s salty tears. Their egos aren’t being stroked and they don’t like it one bit. Also too, the Village Elders do favor Republican daddies. Saying so might insult their sense of dignity, but it isn’t a lie.
ArchTeryx
@gratuitous: The media has wanted Republicans in control for a long time. Dem pols are finally realizing the media is not their friend and simply bypass them, or at least take their message to more neutral forums like C-SPAN.
Chet Murthy
That is just delicious! I mean, I don’t even use Tiktok, but hell’s bells, I know it’s the way a lotta people get their news these days. The Harris campaign figured this out, and is going well-beyond anything I’ve heard about the Biden admin’s outreach to these content-creators.
Just delicious!
Elizabelle
@gratuitous: That’s an astute description: leaving the abuser.
3Sice
I missed Barack’s couch joke on the live watch.
Old Man Shadow
You reap what you sow, motherfucking jackals of the MSM.
Bee Girls
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Bee Girls: Profound.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: White Album
wjca
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: But a bit wordy, don’t you think?
NotMax
Admit to muting the sound during most of the roll call. The quick cuts of music were giving me a headache.
And sorry, Mr. disk jockey, wearing dark shades indoors is just rude unless you have an eye infection (or a shiner).
And why was the background slide on the big screen onstage when Vermont’s votes showed up there a picture of two whale tails?
/curm,udgeon
GB in the HC
Cord cutter here. I started watching on Roku last night which had ABC coverage for free. I was immediately frustrated by the talking heads taking up 80% of the screen and all of the sound. I scrambled to find any other coverage and came to YouTube which offered a couple options. One with zero commentary. Perfect..
I don’t want any frikkin gatekeepers just the show, and it’s been a great one.
hitchhiker
Hillary gave them a thousand detailed and footnoted policy papers, every one of which she was able to discuss on the record, if only someone had asked her.
In return she was featured in a thousand stories about how her voice was irritating, her extra scrutiny was earned by being “secretive,” and the true reason for her loyalty to her husband.
Meantime, she had to watch while they laughed at trump’s cruel jokes and moved right on.
No, MSM, you don’t get any cookies this time.
West of the Rockies
Trump threatened and insulted the media for years, and they didn’t complain. The Democrats simply refuse to genuflect before them and the press shit themselves.
Seonachan
@NotMax: Didn’t notice the whale tails at the time, but I assume it’s a nod to this sculpture.
eclare
@NotMax:
And we learned tonight that Thursday is Doug and Kamala’s tenth wedding anniversary!
The arena will be overflowing with vibes.
eclare
@Delk:
BINGO! We the people have learned that it is foolish to trust the press to bring us news rather than hold it for a book.
And we ain’t coming back.
different-church-lady
Tire swings!
eclare
@Origuy:
Yay for Montana!
danielx
@kindness:
They’re calibrated for it. Then there’s the institutional arrogance – “we’re the New York Times and you’re not”, which is even more grating. They are not being treated with the deference they are accustomed to expect from Democrats, if not with the utter loathing the MAGAts hold for mainstream media. Kamala Harris got where she is without any undue stroking of reporter egos and she doesn’t owe them a damn thing, not policy white papers, not interviews (exclusive or otherwise), not nuthin’. Can’t wait for the howling about “is this how she plans to govern? Without US?”, only surprised it hasn’t started already.
Fuck those guys.
NotMax
@eclare
Hmm. Traditional tenth anniversary gift is tin.
eclare
@3Sice:
Barack told a couch joke? I missed that.
Craig
@Ivan X: fuck em.
HumboldtBlue
JD Vance is packing the house, Trump nailed that choice.
Craig
@3Sice: sports media people are generally smarter, better writers and more easily adaptable.
Chet Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: By the fact that we can discern individual cheers and hoots, I guess I should conclude that the crowd … wasn’t very large ?
different-church-lady
@Craig: With sports you can’t just outright lie about the score of the game.
HumboldtBlue
@Chet Murthy:
I’d just look at the number of Secret Service on the handshake line and go from there.
JaySinWA
@different-church-lady:
I believe Golf is an exception, at least for Trump
mrmoshpotato
Holy Whiny Ass Titty Babies, Batman!
scav
Infrastructure for whining journalists? I’m sure a nine-year-old golden escalator for riding down could be provided.
Villago Delenda Est
Darn, posted this in the wrong thread. It was linked earlier today, and it is dead on target about the Village. Nothing Ellen Ripley can’t handle.
Villago Delenda Est
@JaySinWA: Rick Reilly rips him to shreds.
NotMax
Downloaded choices of programming to the magic viewing device from Prime, from Netflix and from MHz Choice to watch on the plane. And on Mom’s balcony while enjoying a smoke. This year didn’t have to first go online to refresh memory of how to do it.
TS
@Chet Murthy: Seems there were more security folks than actual attendees – but anything to swell the numbers
NotMax
@TS
“How many sperm cups did we manage to sell?”
Ksmiami
Their stupid, vapid non-journalism is catching up to them… Good- it’s about fucking time.
Chet Murthy
@Villago Delenda Est: OK, now -that- was some primo writing. Ms. Shiner pulls no punches in her excoriation of the media. Time well-spent. I wanna fwd that to some friends. Thank you!
Jay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Okay, needed a smoke after that.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
I would press her about her policies about pants.
charon
Here is an interesting take on that:
https://the.ink/p/new-democratic-party-brat-pack
Nukular Biskits
@HumboldtBlue:
Liar. You just want to watch the first pantsless interview!
Kay
I think Democrats are justified in shutting out political media – people who cover politics have done a terrible job – but swearing off reading news worries me. I think it veers into Blue MAGA.
I like Talking Points Memo and I pay for it but it isn’t a general news source. Tik Tok influencers are not a news source. You Tube videos of historians doing commentary are not a news source. Telling people to cancel all newspapers means you’re not just shutting down Maggie Haberman and Maureen Dowd, you’re shutting down all the other substantive content.
I’m a party person Democrat and have been for 40 years but I don’t intend to limit my information to what politicians tell me in speeches or rely exclusively on social media influencers hired by the Democratic Party. I think that’s as nuts as MAGA.
Republicans set up an entire alternate propoganda media ecosystem and now their base is insane, deluded on basic facts and reality and following a cult leader. I don’t suggest Democrats follow that example.
The Thin Black Duke
I think some people are not comfortable investing in news platforms that lie to them.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I pick out actual news stories to read and access them for free where I can. I avoid anything that looks like vapid analysis or has a click bait headline
ETA: The media won’t leave liberal dollars on the table. Someone will decide we’re customers worth investing in. We don’t have to remain hostages to the NYT.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Nukular Biskits:
“Mr Baud, sitting here before us today for this scheduled interview, we note that not only are you not wearing pants, but that you’re also wearing boxers that are worn through in some spots, separating from the elastic in other spots, and seem to be barely put together by a few stray underwear molecules that have some tenuous connection. Did you at least wash them before you put them on this morning?”
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Yep.
TBF, Kay makes a legitimate argument, but I can’t ignore the reality that the majority of news platforms nowadays are predicated on the idea of being entertaining as opposed to being informative. It doesn’t help that a substantial portion of the electorate likes it just fine.
The circumstances won’t change until enough people let the MSM know that they’re tired of reading tabloid garbage disguised as news.
p.a.
