This Columbia Journalism Review piece about the DC press is making the rounds:
“I think it’s important for people to understand the context, that we’re coming out of four years of Biden and things haven’t been great,” one White House print reporter told CJR. “There’ve been fewer eyeballs on the press briefings and less attention than under Trump, so people just don’t understand some of the very frustrating things that we’ve dealt with and that we hope are going to be rolled back.”
Among those frustrations: the Biden press office largely kept reporters at a remove from the president, who—as Cameron Joseph noted here last year—had agreed to far fewer formal interviews than any president before him. Instead, White House reporters say, the Biden team preferred to offer background quotes from in-house experts whose job it was to speak to the press; when the president did meet with a large number of outlets, like during his pre-election rounds of interviews on Black radio stations, it was through highly orchestrated conversations, sometimes including preapproved lists of questions. Inside the briefing room, reporters who didn’t hold coveted front-row seats felt they got much less opportunity to ask questions.
“For a lot of people, what was the point in even going?” said a veteran White House reporter.
Trump, on the other hand, adores the attention of the media, even as he frequently maligns the reporters themselves. During his first term, he regularly chatted with White House reporters during strolls to Marine One, and held a number of high-profile, if occasionally ill-conceived, televised sit-downs, with everyone from Axios’s Jonathan Swan to Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy. (On his first night back, Trump spent forty-five minutes casually answering media questions in the Oval Office, while he signed executive orders.)
I have a few thoughts on this. First and foremost, I think this is the election where the codependent relationship between Democrats and outlets like the Times and Post has finally been severed. We’re cancelling our subscriptions to those outlets, supporting our local media if it’s good, reading newsletters and blogs, and curating our social media. I think we’ve finally realized that there’s nothing there for our party at the big outlets. No amount of yelling will change the double-standard that is just baked into the DC media: Democrats have agency; Republicans don’t. Democrats need to hew closely to norms or they’re scolded; Republicans are treated like wayward kids who don’t know any better and can’t change. Democrats’ skill at governing and legislating is boring; Republicans breaking all the glass and generally stinking up the place is exciting.
My second thought is that the gripe about not having enough Biden time is worth addressing. The old standard of having a press secretary run a briefing every day, and rarely seeing the President, doesn’t cut it. Seeing clips from Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily press briefings has shown another way that a President can engage with the public via the press. She appears before a giant screen, has a theme of the day, and invites experts to discuss the theme of the day. It is an effective way to get her message out. But, as far as I can tell, there’s not the same polluted press culture in Mexico City as there is in DC. So, if the next Democratic President wants to do this, he or she will have to learn to do some of what Trump does when confronted with stupid questions from the press: call the questions stupid.
I think that having more press conferences, not less, is worth trying. And, frankly, I think Democrats get caught up in the wrong notion that the President has such limited time that they can’t do this daily. We need to change our conception of the President’s job to be more of a public face. His staff can do more. He can delegate more. I get it that Trump doesn’t do shit, so he can be on TV more, but there’s a middle ground between not doing anything and not delegating enough.
Breaking the dysfunctional relationship between Democrats and the big mainstream outlets can start now, we don’t need to wait until we’re back in power. Our electeds could be doing more with their socials, not just the anodyne messages that they push out once a day or a couple times a week. Last night, I watched AOC’s latest “reel” on Instagram, which I recommend highly to anyone who’s feeling down about the events of the week, because she’s ready to fight. One of the points that she made was that she finds it much more difficult to post frequently when Democrats are in power, because she’s busy with the work of legislating. Now, it’s the Republicans’ show, and her job is to oppose, loudly. That’s a message that I’d suggest sharing with your Democratic elected officials in DC.
RaflW
Saw a skeet that implied more quits or layoffs at Bezo’s wrecked place. I pretty much haven’t been to WaPo since I gave it the heave ho a few months ago (even if someone offers a free link), so my curiosity is mostly just passing.
Seems like it’s getting some loser stink, anyway.
I’m really disappointed that Philip Bump refuses (so far) to read the tea leaves, and I guess took the spot Jen Rubin left open.
Hildebrand
The point AOC makes about posting and legislating contradicts your suggestion that a Democratic president could/should do more press conferences.
lollipopguild
Trump voters and the DC press want to be entertained! Something, something… amusing ourselves to death.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Hildebrand: Not really, if you consider the size of a MoC’s staff vs. that of the President. Especially as a junior member without a committee chair / ranking member spot, she’s doing a lot with a few staffers.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
IIRC, the White House Press Corpse whinged in much the same way in the posted quote about much of the same ‘greviances’ when Obama was in office.
Okay, maybe Biden’s “availability” numbers were down but they all bitched about “not enough access” and “he’s going around us” All. The. Time.
Nary a peep along those lines when the Orange Fart Cloud was in office the first time.
If by that you mean “trying everything possible to fine tune messaging strageties that in effect avoid depending on big mainstream outlets while more effectively reaching targeted audiences”, sure.
