I watched the Harris/Walz interview with Dana Bash and I thought it was good for Harris/Walz, and at the same time bad TV and poor journalism. Atrios has helpfully summarized all the questions asked if you want to remember just how lackluster they were.
The interview was bad TV because the questions were mostly shitty gotcha attempts about fairly old history (Harris’ 2019 campaign, and Walz’ campaign for House). Those kind of Russert-style gotchas are aimed towards the ever-dwindling audience of the Sunday morning political TV shows (Meet the Republicans, Face the Republicans, This Week in Republicans), which at last look was a pathetic 2.7 million for MTP, the biggest of the shows. People — especially those who are not targets for laxative, Ozempic or statin ads — are not watching that shit.
The interview was poor journalism because there wasn’t a lot of information imparted to the viewer. For example, Kamala Harris was VP for a while. Tim Walz was the very successful governor (by Democrats’ standards) of a good-sized state. You might have missed both of those facts if you watched the interview. Why not examine some of the Biden administration’s policies? Ask Walz whether his experience getting legislation through on tiny margins would be relevant. There’s a lot to ask if you really do care about informing your viewers.
Of course, when Bash did ask about Biden administration policies, she began with the DC/Republican frame that the economy was terrible, and also tried some gotchas on the border. It all devolved into stupid “jousting”.
That’s because, unlike the rest of the known universe, Bash believes that she’s a weak reporter if she interviews to inform. Not a lot of DC Press interviewers are good at both questioning and informing (Ezra Klein, for all his faults as a pundit, is good at this, so it’s not an unknown trait in those circles).
Bash is an intelligent, well informed person, but she’s in a reward structure where the only win is to get a “gaffe” from a Democrat. Well, she didn’t, so the interview was good for Harris/Walz, and the DC press will keep whining until a gaffe appears.
I hope Harris and Walz choose to do a lot more social media with influencers, and a lot less of this shit, in future.
zhena gogolia
The clips I saw were good for Harris/Walz. I did note that as Harris explained that the economy (and the state of the American people’s health) wasn’t in great shape when she and Biden took over, the chyron said something like, “Blames Trump for bad economy.”
The Audacity of Krope
To anyone who watched the interview, were there any moments that stood out as truly informative or salient to issues most common Americans face?
hrprogressive
It doesn’t need a reset, it needs to be nuked from orbit and rebuilt.
This isn’t “journalism” any longer.
None of the major MSM outlets commit “journalism” any longer.
They’re all wholly owned subsidiaries of oligarchs who want their profits and power preserved at all costs.
That means skewing towards the Fascist GOP framing on everything, letting Republicans go unchallenged, and challenging only Democrats with bullshit soundbite questions that said Republicans can use against them.
Nobody serves “the citizens” any longer.
It’s all in subservience to the shareholders. Period, end of story.
Math Guy
Q: What will you do on your first day?
A: Take the oath of office and then go to a bunch of receptions, unless the Martians have just landed or someone launches a nuclear attack.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Better than “Credits Trump for record stock market and employment”
Jackie
@Math Guy: Exactly.
Msb
Dana, if you wanted to spend some time demonstrating how irrelevant so-called elite political media are, well done.
Good job, MVP and Coach, for stiff-arming the gotchas and sailing on your way. Even with all the silliness, I was delighted with MVP’s responses towards the end: “Same tired old playbook. Next question, please.” and “I was thinking about him (Biden), rather than me, to be honest.” The more I hear from her, the more delighted I am – but I’ve been listening for a while.
Steve LaBonne
The political press needs to shrivel up and die. It isn’t resettable.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: Did you watch the clips that (I think AL) put in a morning post? They say a lot of good things in those. No nitty-gritty specifics, but reassuring competent plans.