My basic message to them is: fuck you I’m not giving any more people my email just to set up an account to access your basic news on a website that is often a shitshow of crap, ads, popups, etc…
gene108
@3Sice:
I wonder if it’s because all the new money in sports is from gambling and there’s a larger pot of money to get piece of for podcasts, TikTok, etc., whether you’re new or a traditional media figure branching out versus the limited resources for traditional media outlets?
TS
So many professions have been overtaken by technology advances – I worked in many in the 20th century. The printing industry was a major one. Murdoch worked (especially in the UK) to bring down the unions and won the day. Now we are seeing a profession that is fighting for its existence – and it will lose. You change or you get trampled – the old MSM is trying for the trampled option.
gene108
@The Thin Black Duke:
Part of the problem is the media’s approach trying to balance both sides with their view from nowhere, when it’s become crystal clear to most politically engaged news consumers that there a very clear differences between the parties.
There are super sharp differences in what they value (democracy versus insurrection), how they demonstrate core principles, who they value being in their coalition, and other things before even getting to differences on policy such as reproductive freedom versus strict anti-abortion laws or mass deportations versus no mass deportations.
Media critics, like journalism professors, have been pointing this out to them for years. I used to follow Jay Rosen’s Twitter feed. I’m not sure where he is on social media anymore.
He’s a journalism professor at Columbia University. He’s been talking about the failures of the view from nowhere approach to political reporting for at least a decade.
The media can’t grasp that the criticism from journalism professors to us is for them to improve their grade, but they refuse to understand.
Gvg
@Kay: money is a problem for news sources. Ever since Craigslist killed classified ads which were a major income source to pay for newspapers, and the internet swamped advertising which was the other source, local papers have been dying. NONE of the ones around here even cover things like what is happening in city and county government, what roads are being paved, what schools are being built, what plans are being contemplated. Some stories come out after the fact, but nothing before, it’s always completely out of the blue because they don’t have a staff anymore. The paper is thin and costs a lot. All of them are like that. Corruption is rising because nobody is watching IMO. There are some new attempts to start online alternative news sources, often mostly funded by local lawyers to start. Don’t know if they will last.
The Times and WAPO are only of interest to me if they cover national stories well. If they lie or slant badly they are worse than silence, especially if they do it a lot.
I know we need news, I just don’t know where to get it. Because of their money problem, there are fewer sources than there used to be. Things have changed. That is the problem.
Tony Jay
What to do about shitty, biased news media is one of those immediate problems that doesn’t necessarily have an immediate solution.
Take the argument over here about the BBC and whether it’s fit for purpose.
On the one hand, it’s one of our national treasures. A sprawling media colossus covering every aspect of information technology with a remit to educate and inform the population without political bias or interference. It doesn’t just provide news. It’s the source of entertainment -light, children’s and dramatic. It makes some of the best documentaries and educational programs in TV history. It’s even got the Sport. No other media outlet has anything like the range, scope or budget of the BBC, and it also contains almost a century of institutional knowledge with which to train the next generation of creators and technicians, all at a fraction of the cost of doing it piecemeal and privately.
OTOH, it’s never been truly independent. Government appoints its top executives and it’s always been The Establishment. The difference now is that the institutional pride and internal mulishness that allowed generations of BBC execs to treat politicians as ephemeral voices and fund tons of programs and dramas that actually upset and changed The Establishment of which they were a part have been steadily suppressed. It’s been more noticeable recently because modern technology allows us to peek behind the scenes and track the massive effort to take control of the BBC’s levers of control and yank them hard to the Right.
There have always been threats to the BBC’s budget and hostility from external media groups, but now those hostile threats have unified and the top levels of the Corporation bulked out with saboteurs seconded from the Murdoch Empire, the Hard Right Print Media or from within the conveyor belt of Tory Party bureaucracy. The irate phone calls aren’t coming from outside anymore, they’re coming from the corner offices upstairs and have been for over a decade.
So we’ve got a problem. The vast majority of what the BBC produces is excellent and is unavailable anywhere else, even though the people in ultimate charge are – IMHO – operating the same way as the people who’ve wrecked the NHS, using budget and cuts and reorganisation to leech the BBC of resources (by forcing it to outsource to private firms) and make it easier to eventually break chunks off and sell them to companies those same execs will then jump ship to work for at five times the salary.
When people – rightly – say the BBC is broken, what they’re talking about is the News Media arm. Virtually everyone in an executive position is either a lifelong Tory or a plant from the Vast Rightwing Media Conspiracy. The people allowed to become ‘stars’ in front of the camera are likewise drawn from those who have always been Tories (Nick Robinson), wants to fuck Tories (Kuenssberg) or will only allow Tories to speak (Bruce), and the whole editorial slant is so slavishly pro-conservative that the BBC’s internal investigations unit could more easily be renamed the Bureau of Saying Presenter X Did Nothing Wrong When They Called Leftwinger Y “a dirty fucking commie liar” And Held Their Arms While Rightwinger Z Repeatedly Punched Them.
So when I say the BBC is fucked and no one should trust it, I’m 99% talking about the News content and only 1% about the rest of its long-term Establishment bent. What it really needs is long-term planning to get it ready to be a leader in the new Media landscape, but that requires medium term rejiggering of its Charter to restore resources and independence, and that requires short term brutality to purge its upper levels and front of house personnel of partisan Tory operatives.
None of which is going to happen tomorrow, especially not with the shower of crap we’ve got running the country right now.
TL:DR – Saying a knife is too blunt to cut with doesn’t mean I’m not going to use it to spread my pâté.
TBone
When retired Pres. Barack Obama spoke about how exhausting it is to have to listen to your neighbor’s leaf blower all the time, it was like he reached right into my living room to speak to me personally. You may remember me complaining about that very thing here 😆 Hubby and I were up uncharacteristically late to see Michele and Barack, and we’re so glad we stayed awake! Shade was thrown AND inspiration was lit!
On topic, Kaivan Shroff tells it (video at link):
https://x.com/KaivanShroff/status/1825561886605406571
Geminid
I can only guess how influential these Influencers will be, but I have gotten a kick out of seeing people I know from Twitter meeting up in Chicago, like “Josecanyousee” sitting down for a pizza with “Candidly Tiff.” Two longstanding Harris fans getting together in real life.
They both grew up in New York City. Jose ended up in San Francisco while Tiff lives in Maryland; she did a good job getting the word out about Angela Alsobrooks back in the Spring.
MomSense
@NotMax:
It may not be our thing, but DJ Cassidy is awesome. He was part of those DJ Dance parties during COVID and people are having online dance parties to his music before rallies and last night. It’s another sign of how in tune this campaign is with the culture.
matt
meanwhile: Sen JD Vance at a local deli in Kenosha, WI per source there: “You have any food here you really don’t like? We’ll take some and feed it to the journalists on the plane.”
TBone
@matt: I want him to go to Alabama and see what T-Bone says. T-Bone don’t play!
https://www.tbonescheesesteaks.com/
Princess
@Kay: I want news. I want to read news and listen to news and I agree it is a general good and that media ecosystems are toxic and make people stupid. You can see that happening to our side too in real time. I don’t want friendly journalists to interview Harris. I want tough genuinely independent journalists to write about both sides in a critical and informational way.
But where is this news, right now in the US? It exists in spots, in patches, in occasional stories and a few reporters here and there, and in a few venues that cover particular stories, like Pro Publica. But the news media we grew up with is gone. Wanting it to be there doesn’t make it be so.