Hildebrand
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Ok. I see that.
That said, until the White House Press Corps can learn to ask better questions – and by that I mean questions not always from a Republican talking point perspective – a Democratic president is always going to be sailing through Scylla and Charybdis with any press conference.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yeah, this post was long but I was going to also point out that the Obama Admin’s relationship with the DC press was terrible because he (and his staff) didn’t respect them. The DC press wanted them to behave like Democrats, meaning they needed to meekly curry favor with the press and treat them like referees. Instead, Obama & co treated them like a nuisance and tried to go around them. (Early Obama admin did blogger outreach, for example, which really pissed them off. Remember blogger ethics panels?)
The Biden admin had an even worse relationship with the press, and part of it is because they had the same attitude as the Obama admin times 10.
Belafon
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Is she still also choosing to have a smaller than normal staff by paying the ones she has a better wage?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Hildebrand:
I agree with this. There are some countermeasures. First, volume, the more conferences that the Prez has, the less the press can nitpick on one little thing. Second, pushing back on bad questions more harshly than they’re used to from Democrats. Third, inviting out-of-town press, non-traditional media, podcasters, etc. to the conferences and answering mostly their questions (that would both piss off the press but ultimately brush them back a big).
Fundamental strategy is trying to take what has been mostly a negative for Democrats in the last two+ admins, and turn it into more of a positive that gets our message out a little better, since the DC press will always be with us, in some form.
JMG
FDR held two press conferences a week all during World War 2, when he had a lot going on. Yes, the White House press corps was smaller then, but he did it. He also treated them with patrician disdain, and the media moguls of the time with outright contempt, openly expressed.
Soprano2
Of course they’re excited to have the FFOTUS back, they made it clear during the election that they wanted him. It makes their lives much more fun and exciting and means less actual work for them. Who wouldn’t love that?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Belafon:
I’d be surprised if she isn’t, and my guess also is that she has a larger district staff than average.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Basically, use Barney Frank’s reply approach back in the day as a template:
https://archive.ph/n0Hrg
And of course how he handled the RWNJ at a town hall:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9bxbm/barney_frank_confronts_woman_at_townhall/
RaflW
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I guess Biden should have routinely threatened to have them jailed. That seems to be catnip for WHCA members.
Ohio Mom
If reporters in Washington thought Biden wasn’t accessible enough to them, maybe, I dunno, they could do some actual reporting? Maybe wear out the old shoe leather digging up leads and information?
That said, I’m all for the Democrats in Washington courting and wooing the press. That the press will fall for it is no reflection on the Democrats, only on the press. They want to be soon fed, break out the silverware.
KatKapCC
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The dining room table line! Still remember that moment fondly.
Kay
Former sister in law. I bet both Hegseth brothers abuse women.
Kay
I thought Biden was way, way too remote. I think it really hurt him. We just saw a lot more of Obama.
Trollhattan
What weird construction. Maybe Biden demanded “Give me only press who talk English.”
JustRuss
O for fuxsake:
…so of course we had no choice but to sanewash Trump, obsess about Joe’s age, and parrot Republican talking points re the economy and immigration. You People have no idea how much we suffered!”
Trollhattan
@Kay: Suspect year+ of lockdown to kick off his administration impacted many things and made it harder to craft “new norms” afterwards.
OTOH he should have done everything possible to keep Jen Psaki there. She was remarkably effective.
tam1MI
The first thing we can all do as Dems is to cancel our subscriptions to the bad faith players and don’t watch/listen to the bad faith TV/radio News outlets. We have subsidized our own abuse for way too long. If the failing WaPo or CNN or whatever goes under because we withdrew our money and our attention from them, GOOD. It will have a salutary effect on the ones left.
They need us more than we need them.
TS
All sounds like an abused spouse to me. These people want to be attacked by trump, they think is is their cross to bear but as long as it gives them something to write, it is what they want.
In the digital age, they haven’t found an alternative way to work – which so many of us have had to do – so I don’t think they should be pandered to by more contact with the President – people will find out, as they did last time, trump is not whatever fantasy they thought they have bought.
Embir
Oh boy – the excitement is back. I bet they can’t wait to report on kids getting separated from families and summary executions of protestors – won’t that be a laugh riot?
Pick a path – psycho or socio – they are on one or the other.
Soprano2
@Kay: That played into the idea that they were hiding him because he had dementia.
Kay
They’re scared they’re not relevant. I can’t imagine people want to watch them kissing up to Donald Trump. Yuck. What a bore. But maybe they’re right- maybe Donald Trump will save them. It seems obvious they’re seeing a decline in readers and watchers. Maybe this stale, tired reality show, Season 57, of media and Donald Trump pretending they’re adversaries will fascinate readers.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Yup. Sure did. I don’t think we’ll have to worry the next D President will emulate that. Not good.
Belafon
@tam1MI:
or Bezos will buy them.
Suzanne
I agree with this 100%.