HumboldtBlue
Dave Roberts:
There are different ways to think about an interview in a presidential race. One way is to think of it as an opportunity to inform voters of the stakes of the election & the kinds of things someone might do if elected. That’s what *voters* want — see any town hall event. OR …
… you could think of an interview as a kind of performance event, like the obstacle course on that American Ninja Warrior show, in which a candidate endures “difficult questions” (ie, talking points from their opponents) & attempts to complete without gaffes.
The latter is how the insular class of political obsessives (including political journalists) think of them. “Let’s make the candidate jump through hoops & critique their performance, like we’re watching an Olympic sporting event.”
The problem with the latter kind of interview is that a) it mostly involves shallow, unfairly framed, gossipy questions meant to produce Clickable Content, b) the skill of navigating a hostile, shallow interview is tenuously connected, at best, to governing skill, and …
… c) it produces no information of value to voters trying to make up their minds. It is an event produced by *and for* the insular class of Politics Followers & Content Creators.
That insular class has power; they can hurt candidates, which means they can force candidates to go through these events. (That’s part of it too: exercising their power to make candidates jump through hoops they choose.) But let’s not pretend …
… that we learned anything about Harris or Walz through that interview. I agree with those who say they’d like to hear Harris/Walz talk more about their policies & plans. I’d like them to do a series of town hall interviews with mixed groups of voters *who would ask those Qs*.
Consider: 1. Harris & Walz should talk in substantive terms about their policies & plans. 2. Harris & Walz should give exclusive interviews to high-profile political journos. My point is, these two asks are *utterly distinct* & almost entirely unrelated to one another.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Since I didn’t watch the whole thing, I’m not sure they missed that one!
The Audacity of Krope
Who said the economy is bad? I mean, it’s not great, but it’s a damn sight better than it was four years ago before Biden and Harris took office.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope: Media. For years. Even Dems believe it. We lost that fight.
JiveTurkin
The problem is that there is no such a thing as a gaffe for Trump, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Vance. The election is basically a toss-up and Trump has one big advantage over Harris. There are very few Trump supporters who can possibly be switched. Trump has had several very bad weeks in a row, and it hasn’t moved the needle. The Arlington issue would be a killer for most politicians, but Trump supporters see it as a positive, he showed those know-nothing generals. The blowjob repost barely made the news. Nothing to see, that’s just Trump being Trump. Not like he wore a tan suit.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: Poor Dana apparently has trouble paying her rent.
Pharniel
Phill defranco got invited to the DNC and regularly does interviews with lesser known miners of congress based on issues.
He interviewed the gov of PA, and I’d love to see him do walz.
His 6.5m subscribers generate .5 to 1m views on his daily news show. He’s not perfect, but he’s also trying to do actual journalism.
CHETAN R MURTHY
Does anybody remember the Great Transatlantic Puke Funnel? What we saw in the interview was the CNN Puke Funnel. Same as it ever was.
Chris
When I said the other day that locking each candidate in a third grade classroom, not letting them out until they’ve answered at least one question from each child, and filming the whole process would lead to far more relevant, interesting, and important questions and answers than anything you’d get by sitting them down in an interview with the traditional press…
… I mean, I was kidding, but I really wasn’t. It’s not how any sane and healthy political system would interview its politicians. But I really and truly and literally do believe that people who watched that would be better informed than the people who watch any interviews with “real” pundits.
terraformer
*Immediately* after any interview with the traditional press/media, Harris-Walz should sit for another interview with an influencer, non-traditional media outlet, or just people at a diner somewhere.
Compare and contrast the types of questions asked. Then create a reel juxtaposing them, and put it out on social media. It’s one thing to talk about how vapid and ridiculous MSM “questioning” is; it’s another to spotlight what they ask vs. what normal people ask.
Steve LaBonne
@JiveTurkin: That’s what makes the situation so perilous (as it has been ever since 2016). Fascism has a rock-solid base of support more than big enough to enable the installation of a fascist regime. The slightest accident and into the abyss we go.
HumboldtBlue
Wow!
schrodingers_cat
If the entire Beltway media was replaced by students who run their college and high school newspapers we would see dramatic increase in the quality of the coverage.