I used to be a NPR junkie. Listened all the time. 4-5 years ago, I realized it was actually making me stupider. I knew less after listening to their national reporting than before I listened, and their good local reporting wasn’t worth that. I stopped listening, subscribed to an online local paper, and turned on CBC from Canada.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Don’t be doing that to me before my stomach wakes up, gd it 😉
mrmoshpotato
@TBone: Now I want a 6″ cheesesteak at 6 in the morning.
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack: You tell her!
TBone
@mrmoshpotato:
@MagdaInBlack:
I always want cheesesteaks for breakfast. I am pleased to see that Anthony T-Bone does NOT use whiz. American cheese FTW!!!!!
T-Bone TV 😆
https://www.tbonescheesesteaks.com/?wix-vod-comp-id=comp-j6vo4514
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: oh I’d happily eat it for breakfast, but takes at least an hour after wake up for my stomach to accept food. Then its anything goes. Cold pad thai is my favorite breakfast* 😊
* fkn stoners.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Princess:
That was me 15+ years ago. Their national political coverage went south during Dubya’s era. I’d stopped giving them money after the 2000 campaign, that was the first indicator. The local station (in Columbia MO) begged for money and when we stopped asked why? I said it’s beyond your control, ie., national political coverage and if you want to see my money, start talking up the chain about editorial practices and standards. Until then, tough luck.
Stopped listening cold turkey sometime into Obama’s first term. News should inform, not enrage. When I found myself shouting at clowns like Steve Inscreep while driving to work, I stopped.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: I’m a caffeine and nicotine for breakfast girl 😎 and all my friends can say is ain’t it a shame but, seriously, breakfast before 10AM is just not done in polite company.
ETA Wake and Bake! I make a breakfast casserole sometimes – cubed bread, sauteed onions & peppers & sausage laid in casserole, then pour beaten eggs & cheese over. Made the night before so you can just pop it in the oven while smoking a (late) morning blunt.
But cold pad thai is better
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Lol @ cold pad thai is better.
Chris Johnson
“The daily press gallery organizations were only given 35 seats, as well as 90 unassigned stadium seats with table tops. There were other more practical terms: The New York Times seats had electrical machinery underneath, which the convention attendees paid a dollar a go to operate.”
A man can dream.
And to think I didn’t believe I could love the DNC more… snark aside, apparently they specifically assigned the Times seats over electrical boxes and air conditioning units. I mean, message sent.
Not to entirely contradict Kay (okay, entirely contradicting Kay, but not in principle) the satisfying thing about this is that it seems like confirmation of what I thought was happening: the Times acted the way it did because it’s an arm of a foreign country burning all bridges and credibilities in an effort to get Donald Trump elected. The Times stopped even pretending to be the Times. They’re straight up RT and they’re a political actor.
That alone would not get this behavior from the DNC, because Democrats love nothing more than honoring norms that Republicans piss all over. It’s part of being a bigger tent and more about diversity: Democrats naturally honor critical viewpoints and even over-respect them, so this is something else.
Thing is, Democrats have been a lot more successful at getting Jan 6 conspirators and high-level traitors to crack recently, than they used to be. Something’s happened, and now the New York Times gets parked over the air conditioner to make their from-the-floor footage unusable (or at least very cheap and dodgy). It’s a really bold snub. This goes beyond spite. I think this is what Democrats DO when they’ve got the offender cold, have all the receipts and can prove that the New York Times is just a pawn now, obeying the whims of an enemy of the United States.
They do nothing. They know, and they know the Times knows that they know, and the Times knows that they know the Times knows that they know etc etc etc.
They don’t have to do a DAMN thing more. To prosecute would be just as political an act. The Times burned itself. They need only sit by and idly humiliate what used to be the most powerful news media organization in the world. If you know, you know.
You don’t have to be ‘blue MAGA’ to see the utter disgrace of what the New York Times has become. If anybody else wants to rescue their own reputations they can try, and see if there’s a market for independent journalism, which there may not be and we’ll be the poorer for that lack. But there’s no going back for the New York Times. It appears the Democrats have their number, and are so confident in that assessment that they can just toy with the hapless vatniks.
I just think it’s worth remembering that as ‘special’ all the media are, the Times has long been especially ‘special’ in that regard. There’s gotta be proof going back many years. ‘media’ is one thing, maybe a fine thing, but ‘intentionally malicious political propaganda operation run by an enemy country’ is quite another.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Philadelphia Inquirer, LA Times (sometimes), …
I’m sure there must be others.
K-Mo
Great thread. A lot of great points. I spend a lot of mental energy trying to figure out what to do about the fact that news coverage sucks, and a lot of that winds up being rumination on why it sucks. Unfortunately I haven’t come up with a coherent view on the whole thing.
Generally I think news outfits are underesourced in terms of people who are smart enough to see things clearly, and they wind up getting pushed around / led by the nose. I am delighted with the Dems new found ability to dictate to them. It may save the country from doom.
At the same time I agree with Kay that the best answer for the consumer is not to shut out the major outlets. It is to read the major outlets warily.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
This will help them to remain the major outlets. My policy these days is catch it live or don’t worry about it.
Ken
@gene108: This Bloomberg article agrees that sports betting has changed sports reporting, and thinks it has not been for the better.
Princess
@Chris Johnson: You ascribe a lot to Russia which I think can be more simply ascribed to rich people wanting tax cuts.
Baud
@Ken:
Sports betting has been awful for watching sports too.
Chief Oshkosh
@Chief Oshkosh: Oh right, forgot ProPublica!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Princess: As global leaders of the vast right wing conspiracy, their influence is felt.
Does Russia have inappropriate financial relations with the NYT? Probably not, that’s public record and seems like we’d know.
Is Russia the oligarchical ideal that malicious organizations like the Republican Party and the FTFNYT aspire to? Absolutely.
Doesn’t need to be direct, it’s a matter of ideals. Just like Trump.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: My Beloved is in human services and she’s not looking forward to the incoming wave of sports junkies with a bad gambling problem inundating her and her co-workers.
zhena gogolia
Judge Luttig laid out all the policy details you need to know. She’s for the Constitution; Trump is against it.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I don’t gamble and I’m annoyed how much my enjoyment of sports is spoiled because broadcasts have injected content that only gamblers would be interested in.
Ken
That’s certainly the way the NYT wants us to read their whining about their seating, but I’ve seen no evidence that it was done deliberately.
I also find it terribly easy to imagine the alternate universe where the Times reporters got a luxury press box, and were complaining that the chateaubriand was a trifle overcooked and the available wines didn’t pair well with it.
sdhays
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Almost identical experience. I used to listen to NPR in the mornings, but their reporting on Obama was so bad I just gave up because it was making me angry right at the start of the day. And stopped supporting the local station too.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: Sports betters get off my lawn / pitch / field / court!
Chris Johnson
@Princess: That’s correct. I do. Doesn’t mean I’m right: I keep citing Lazerpig’s ‘How To Kill A God’ video essay, in which he makes the case that Russia’s so lost in conspiratorial thinking that they behave like the world is conspiratorial thinking and then think that will WORK.
Which, apparently, is an oversimplification.
This is part of why I take such glee in seeing specifically the Times get shat on from a great height, over this stuff. I think the NYT are the poster children for buying into this bullshit that all you have to do is be a big eeeevil conspiratorial vatnik and then the puppet President will get elected and everyone will get paid off and get a luxury dacha in Moscow and also London because of course you would. It’s got to be tempting to think the world is that simple.