SatanicPanic
@Math Guy: “not be a dictator like my opponent has pledged to be”
Robin
I really think they should be doing local press wherever they are campaigning – short interviews with the local papers (what’s left of them), local TV. Local public radio. Talk about the local infrastructure, access to abortion, etc
Mag
Actual journalism would require breaking up corporate media (including so called public broadcasting) and then having consumers of news being willing to pay for it because ad-supported has them same problems as billionaire supported / corporate backed. This may seem like a catch-22, but I currently have newspaper subscriptions. I just wish they didn’t blow so much. Personally, I wish they’d drop all op-ed and “analysis.”
Steve LaBonne
@Robin: Haven’t they been doing that?
bbleh
Agree that the general audience for this kind of stuff is the La-Z-Boy Sunday Showz set, and it’s small and skews VERY old and White, and the primary purpose is not to inform them but to entertain them.
And as noted there’s the network suits in the background, but there’s another, arguably more important audience, to wit other political “journalists.” They watch this stuff hoping for “gotcha” moments and story hooks and The Narrative, which in turn matters to “journalists” like Bash because it gets to peer recognition and — sometimes — acclaim. In all these ways it is fully representative of modern political “journalism.”
Given that, the BEST a candidate can do is … make it a non-event. And in that, Harris and Walz appear to have succeeded admirably, cuz the story has almost disappeared from the news already.
Hats off to them AND to whoever’s advising them, I must say.
Steve LaBonne
@Mag: Currently on the national level there’s not much besides TPM that’s worth subscribing to. ProPublica operates via donations rather than subscriptions and is very, very worth donating to.
SatanicPanic
They don’t need to do anything fancy- I guarantee there’s at least a few reporters at any of these outlets that could ask decent questions. They just always run back to these legacy pundits and overpaid anchors because I assume they’re convinced people want to see these airheads on TV.
mrmoshpotato
Fixed.
Steve LaBonne
@bbleh: A prosecutor and a high school teacher are two people who are not going to have any trouble handling the likes of Bash.
The Audacity of Krope
@zhena gogolia: I didn’t watch them, I did review the captions for them. I need to get myself headphones for the train.
I originally asked that question because I’m trying to figure out whether there is anything to be learned from this interview. Did they discuss anything of practical use?
Prometheus Shrugged
I’m disappointed that their first interview wasn’t on “Hot Ones”, but that would be totally appropriate given the whole chile pepper scandal–six pinocchio’s for Kamala falsely claiming that she was first to grow them at the white house!!–and given the whole White Man’s taco theme. Unlike Dana Bash et al., the host of Hot Ones actually asks insightful questions and elicits interesting answers even from otherwise boring celebrities.
Chris
@Steve LaBonne:
Unless it’s already happened and I missed it, I’ll repeat my suggestion for a post where people list places to find news that they actually find worthwhile.
For investigative journalism (much of it overseas), I’ll also repeat that Bellingcat not only puts most media outlets to shame, but puts most intelligence agencies to shame.
Steve LaBonne
@Chris: Bellingcat should also have been on my list. Beyond those three I really don’t know of anything useful but would be glad to hear of whatever people can recommend.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@JiveTurkin: They could at least try though. Like how Harris not doing a sit down interview became a thing and then when she scheduled one with her running mate they tried to move the goalposts and make “she should do a solo interview” a thing.
Like why aren’t they trolling Trump about the fact that he only does interviews with Fox News? That could be made into a thing but they won’t. They could troll him about being afraid, losing a step, etc. for weeks until he sits down with CNN or CBS News but they won’t.
It’s just so obvious that whole political media system exists right now to trial balloon different ways to take the Democratic candidate down a peg or two until they find something that works. And to clean up or breeze past Trump’s latest awfulness and hide the fact as best they can that he’s losing his marbles.
The Audacity of Krope
The economy right now is as good as it ever has been during my adult lifetime. Low bar, granted, but I’m able to afford my own housing for the first time ever. This despite not having a job for four months earlier this year by choice because I was so confident in the job market that I felt no qualms quitting my job to care for my parents while they had individual health issues.
But I don’t publish news, so my opinion on the economy doesn’t really matter.
Jack Canuck
Since it’s an open thread, an interesting article has just gone up on the ABC (Australia) website. Here’s the opener:
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has ordered the “immediate suspension” of social media platform X in the country, after a court-imposed deadline expired for the company to identify a legal representative in Brazil.
The move is the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Elon Musk, which also included the freezing of the satellite internet provider Starlink’s financial accounts in Brazil.
Justice Moraes’s ruling entails a full and immediate suspension of X in Brazil until the company complied with all related court orders, including the payment of fines amounting 18.5 million reais ($4.8 million) and the nomination of a legal representative in Brazil.
Tony Jay
I’ve only had time to glance at any of the coverage, but the first thing that jumped out to me was the corporate media flipping from their insistence that “Harris must do an interview with the serious media to be considered Presidential” to the plucked out of nowhere idea that “Harris needed to do a great interview with the serious media to be considered Presidential”, with the corporate media concluding that, since the interview lacked anything they’d consider newsworthy, she failed to hit her target.
They’re such a bunch of useless wankers.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
You don’t have to convince me. I’m disgusted with people over this.
BR
https://mastodon.social/@GottaLaff/113053028254779319
John Revolta
Well I don’t know about any of you but I’m still troubled about whether Walz said he carried a “weapon of war” or a “weapon in war”. My vote is precious and I just can’t give it away to any old prevaricator that comes down the pike!
Baud
@BR: This is my shocked face.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jack Canuck:
Whose job, if I understood the summary I read, is to go to jail if X commits any crimes, which it already has. I imagine Musk is having trouble recruiting .
Dangerman
We need a functional press.
We need a massive Estate Tax (sorry Ivanka, Eric, Jr.; I hear McDonalds is hiring).
Whatever we are spending on Green isn’t enough; think Apollo. Make it hhappen.
Caffeine needed.
raven
@John Revolta: Well I carried a weapon of war in a war but I never fired a round at a person. Does that help?
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: I find new reasons every day for disgust with people. There are local peaks but broad opinion on the economy barely registers on my list.
Some recent local peaks in my disgust; the anti- Biden jihad, refusal to mask, Trump’s election. Each topped the one before it.
dmsilev
Alexandra Petri: JD Vance writes a rom-com
Another Scott
@Steve LaBonne: One can find lots of good news sources with just a little work.
E.g. VOANews.com – your tax dollars at work.
Similarly, for a more european emphasis, RFERL.org – your tax dollars at work.
It’s a golden age of information availability. We don’t have to accept the framing that the US megamedia folks want to give us.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Audacity of Krope
Well, I have great news. Trump is a prevaricator par excellence. You don’t need to even consider another candidate.
JiveTurkin
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: I completely agree, it’s just frustrating as hell. I always say that Trump could not get elected to my city council. They have multiple candidate forums and you have to be informed. The media helped create Trump by not grilling him on the nonsensical stuff he said when he ran in 2016. Like he would eliminate the deficit in his first term (pretty much impossible) and eliminate the debt in his second term (totally mathematically impossible). Show the complete lack of knowledge. A comparable interview that Harris/Walz just did with Trump/Vance would have a lot of the obvious gotcha questions like shouldn’t Trump take much of the blame for the Afghanistan pullout since he negotiated the deal, his dismal job record, his Covid response. Obviously, Fox will never do any of that, but the debate should have some of those issues, and it will not.
TBone
Bugfuck crazy continues to go off the rails. Just the way he says it, and all I can think is yeah, that WAS HINKY!
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/30/incoherent-2/
Chris
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I mean, what’s their incentive to do better? All the polling seems to suggest that most people continue to view them as either “liberal” or “fair and balanced (well, as fair and balanced as you’re ever going to get in real life.” People who realize what a right wing hack job they are remain a distinct minority, which they can safely ignore.