I think there are a bunch of people who have taken my position of ‘oh look, Russians are furiously manipulating everything and spending a bunch of money to do it’ and concluded ‘and therefore they’re INWINCIBLE!1!’.
That trick only worked once, and they didn’t even get all THAT much done when their guy was in office, and all their people got so caught up in the conspiratorialism that they fucked everything up, and the Russian’s own people for doing that (remember Prigozhyn?) ran amok with conspiracy and got killed conspiratorially after their own conspiracies fucked up and Prigozhyn didn’t take Moscow and Prigozhyn’s dead and Ukraine holds Kursk and is drone striking Moscow.
You can’t WIN with conspiracy/chaos politics. It’s not a plan. It’s just something that some people have tried to USE as the defining characteristic of how politics are supposed to be nowadays, and the Times just happen to be the epicenter of how that shit’s operated.
Which is another reason why snubbing and humiliating them is perfect: it’s perfect fuel for all such miscreants to lose lots of sleep trying to scheme out the grand counter-conspiracy. It’s a great way to get all up in your own head and end up unable to function.
Meanwhile, Dems remembered they can govern, and win. And there’s a huge public appetite for normal, and healthy, and good. And you know it when you see it.
I absolutely ascribe nearly all the conspiratorial bullshit and Doctor Evil scheming to Russia, and a particular line of political exploit attributed to certain Putin advisors, and their ability to spread it across the globe given enough effort and money. I also think it’s a sword with no handle. They’ve fucked themselves completely, buying into that. Their allies are recognizable by how badly they in turn bought into it, certain fellow travellers like Prigozhyn literally died through being too deep into it, but on the whole it’s the dumbest and shittiest way imaginable to take over the world.
So you kinda keep an eye on it to recognize when someone’s falling for it, you use it to identify when entities like the Times act incredibly strangely, and then you go ‘well THAT was weird’ and go about your normal day. Failing to make any sense of what was happening, was why 2016 happened. Hillary told us outright. And come 2020, we figured more of it out, and the fever broke.
Nobody wants to be the disposable soldier of Dr. Evil. If Dr. Evil doesn’t actually have a super-weapon and total control, he’s a clown. And that’s how things stand. And that’s why the Times, a puppet of the Kremlin, are being publically humiliated. They thought they were an important part of the super-weapon, and for a time they were! And that’s what it got them.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
But this is not a brief period – it’s not a temporary state of emergency. It’s been ten years since Trump hit the stage. 2015 is when he launched birtherism.
So we never discuss policy again? We flatten this to “policy doesn’t matter” forever? That’s how the GOP ended up where they are – “fake news” and “the lying liberal media” . Now they get their news from a collection of repulsive grifters and the only policy they have is “mass deportation now”
Democrats are the only political party left. We cannot go blue MAGA. We have a responsibility.
I think Harris is great. She ain’t gonna be my only news source. That’s not happening.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: Baud earned our fascination by his comments over many years.a
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: Yes so much. Drug addiction has other drugs that help control drug addiction. Gambling addiction has none of that. They are on their own. These ads make me frothing at the mouth angry.
TBone
My approach to news is the same as my approach to investing, both taught by my dad: diversify. I get roundups at several places, and Heather Cox Richardson’s daily letters cover all of the most important politics stories.
Here’s a nice inbox cleanser, free newsletter:
https://fixthenews.com/
But I will also read the daily links roundup at nakedcapitalism despite their doom and tankie idiocy because there is frequently news there I can use.
Coffee helps critical thinking.
JML
Classic media whining. The GOP conventions “went more smoothly” for the media, so it must have been better. Except it “went more smoothly” because there were way fewer people and loads of people that were there DGAF.
The DNC is absolutely packed, and people want to be there for it. They’re not sleeping in at their hotels and blowing off the convention. So of course there are more logistical challenges. But the DNC dared open things up to non-traditional media, so it must be bad.
The DNC has former presidents, former first ladies, and senior political leaders of every stripe, plus big time celebrities, and high-profile musicians. The RNC has washed up has-beens and never weres and the previous political leaders won’t touch them with a 10 ft pole. But the RNC was easier for the traditional media, so it must have been better.
Ridiculous.
MomSense
@Kay:
I agree with you. There is a lot of media and the trick is to know how to discern what is credible and what isn’t. The NYT political coverage is bad. That being said, their reach is limited. Social media influencers have millions more views and clicks. They are more influential. The challenge of discerning what is credible is more challenging with social media and that is something we have to figure out how to manage. Legacy media is really not driving the narrative. It hasn’t for a long time and that is part of what is fueling the whining from the NYT. They have lost influence. A friend of mine dated a Sulzberger heir in college. I knew her socially but we weren’t friends. He told me that when they went out to dinner, really anywhere in NYC every place rolled out the red carpet. It was VVIP because the paper was a major influencer for social and cultural things as well as for news. Now a restaurant is going to be more concerned with what Chef Reactions has to say or Olivia Tied and other social media influencers. More people see them than read the Times.
Obama started this trend of going to late night hosts and popular YouTube channels. It was smart. Legacy media is dying out and they don’t know what to do.
When I was in college I worked at the hotel where the WH press corpse stayed when HW Bush was at his K’Port compound. I loved the producers, the wire service photographers and a few of the broadcasters. Mary Tillotson was awesome. Most of them though were like those kids in high school that didn’t sit at the cool kids table at lunch and they wanted to so badly. I was at the theater table and we hated those kids more than the cool kids. They didn’t have the imagination to create their own cool so they became suck ups. The cool kids might throw them an invite or a nod from time to time which only made them want the status more. It was pathetic. That is the political press. Socially aspirant, desirous of power and status, but nothing attractive or magnetic about them to get it on their own.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay: I agree completely and thank you for saying so. We don’t need to be in a partisan information bubble like they are. It’s completely unhealthy for Democracy. The constant push for that by some commenters bothers me. The Washington Post may have some crappy articles, but they have good ones too, for example. Exposure to both is useful
I also think the GOP, like Trump, bashes the press in public while sucking up in private.
TBone
@sab: those “other drugs” are also addictive and deadly poison though.
Cold turkey (through weaning) is the only true way.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: Another plug for https://statesnewsroom.com/
Scroll down and click on the map for your state of interest.
PRI’s https://theworld.org/ is good for international news.
We have choices, and they’re easier to find than ever.
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
@Another Scott: 💜
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Kay: I don’t think anyone is saying Harris or other Democrats shouldn’t discuss policy. I think the argument here is that they ought to avoid playing into the double -standards that exist or entertaining outlets that demand that double standard.
We know what the Democrats’ policies are. We’ve had two nights in a row where they spoke endlessly about them, giving various groups time to center their priorities.
What we don’t need to be doing is put out blue papers that will never become law anyway, because legislating is a collaborative process, for the sole purpose of letting malicious actors pick apart the details. Especially when the other side can get by on “tax cuts will fix everything and the Left wants to rape your children.”
Center goals, not plans. Plans change, goals last until they’re achieved.
TBone
Kamala and Tim just will not allow anyone else to set, or even frame, the narrative for them. They create the narrative. For the win!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@TBone: This exactly. We don’t need to dance to their music. We got a DJ.
TBone
@MomSense: I am now pining away for Ogunquit, and my favorite hotel there on the Marginal Way. Dang, I miss it, couldn’t get to Maine this summer 😞
The Claremont Hotel on Mt. Desert Island is the shizzle also too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My sister’s granddaughter is a member of the Vermont delegation. You could see her last night. (I hope you can view that. It’s on facebook) She’s the young woman in the front of the shot. This is her first job out of college.