I have no idea how the fuck to wake people up, but we’re going to continue to enter all political situations at a crippling disadvantage as long as that’s true.
Chris
@The Audacity of Krope:
The most telling economic polling around the 2022 midterms showed that most people answered that they personally were doing fine, but the economy as a whole was doing bad.
Translated into English, what this means is “everything’s fine, but every media, radio, and print outlet in the universe has been screaming at me for years that the economy is the worst it’s ever been and a recession is just around the corner, so I assume I’m just the lucky ducky and we really are in a recession.”
“Who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes” is a trick that works far more often than anyone would like to admit.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: That I doubt quite seriously.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@The Audacity of Krope:
The economy right now is as good as it ever was during my adult lifetime too, and I’m old enough to remember RFK. Not Brainworms Bobby, but his sainted father.
As you & others have noticed, the MSM is gaslighting us on the state of the US economy to a degree which should utterly destroy their credibility to speak on any subject whatsoever for at least a full generation. These people are liars with a 5 alarm fire in their pants.
But here is the thing. The folks who count in the media, who make the decisions regarding what to cover and how it is covered, are the world’s biggest narcissists. They only care about one thing: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
It is no wonder they love Trump so much – they have so much in common.
And the one sector of the US economy which is not doing well right now is in the media. The internet broke their advertising revenue driven business model and nobody can figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The market for what our political press puts out has a median age of about 76 and is dying off by the day. Which means their careers and salaries are under threat.
And to the ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME brigade, that is the ONLY economy that matters. Nothing else matters.
They are protagonists, the rest of us are just disposable non-player characters who need to shut up and take orders from them, or be killed and removed from the scene because we are a nothing but nuisance to them.
The MSM is literally telling the entire American population to just fuck off and die already, because we do not matter and they are the only thing which matters.
BR
@Baud:
We’re lucky that he lives in a state that has an abortion amendment on the ballot — it forces the issue in a way that he has to go on the record one way or the other instead of pretending to be all things to all people.
Princess
@Baud: I’m kind of shocked he admitted it tbh.
Baud
@Princess: Yeah, I was fully expecting the “I’ll let you know in two weeks” all the way through the election.
JMG
I have posted this before, but the Sunday morning shows are not only journalism, they’re not even TV shows. They are best thought of as donations of free (actually very expensive) time to politicians to shoot their mouths off. The hosts are not reporters, they are lobbyists facilitating campaign contributions from Comcast, Disney and CBS to said pols. And just as big corporations do with real money donations, most of the time is given to Republicans with a smaller slice going to Democrats as a hedge. The final step is when clips of these “interviews” are presented as real news on the network’s nightly Sunday news broadcasts. It’s all a sham and has been for decades. I think even the pols have figured out nobody watches these programs, but hey, it’s free air time. They’ll take it.
Jeffg166
Meet the Republicans, Face the Republicans, This Week in Republicans sums it up perfectly.
Ocotillo
One thing that jumped out at me was when Bash asked about the Walz DUI and said (either his campaign or staff) repeatedly lied about it.
Interesting that word rolled off her lips so easily when most of the media can’t bring themselves to use it when it applies to Trump.
Princess
@TBone: Freaking weirdo. Among other things.
(Btw I think you said in an earlier thread today that your mother became a health nut in the 70s-80s, later developed dementia, and subsequently only wanted to eat salmon and ice cream. So did mine! Right down to the salmon. I’m convinced fwiw that the prevalence of dementias in her age cohort of friends compared to their mothers at the same age is a sharp reduction in fat consumption as a result of 70s-80s diet health “wisdom”.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: how is the economy is a terrible question. How is it for whom? How do you define good? Without some sort of instruction in what they’re asking it’s just too nebulous. If you asked me I’d probably say “good” because I’m a Democrat and I know I’m supposed to say that. If I were being honest I’d say “I dunno, fine?” We can talk about GDP and unemployment all day but those are things that are supposed to help us understand the economy but they’re not the whole picture.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Then voters will never stop believing that Republicans are better on the economy than Dems.
Another Scott
Yet again, reality is a little too far ahead… Mediaite.com:
:-/
Consume carefully.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Et tu, “liberal” cable news?
I’m glad I no longer watch.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: If I were Doug I would drink heavily. Staying a step ahead of these assholes must be hard and often discouraging work.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: Pretty much. Republicans will always say it’s better when a Republican is president. Democrats being too reasonable for their own good try to answer a nonsense question in good faith.
dm
If love it if a candidate would reply to a vapid question, “That kind of question wastes my time and that of your listeners.” Harris came close with her “Next question”, at the end of her response to the question about a Trump goofball.
In a press conference, include “your colleagues’” among those whose time is wasted, then follow up with, “I’ll give you time to think of a substantive question and call you later.”
Translate that into Coach Walzese, and you’d have a viral moment.
scav
@TBone: Minor but prolonged giggle to get that particular update from Pottersville no less.
SatanicPanic
@Another Scott: what’s the problem? the interviewer points this fact out
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
A candidate should never be in a focus group of voters.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: I don’t think it was a good idea but they did point it out
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Disclaimers aren’t always enough to cure the problem.
EarthWindFire
@Another Scott: Do they do any background checks on these people at all? Even just screening their Book of Faces or who they follow on Instagram? I’d be happy to play an undecided voter who’s gaga for Kamala on TV.
UPDATED: And I see they knew and let the candidate get away with it. Did he pinky swear that the only GOP candidate he’s voting for is himself? JFC.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Is this the same Dana Bash who said Drump would be a good president because he was so good negotiating in business? Must be a different Dana Bash you are speaking of.
K-Mo
@Math Guy: LOL
Seriously, she did fine on this question- she talked about her top priority, which is apparently middle class tax cuts- but she could have been sharper. Something like,
“ Great question! I have several priorities and I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and get to work them. The top priority I will emphasize when I sit down with my staff on Day 1 is getting ac tax cut enacted for the make class.”
Her whole interview could use this type of sharpening.
TBone
@Princess: healthy fats are so important, and that lack could be a contributor for sure. I’m very sorry you also went through that with your mom, it is so hard.
It taught my brother and I to treat ourselves often, and to live in the now. All things in moderation, but (as we age) with frequent treats and rewards for good behavior, because you can’t take it with you!
TBone
@scav: 😆 when is our journalists gonna notice? I mean, really?!?!
Ohio Mom
@Math Guy: And after the receptions, go to my new apartment and see where the unpacking movers put everything, and rearrange as needed. Especially my pjs and underwear.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: It is difficult to get a journamalist to notice something when their paycheck depends on not noticing it.
eclare
@K-Mo:
I still like Baud’s suggestion: clean the gutters.
Another Scott
@EarthWindFire:
Something, something third time is enemy action.
Their job isn’t to inform viewers, it’s to entertain and outrage viewers, sell ads, and increase viewership to increase “engagement” and sell more ads.
Oh, and to make it as difficult as possible for Democrats to make the federal government work better for normal people.
They prove this to us every time they try to pull one of these stunts. They prove it to us every day when they refuse to provide links to original source material or cite earlier reporting that they’re cribbing from. Etc., etc.
They’re not going to change until there are consequences for pulling this crap on viewers. Nobody should hold their breath.
Grr…,
Scott.
K-Mo
@eclare: We could probably put together a pretty solid MST3K-style response to Bash’s questions.
Question2: “But I wonder what you say to voters who do want to go back when it comes to the economy, specifically, because their groceries were less expensive, housing was more affordable, when Donald Trump was president.”
I say, pay some attention, please. You want to go back to what Donald Trump left us to clean up in 2020? Are you out of your mind? You want to go back to wiping your ass with your old socks because there’s no toilet paper in the stores?