TBone
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: HALLELUJAH SAYS I
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
👍
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Thats never going to work in a broad coalition like ours, nor should it. “Center goals, not plans” ignores priorities even within the coalition – what comes first, etc. and our coalition now includes many moderate Republicans. They’re going to want input.
I know political media is bad – no one dislikes them more than I do- but we can’t just shut down and not engage outside our bubble. It’s not really an option – it’s a fantasy.
The Democratic Convention is a Party convention – it’s not a governing philosophy. It isn’t intended to be a template for day to day reality.
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
If I said to a MAGA Republican “center goals not plans” they would say “our goal is to make America great again”
Thats what I mean with “flattening” – you can’t avoid conflict by sloganeering.
Baud
This is a vibe election not a policy election. Can’t go back now. Maybe next year depending on how things turn out.
Kay
The Hunter Biden investigations were a bust and as usual political media fucked up the coverage and made it stupid, but it’s not outlandish that powerful people in politics would engage in nepotism or corruption and I want to know if Joe Biden did. I’m not opposed to asking.
The Thin Black Duke
As someone who was (pleasantly) gobsmacked by the momentum of the Kamala Express, I think it’s safe to say Harris/Walz know what they’re doing in their treatment of the press.
TBone
@Kay: there’s a hefty “report” authored by the rethugs you could read, put together for their impeachment investigation 🙄
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-democrats-kick-off-convention-house-gop-drops-impeachment-report-accusing-biden-of-corruption/ar-AA1p2IUy
As usual, there is no there there.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
No one is saying don’t engage outside our bubble. This is a strawman.
It isn’t enough to be challenged. The challenge needs to be intelligent. No one is entitled to anyone else’s time or attention. Giving them time for an interview or your attention as a consumer is an endorsement of their priorities. No matter what side they come down on, these are the questions that matter; like will you answer more questions in a different venue after answering this question or is tan really your color?
Find someone who actually challenges, not runs through the conventional wisdom points of concern for the day. It doesn’t need to be friendly, but it needs to be edifying for the viewer.
Political reporters at major outlets are theatre critics who weren’t good enough for the arts and entertainment section. We don’t need them. We can read schedules, we can watch a committee hearing, we can read a bill, we can identify stakeholders who can offer honest opinions.
TBone
@The Thin Black Duke: praise be!
Starfish
@Kay: Agreed. A lot of the TikTokkers, podcasters and so on are getting their information from somewhere, and that somewhere is frequently news or books. Some authors have gotten annoyed at podcasters turning their books into a series and not sourcing the reference material.
Soprano2
@hitchhiker: This, 1000%. Plus the almost 200 stories about “Joe Biden old” that the NY Times ran in the weeks before he dropped out, while ignoring the dumpster fire that TCFG has become every time he speaks. They pick out the few coherent “policy” things he says and highlight them.
Starfish
@gene108: Sports news has been better for years. The money from sports betting is new.
Chris Johnson
@Kay: OK, so: I am absolutely opposed to normalizing, asking the New York Times, if they have heard anything about this Joe Biden corruption you’ve vaguely heard about.
What the actual fuck are you doing srsly.
Princess
@Baud: Yup. If Biden had stayed in we could have had a policy election. Biden could have run on detailed descriptions of things he had actually done and their real effects on people. He could have said exactly what he wanted to do next, bolstered by the credibility of what he had done. People tell me we would have lost all three branches and they’re probably right. He went deep into policy in the debate but the vibes were off. Now they’re on. Long live vibes.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
But when the asking continues for years and no evidence emerges and the questioning not only endures but become more persistent…
Princess
Meanwhile that ten million dollar bribe story has been completely dropped. Meanwhile the hacking story, the assassination attempt have all been completely dropped. I’d like a news media very much. We don’t seem to have one right now. Pretending there is one that we’ve decided to ignore is not accurate.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Baud: What makes you think I put them on this morning?
TBone
Oooh my goodness, THIS is how the Obamas made me feel last night. And carryover into this week is REAL.
SO cute Science Girl!!! Dad & daughter dance along their way:
https://x.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1825808000327545102
Soprano2
@Kay: I still take the local paper, but honestly it doesn’t have that much content anymore. I mainly take it for what state and local news I can still get. Those things have been decimated by the internet, because there’s no money in covering them anymore. There is an online publication called something like “The Citizen Daily” that I keep meaning to check out. It worries me that there aren’t many eyes on local governments and local school boards anymore. They can do a lot of damage if they know no one is watching.
I agree with you that we can’t turn our back on news, but we need to show the press that we need better news, especially political news. Their coverage has become shallow and “celebrity driven”, I think in some ways they still cover TCFG like he’s a celebrity. They clean up the stuff he says and try to highlight the little bit of policy he talks about while mostly ignoring how insane he’s become. I think they’re slowly coming around, because they do cover his insanity more than they used to and they finally came around to the idea of calling his lies just that, lies. That said, did you notice how when Harris finally put out some policy positions they used them to immediately attack her and twist what she said, turning “stop price gouging” into “institute price controls”. That’s the problem with putting out policies, they’re not used to inform voters but instead are used as a way to attack the candidate. TCFG figured this out, it’s why he rarely talks about policies anymore.
Starfish
@Princess: Joe Biden would have talked about his policy, and the press would have talked about Hunter Biden’s legal woes. They are still talking about Hunter Biden’s legal woes. 🙄
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Right. The policy being discussed at the “debate” was not of any interest to a single person, including here on this blog.
BellyCat
This. The MSM after decades of FA are entering the FO stage of FAFO. It’s about damn time.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: I paid attention to every detail of President Biden explaining foreign policy at that debate.
https://www.cfr.org/article/foreign-policy-us-presidential-debate-and-other-headlines-day
Not sure now if it was the next day…
Chris
The timeframe mentioned in this comment is accurate, in a revealing sort of way.
The national press have always been Republicans, but they were specifically Eastern Establishment Republicans; the kind who were more comfortable with a Rockefeller than a Goldwater, not because of their politics and more because of their status (right pedigree, right social clubs, right part of the country). To a stupendous degree that’s still what they are, which is why they fetishize the white whale of the “moderate Republican” (which, again, is a moniker that has more to do with vibes and social status than actual politics) and, in every primary, hope for one of them to take his rightful place at the head of the party and the country.
Conservative Republicans (who’re generally stronger out west) knew this, and resented and distrusted the press accordingly, back in the Goldwater years. They still do today, and they’re arguably not wrong to (as much as the press will bend over backwards for Trump over Clinton/Biden/Harris, they’d rather have nice respectable Mitt Romney in his place). Toss in the usual conservative tendency to take anything that’s not with them 100% and label it “liberal”/”socialist”/on the other side, and you’ve got the reason why, no matter how hard it works to please them, the NYT/WaPo/CNN/NPR will always be “The Liberal Media” to them.
The Thin Black Duke
(mic drop)
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m pleased to see that the whole “black jobs” thing still has some life. I was afraid that it would have fallen through the cracks the drama of July.
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays: The details are Project 2025, which he claims he had nothing to do with.
Another Scott
@Baud: It’s a both-and election, IMHO.
It’s a fire up the base election.
It’s a turnout everyone we can election.
It’s a disillusion the other guys election.
It’s a policy wonk election.