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@SatanicPanic: @Baud:
More than a disclaimer not being enough, it’s obviously a pretty substantial in-kind campaign contribution for him. I suspect that he won’t claim it on his FEC disclosures, though maybe he’ll surprise me…
IANAL.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@The Audacity of Krope:
Didn’t watch it. Note that CNN put out a transcript:
READ: Harris and Walz’s exclusive joint interview with CNN (CNN staff, August 30, 2024)
sdhays
@Baud: I am kind of surprised that he actually made a definitive choice rather than just scheduling it for the 3rd of never like he often does.
sdhays
One minor interesting, though not that important, tidbit from the interview was when Bash asked Harris Biden told her he was going to endorse her, Harris basically said that he didn’t need to say it. He knew that she knew that if he was stepping down, he was backing her. It wasn’t even a question.
Wvng
@hrprogressive: “None of the major MSM outlets commit “journalism” any longer.” Many, including the Times, do superlative, necessary journalism. But they mostly suck at covering politics, for reasons mistermix highlights, as well as darker reasons.
Steve LaBonne
@sdhays: Panic. He thought he could do a wink wink nudge nudge with the forced birth freaks but he got a furious pushback, so he did an immediate flipflop in the hope of appeasing them. He’s just going to end up pissing off absolutely everybody.
Gin & Tonic
@Chris:
The interesting thing is, there are sources of information that are more accessible to the OSINT people than to the TLA people. I know somebody who’s, shall we say, in a Bellingcat-adjacent org, and their group have more than once provided briefings to people who have extremely high clearances who aren’t getting equivalent info from their own staff.
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@EarthWindFire:
It’s strange how often this type of thing happens. Mika Brzezinski was doing this as far back as 2004, for CBS News.
(Her random man in the street interviewee, on the occasion of the Republican National Convention, just happened to turn out to be the President of the Young Republicans Club, a fact which didn’t make it into her story and was only added later after a week or two of loud complaints about her dishonesty. Those were generous times ; you could sometimes get a footnote adding a soupçon of retrospective fact to a story which had long since been syndicated everywhere, uncorrected…)
Funnily enough, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it occur the other way around — meaning that the “random” man-inna-street or purportedly-undecided focus group participant surprisingly turns out, despite all vetting, to actually be a Democratic shill. Odd, ain’t it?
Uncle Cosmo
@mrmoshpotato: You actually constructed a post without disgusting language erupting from that potty mouth of yours! I’m proud of you! :^D
The Audacity of Krope
@Chris: The narrative rules all.
Darkrose
@dmsilev: Is there a gift link for those of us who no longer subscribe?
RaflW
As David Bowie acidly observed in 1969, imagining a launch into outer space, the press wants to know who’s brand of shirts Maj. Tom wears.
Things have not improved in journalism since.
Bobby Thomson
Thank you so much for not indulging the revisionist history about Timmeh. Good lord he sucked.
Lyrebird
@The Audacity of Krope: Were you the one who described the political press as theater critics who didn’t make it? That was amazing & I was thinking of it when reading @HumboldtBlue: quote Dr. Volts.
Bobby Thomson
@Steve LaBonne: Fascism has had the same rock solid base of support for a lot longer than that. 2016 was when white people started to notice.
Steve LaBonne
@Bobby Thomson: Fair. I was definitely too slow on the uptake.
trnc
Jacel
@Robin: Looking back 8 years ago, I learned that this sort of interaction with local media in swing stages is what Hillary Clinton was doing regularly, calling in to several radio/TV/newspapers each day. But none of this got picked up and amplified — instead, the national media pushed the “Where Is Hillary?” narrative while she was putting in steady efforts at a local level. Meanwhile, Trump could send out a short Tweet and get hours and feet of free media mulling that over each day.
Ruckus
@raven:
Same here, although I was never in a war zone.
Azhrie139
“Bash is an intelligent, well informed person,” Objection your honor, facts not in evidence.