It’s a fight them in court and in the press and on the radio and on the teevee and on the internet election.
We have to tailor our message to all those types of voters and groups.
There were some parts of the Obamas’ speeches that rubbed me the wrong way, along with parts that I thought were great. They were trying to cover all of those groups, and the parts that rubbed me the wrong way weren’t for me – they were for those others. That’s fine and good – I don’t need to be convinced. ;-) But other people do.
Fight for every possible vote, everywhere. Majorities make good things possible.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Princess: I think it was dropped because the shooter didn’t fit the stereotype they thought he should have, so they lost interest. They couldn’t hang 100 “liberal whack job tries to kill TCFG” stories on him, so it wasn’t interesting to them anymore. I hope someone is digging into the story about the massive fail that the security on that event was, because it was definitely a huge failure to not guard that building. It makes me worry about the security of other people who are guarded by them.
Chris
You know, I actually don’t fucking believe that for a minute, and I’m tired of complex systemic attempts at explanation where the media doesn’t mean to help Trump, it just somehow magically happens to turn out that way every single time! (Former Rupert Murdoch employees and Boris Johnson advisers at the helm of the Washington Post be damned).
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, odds are it’s a damn duck. Full stop.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Doing everything is fine as long as you can stand up to people who criticize you for doing to much of this and not enough of that.
TBone
@Chris: 👍 clicks and eyeballs for $$$
Baud
@Chris:
Probably not either / or. IMHO.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: So much of modern wacko conservatism as we know it actually came out of California, which was a red state until 1992. The transformation of more and more of the West into a Democratic bastion is the most dramatic regional political change of the past half-century, as big as the post-civil-rights party flip of the South.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: We have a local public radio station in town that actually does solid local issues journalism. At this point, it’s the only decent source we have for local news–the local paper is this diluted and wingnuttified thing.
Chris
What makes this extra special is that if they’d paid any attention to Harris at all in the last four years, they’d probably have a line of attack against her that was ready to go and moderately effective.
But eh, the black chick. How could anything she does possibly be important?
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: The line for the past four years was “where is Harris? She’s not doing anything.” Mostly supported by the lack of front-page stories about her activities.
A lot of what she was doing was breaking ties in the Senate, which was immensely important to get any legislation through.
Another Scott
@Kay: The first question that FTFNYT Editorial Board asked Biden was about Hunter and Ukraine and corruption in late 2019. It was their first question.
It’s ancient news by now. And it wasn’t even news then – it was a cudgel to “both sides” him. We all know this.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They had a video montage last night about that. It was nice.
Baud
@Another Scott:
How many years was Obama’s birth certificate news?
If the right wing is talking about it, it’s “out there” and fair game. It’s a racket.
Baud
If the media were worthy of respect, Doug’s shtick would have never gotten off the ground.
Manyakitty
@Baud: fair point. I send money to Popular Information, Talking Points Memo, and Wonkette.
jonas
@hitchhiker: Don’t forget that her command of policy detail also made her appear “overprepared.”
Dems are damned if they do, damned if they don’t with the current MSM and so are probably right to tell them to go fuck themselves until they can get a clue.
Ksmiami
@Baud: Bloomberg does a better job and even, surprisingly Barrons. And the writers actually understand economics and policy much better than fake NYT Courtesans and Media bobble heads
Fair Economist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Congrats to your great-niece! I can’t see the pic, though.
Manyakitty
@The Thin Black Duke: oof. Destroyed lives, just like the other addictions.
Chris
@Ivan X:
Like I’ve said in the past, the only way to get around it is for enough of the public, and specifically our voters, to not only stop trusting it but acknowledge it for the right-wing shit hole it is.
The only reason the mainstream media is able to repeatedly kneecap Democrats is because enough Democrats actually listen to it. It’s not like they never try to influence Republicans; they’ve spent the last four years trying to manifest Trump’s disappearance from the public scene, and then trying to manifest Ron DeSantis running for president and winning the Republican primary. Heck, nine years ago they were trying to manifest a Jeb Bush presidency. It never goes anywhere with Republicans, because their voters know better than to take their cues from the MSM. Too many of ours don’t, which is why when the media spends four years telling everyone that the economy is awful and a recession is right around the corner and this is bad for Joe Biden, instead of saying “fuck you, you never liked Biden anyway, show me the receipts or go fuck yourself,” too many Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters go “oh noes, things are terrible, why isn’t Biden doing more?” See also Debategate, Hillary’s emails, whatever the fuck was supposed to be wrong with Al Gore…
jonas
@Matt McIrvin: When she wasn’t breaking ties in the Senate she spent a lot of time doing outreach to Democratic women’s groups, esp. Black women, who the press don’t consider “real voters.”
Maxim
Of course we shouldn’t be in an information bubble. But we on this blog are (mostly) a bunch of political junkies, and since the MSM mostly suck at political reporting, we’re understandably cranky about it.
I watch the occasional TikTok or Insta video when someone links to one, but I would never think of them as a news source. The bird site unfortunately still has a lot of good content. I subscribe to the LA Times and TPM (which I agree is not a general news source, but I want to support their business model). I should subscribe to Teen Vogue (yes, really) because they have been committing actual journalism for the last several years. Since the normal sources of revenue for media have dried up, I need to support outlets that are doing the work.
This would actually make a good front-page post, imo: a roundup of all the news sources we’re collectively aware of that do good work. A few people have shared things in this thread, but it’d be nice to have a dedicated thread to come back to.
Elizabelle
This is a really good thread. And kudos to the Dems for learning how to work around legacy aka MSM. Which has been gaslighting us.
TBone
@jonas: 👍
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Fair Economist: This should work, I hope.
Here’s an interview with my sister’s granddaughter by Vermont media. She talks about what they’re doing in Chicago.
Fair Economist
@Kay: We need to discuss policy, yes. But we can’t discuss it through the mainstream press anymore. They intentionally distort their coverage, to an extreme level, to favor the Republicans – e.g. talking about Harris’ nonexistent price controls, while not discussing the effects of Trump’s plan to deport million – heck, not even mentioning that’s his plan!
We can discuss policy through speeches and our platform, and we *are* doing that.
Michael Bersin
When we started Show Me Progress seventeen years ago (damn, I missed putting up an anniversary post two weeks ago) as part of the 50 State Blog Project we knew that old media was failing and dying. We called many of the legacy Missouri political reporters “stenographers”. Sometimes preceded with the term “lazy”.
Since then, the corporate owners who have bought out the large metro newspapers have reduced their coverage to the point it’s meaningless. They definitely don’t have the number of reporters they used to.
Metro area happy talk television news coverage consists of professional sports boosterism, promos for network infotainment shows, an occasional saccharine “someone had a bake sale” piece, superficial stenography, and “if it bleeds, it leads” sensationalism.
National network broadcast coverage is just as pathetic.
I do the blog on my own time and dimes. You get the story, or you don’t. You get the image, or you don’t. But you do dive into the scrum and elbow people out of the way to get the frames and/or the audio. There’s no whining in journalism.
There are thousands of stories at a national convention. Frickin’ interview someone. You can spin around with an arm extended and your open palm and slap more than one individual of political consequence in the face. Get their damn story.
One of the most consequential subjects in American politics is campaign finance. Who is frickin’ covering it? I constantly troll the filings at the Missouri Ethics Commission and the FEC. Others do, too. But not enough. Instead, the folks who can’t be bothered to cover that complain about their seating arrangements at the big show.
In 2019 I covered a number of the primary campaigns in Iowa. One particular campaign’s advance lead at an outdoor event was downright nasty. They were expecting a huge national media presence at the outdoor rally, so they explicit barred me from the main press raiser and the cut riser during the rally. By the way, I had registered as media for the event earlier with the campaign. They did allow me into the crowd. I ended up getting great audio and images from the front of the crowd. During the event the main press riser had a half dozen individuals on it, the cut riser was empty. It didn’t matter – I got my story and did not direct any hostility to the candidate in my coverage. No whining. You just go after the story.
Lyrebird
@Princess: Thank you! I wish I didn’t agree. I wish this were’nt so spot on:
And continuing the illusion that we have a functioning news media keeps permitting the stuff like how they treated Sen. Warren who has even more policies… Fine if you don’t always like her approach, but the glaring double standard, oh yeah let’s explore every which way her response to Trump’s dare was insensitive, then zippo nada about Trump’s slurs let alone him reneging on the dare, which involved a major contribution to a fund for missing Indigenous women. They get out the electron microscope to evaluate Dems, women, PoC, and then sit back and puff flattering smoke around Trump.
Chris
@The Thin Black Duke:
It doesn’t help that a lot of supposed entertainment is, bluntly, better at news than “actual” news, and has been for a long time. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is better news than the actual news. The Colbert Report was better news than the actual news. Even the Daily Show, which repeats many of the MSM’s worst tics, is better than the actual news. And worst of all, they’re better precisely because they’re not actual news! “Serious” reporters have actually told Stewart, Colbert, Noah, Oliver, et al how much they wish they could get away with doing what they do, but they can’t, because their profession’s rules about Decorum and Fairness and Seriousness makes it impossible for them to call a spade and spade and keep their job.
I don’t know, when you’re at the point where your vaunted journalistic ethics actively prevent you from saying anything true or informative, to the point that you’re lamenting to the fucking court jesters that they’re better at your job than you are, maybe it’s time for your profession to take a good long look in the mirror and wonder what the fuck it’s even for.
Lyrebird
@Michael Bersin: You’re a champion!
Are there boots on the ground orgs in MO we should know about?
Begging pardon if I missed this info in the past few months
Kay
@Starfish:
Absolutely. Also – a lot of Twitter and Tic Tok is just rage bait nonsense. They’re not intrinsically more pure than traditional media. I get alarmed because I find Democrats pointing me to what are editorials as “news” because the authors are friendly to Democrats.
Also just for me personally blaming everything on media is a Right wing thing – it’s whiny and not appealing. I don’t want to be part of it. They’re not the enemy. This stuff is over the top.
Fair Economist
@Kay: If you want facts, you can’t get them from the MSM, in general (I do subscribe to the Guardian and the LA Times). You have to go look facts up, through government websites, places like Statistica, Wikipedia, etc. Even when the MSM provides factually correct reporting – which is getting more and more rare – their choice of what facts to present distorts reader’s perception (e.g. Fox yammering on about “caravans” near elections, or missing blonde girls whenever there’s a Republican scandal).
BR
@Ksmiami:
Yeah, and I think the reason Bloomberg does a better job is people’s money is on the line — if they are lied to, their wallets take a hit.
Another Scott
@Michael Bersin: I really appreciate the work you’re doing. It’s important. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
I think that’s right. Hell, the GOP doesn’t even really have a party platform anymore. They literally have no detailed policy priorities other than to do whatever Trump feels like this morning. And it’s gotten mostly a big shrug from the MSM.
.
BR
@Maxim:
For headlines I follow people widely on Mastodon and get a good mix of news. If any links go to NYT or WaPo or WSJ, I use one of the link archivers so I don’t have to click on the link or pay. TPM is the only news site I subscribe to.
I read LA Times (which is doubly good for me since they cover West Coast news that the East Coast national papers ignore) and ProPublica and BellingCat as well.
Fair Economist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: TV famous now! Woohoo! Congrats, must feel great for all of you.
Michael Bersin
@Maxim:
I’m a consumer and a participant. I’ve seen enough of “professional” journalists in action and up close to justify my contempt for what comes out of journalism schools these days.
There are so many dangerous flaws in the process.
The thing is, there are still a number of photographer old hands who use real cameras, who get the job done, are gracious in a scrum, and always get the images.
BR
@Kay:
The big media outlets really have gotten worse in a specific way. Forget editorials and whatnot. I wrote this in an email to Josh Marshall the other day:
Manyakitty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: fabulous 🤩
Kay
@Fair Economist:
Well, I do use all of those places. And if I see something on Twitter I look for the original news story it was clipped from or the longer tape because literally 50% of it is bullshit, even on our side. “Influencers” are not reliable and trustworthy people.
Example: last week all of liberal Twitter were passing a clip of Trump saying he was in NC when he was in PA. “Why isn’t media saying he’s senile?!”
Except that isn’t true. I watched the longer tape. He was talking to a group from NC who came to PA. I’m not defending Trump. I’m defending my own interest in reality rather than fantasy.
This is our new normal. It isn’t going away. We need a realistic approach to it that isn’t “I only listen to people in my bubble”
Michael Bersin
@Lyrebird:
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom
Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages
satby
Exactly the problem, accurately stated.
Steve LaBonne
Historical perspective is helpful. In the early US newspapers were not only highly partisan but vituperative to an extent that makes the likes of NewsMax seem tame. Then there was the profusion of pamphleteers, the social media influencers of their day, even more partisan and more vituperative. When social, economic, and technological conditions birthed mass-circulation newspapers, they were also highly partisan for a long time. The era of “view from nowhere” journalism- accentuated by the new but now dying medium of broadcast TV- was (for better and for worse) a relatively brief interlude, not some kind of eternal norm. It is visibly on its last legs, whether we like that or not. Personally I don’t think there is much value or potential for truth in pretending not to have a point of view when in fact everybody does have one.
Kay
@BR:
ok but then we are going to have to find sources who go places and look for things and talk to people (not social media influencers) because then we won’t have news GATHERING and we’ll be poorly informed.
Kay
I’m going to listen to Michelle Obama’s speech again.
Shes fascinating. I felt like she was talking to me – everyone probably felt like that. I have to figure out why it was so compelling.
wjca
But financial relations with the owner of the NYT? Not necessarily a public record, so perhaps not.
BR
@Kay:
Yes, absolutely. This isn’t to say that we should abandon journalism, but that big journalism as currently practiced by NYT, WaPo, WSJ, NPR, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, etc. is broken.
I have many colleagues who are experts on other subjects — non political subjects — who have worked with journalists from outlets in this list as I have and found the exact same thing: narratives in search of facts. One of my friends got so fed up in a long-term collaboration with reporters from WSJ (from the news side of the house) who basically wanted him to selectively provide facts to support a narrative that he got into shouting matches with them.
This is what I am continually impressed by ProPublica and BellingCat for, and how they manage to do it despite meager resources compared to the big outlets. They go seeking information. It’s a difficult and slow process. They then piece that information together. And sometimes it ends up being earth shattering in consequence.
Chris
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
This.
The MSM has weaponized “you need to be challenged!” into “and we’re the ones to do it, so you always need to pay attention when challenged by us!”
It’s much the same as how Republicans have taken the unobjectionable principle of “you should listen to more than one political viewpoint” and weaponized it into “and one of those political viewpoints, in fact half of all political viewpoints at the very least, should be us!”
In both cases, the actual reality behind the innocuous and generic statement of principle makes a mockery of the principle and actually makes it more difficult to live up to. Imagine how much more productive our political debates might be if substantive conversations about how best to, say, provide health care to all our citizens weren’t always crowded off the stage in favor of “but Republicans say that universal health care is impossible to achieve without becoming communist and destroying the world’s economy! How do we know that’s not true?” And imagine how much more informed the citizenry might be if they ever encountered media that actually challenged them, instead of serving the same warmed-over robber-baron propaganda that the MSM has been serving them for over a hundred years.
Kay
My son in law is a normie Dem (he’s a new Dem – he didn’t vote until he dated my daughter) and he told me he loves Harris because finally we’re talking about something other than Donald Trump.
People are sick to death of him. Let’s retire him and push him back to NYC tabloids. No one else wants him.
me
@HumboldtBlue:
Apparently, they only had a permit for about 200 people. Didn’t matter much though as there were less than 100 people turned away.
BR
@Kay:
Thanks for sharing this anecdote. I love hearing about this sort of thing because I don’t know too many normies and I wonder how the public is seeing the election.
Michael Bersin
@Kay:
“ok but then we are going to have to find sources who go places and look for things and talk to people (not social media influencers) because then we won’t have news GATHERING and we’ll be poorly informed.”
The information is out there and easily accessible.
Though in my environment the “Missouri Sunshine Law” RSMo § 610 has been gaining more exceptions to public disclosure.
I wish I had five to ten people, committed to a sustained effort to follow the money. The kind of people who can put papers, photos, etc. on a wall and connect the dots with strings. Alone, it’s like trying to take a sip through a firehose. And there are fifty states that need that kind of looking.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Better poorly informed than misinformed.
moonbat
@JML: Funny/ironic that the dead tree media (I’m looking at you, FTFNYT) that clearly pride themselves on hounding Biden out of the race, are themselves being supplanted by the younger, flashier players in the information game.
If only they could show the same dignity and integrity as their political target. I hope they gave Peter Baker his own personal office in a broom closet at the DNC.
Chris
@TBone:
They would be vastly less harmful if they really were just shallow clickbait addicts.
Nobody turns “Email Server Management Best Practices In The Hillary Clinton State Department” into the news story of the 2016 election if all they care about is clicks and eyeballs. Not when there’s sexual abuse, mob connections, and Russian spies in the other candidate’s camp.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Another Scott: “What are your policies on Hunter Biden?”
Chris
@Maxim:
Very much seconded.
Maxim
@Michael Bersin: I wish some of our lefty rich folks would put their dollars behind this kind of effort.
Steve LaBonne
@Chris: And they are STILL defending the wall to wall emailz stories. As long as they refuse to admit they were wrong, there is zero possibility that they will improve. They neither want to improve nor think they need to. That is the definition of “worse than useless”.
Steve LaBonne
@Maxim: Rich folks of any political stripe intensely dislike the idea of reporters snooping around. They understand the potential for the snooping to be turned on their own affairs.
Steve LaBonne
@Chris: ProPublica is an outstanding example. We should all shoot them a few bucks.
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris: thirded. A list of trustable sources, all in one thread. Yes pls.
also, I did hear that 40 some years ago, or 50, republicans set out to own, buy up media, msm. Therefore, perhaps a little list of who owns the msm outlets one might accidentally listen to, or read. A list of who owns, what, their affiliations, which parties they donate to..
Gloria DryGarden
@Michael Bersin: I agree
Chris
@BR:
BellingCat doesn’t just put most media organizations to shame, it puts most intelligence agencies to shame.
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: I’m concerned about the possibility that games will be thrown by the players because there’s so much money involved. If I wanted to watch something with a fixed outcome, I’d watch something other than sports. Sports are supposed to have an uncertain outcome, dammit!
Chris
@Gloria DryGarden:
“Become Dan Rather’s boss.” Yeah, that was a thing in the eighties. Look how far we’ve come since.
Quinerly
@Baud:
Jesse Watters was literally talking about Obama’s birth certificate this week on Fox. Sending someone to Hawaii to look into some “unanswered questions.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/obama-birtherism-dnc-fox-news-jesse-watters-b2599571.html
Chris Johnson
@Chris: Yes THANK you o_O
You can’t manufacture a narrative about ‘grifters’ and people being only motivated by money because of the evils of capitalism, when they constantly and pointedly miss out on THE most spectacular dumpster fires in the dreams of yellow journalists, because there are some public figures they’ll go to the mat to protect.
I wonder who out there has traditionally complained about the evils of capitalism and the bread and circuses of the decadent West. I’m sure it’ll come to me. I guess to them we’re all grifters. Not like anybody could ever have any other motivations than pursuing the almighty dollar, albeit while mysteriously omitting to turn over some of the most enticing, Enquirer-worthy dirt.
I wonder who out there has specifically teamed up with the Enquirer to pay them off in order NOT to make good capitalist money on scandalous dirt. Weird how the most garish and unappealing avatars of filthy capitalism turn out to not actually be remotely capitalist at all… maybe we need MORE capitalism, pork barrel, muckraking journalism, and dirt :D
Chris Johnson
@Gloria DryGarden: I mean even back in the day the idea of a Hearst owning and running the media was a thing.
Being a wealthy criminal fuckwad might not be a guarantee that you are a right wing authoritarian, because individuals vary. However, it seems pretty likely that if you capture a shitload of wealth, you probably want to have that translate into a shitload of power, and that’s a gateway to authoritarianism with you as the authority. Otherwise why bother? Just make enough to retire to Miami or wherever.
So if you’re wealthy enough to own news media outlets or indeed networks of them or monopolies of networks of outlets, the chances that you’re a right wing authoritarian nutjob seems to go way up.
I’m not sure how it applies to ‘owning sports teams’ or whatever. It’s interesting to look at Mark Cuban as a counterexample. That guy seems to want importance and power but not in the same way as a right wing authoritarian. I also think of Steve Jobs. Some people have all the toxicity of billionaires, but twist it into more interesting shapes, which can include left-wing sentiments. If you’re confident enough that you’d continue to beat everybody on a fair playing field you might well fight for egalitarian causes rather than just featherbed for yourself. If you’re doing this because you just want to make the lesser billionaires cry, I kinda love it.
Kayla Rudbek
@Ksmiami: The real money needs accurate information in order to stay the real money
Michael Bersin
@Maxim:
I ain’t getting any liberal billionaire’s cash support, that’s for sure.
Another Scott
@Kayla Rudbek: +1
There was already a big tennis match fixing scandal in Europe a year or so ago.
Everyone knows that big-time gambling is going to corrupt the sports. It always does.
Grr…,
Scott.
steve g
Semafor: “But the last days of the Biden administration”
Biden is president until mid January 2025, so not really the “last days” yet.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Michael Bersin: You need a group of bored retirees.
Michael Bersin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Heh. “Our people”.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris:
I always thought of that as a “motte and bailey” story, though. The respectable story that they could print was completely boring, but the reason it had juice was this tease they couldn’t come out and say, that Hillary Clinton was involved in some horrifying, lurid conspiracy (conspiring with the Benghazi terrorists, or rigging the primaries against Bernie, or fucking children on Epstein’s island, or extracting adrenochrome from the bodies of murdered babies in the fantastical basement of Comet Ping Pong) and the evidence of it would emerge in one of these email dumps coming out of Russia through Wikileaks any minute now.