This aspect of the job will favor people who speak well extemporaneously. In a comment thread a few days ago, Kay pointed out how Hope Walz uses TikTok very effectively, in this very unguarded way. I think that unguardedness is kind of an aesthetic of this current era, and thus a less controlled approach is a risk worth taking.
And, in the spirit of “turning weaknesses into strengths” and “never wasting a good crisis”….. it could allow candidates to really develop personal appeal. All that “soft stuff” of politics.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: That’s the thing– the last time, they did pretend they were adversaries, and that got them eyeballs. But if they act like sycophants, will that do the same? Fox News already exists. How much room is there in the market for more of them?
Trollhattan
Has anybody done a welfare check on Haberman?
Belafon
We might leave places like CNN, MSNBC, or NPR, but a majority of Americans, both Democratic and Republican, think they’re liberal news sources, and that’s not going to change just because we leave.
Kay
@Trollhattan:
Obama would just show up in front of a microphone to defend himself on whatever they were lying about. Covid shouldn’t have barred that for Biden.
Miss Bianca
@tam1MI:
I think that’s going to be my go-to line from now on when someone asks me why I’m so down on the MSM.
Another Scott
No time to check, but my understanding is that Psaki and Jean-Pierre both gave everyone in the press room a chance to ask a question 5 days a week. The Biden administration answered questions from the White House Press Corps routinely.
Donnie’s previous White House went for more than a year without the Press Secretary having a briefing / Q&A for the WHPC.
But it doesn’t count unless the POTUS does it, and only if the POTUS does it the right way, and only if the POTUS does it on their timeline, and only if the POTUS does it at their location, and …
IOW, IMHO, the framing of the whiners is nonsensical. As usual.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
tam1MI
The not-so-hidden notes of desperation in the thin excuses offered up for their despicable behavior suggests to me that the ad hoc boycotts the Dems have launched are already hitting their bottom lines hard. We should keep it up.
Barney
The quoted reporters in the CJR are saying “it’s bread and circuses that the empire desires, and we’re the clowns”.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: And Biden did everything wrong.
Belafon
@Another Scott: He even told them at times that the questions were stupid.
Old School
@Soprano2:
Of course, when Biden spoke in public, they edited the coverage to make it appear he had dementia.
JoyceH
@tam1MI: Boy-howdy, ain’t that the truth! I keep reading about all these plans the MSM have to attract more conservative readers/viewers. They’re not doing anything for the liberals, they think we’re baked in. The Post has become particularly obnoxious- “Riveting Storytelling For All Of America”? Storytelling?! “They’re eating the dogs!” Is riveting storytelling – but it’s not true.
Kay
You know what’s changed about media in my adult life? They didn’t used to talk about themselves constantly. They have this idea that the public is endlessly fascinated with their careers and industry. We all know Watergate was a one-off, the one time they took an adversarial role towards power. No one thinks it’s 1974 and they’re Woodward and Bernstein. They’re D list celebrities now.
Emily B.
OT: I canceled my WaPo subscription, but it has some months to run, and there are still nuggets of good reporting. Here’s a gift link to the article on the Elon-Vivek split.
From the article: “Deep philosophical differences over how the panel should operate helped spur Ramaswamy to leave, according to more than a half-dozen people with knowledge of the situation, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
“The revamped project spurred speculation that Trump and Musk had reduced their lofty ambitions for DOGE, which initially promised to comb through the whole federal bureaucracy searching for deep cuts. But some of the people said DOGE is still poised to exert crucial influence in the new administration, in part because it could grant Musk far greater insight and control over federal operations from within the White House. Some Trump allies have even grown concerned about the extent of privileged government information that Musk could have access to under the new arrangement.”
tam1MI
@Belafon: or Bezos will buy them.
Good. Every dollar he has to spend propping up the failed legacy media is a dollar he can’t spend wrecking America.
But I doubt he’s going to do that. More likely, he will try and divest himself of the Post, to try and get the loser stink off him.
Soprano2
@Old School: I agree. I think they came to believe this was true, so they saw everything through that lense and reported accordingly.
Chris
I really hope this is true. Most of all, I really hope it’s Democrats generally that are doing this and not just the Very Online/Very Politically Active (in other words, us. More people like us may be canceling our subscriptions, but we’ve also known the New York Times was steaming hot garbage since as far back as the Iraq War, the Clinton years, the Iran-contra years, or what have you: we’re not the problem here).
For as long as I’ve been alive, Democratic politicians have been crippled by the fact that most people, and especially among those that lean Democrats, view the mainstream media as being somehow on our side. Either liberally skewed or moderate/objective/unbiased. And therefore, tend to swallow it whole whenever the media shits on Democratic politicians or spams the world with barely-laundered right-wing bullshit. I’d really like to believe that the corner is finally being turned; things like Bezos’ overt neutering of the Washington Post may have actually done us a favor in being so blatant they can’t be denied. It’s just been my experience that people’s capacity for swallowing bullshit is damn near infinite.
dww44
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: LOD has been doing great take downs the last couple of nights on MSNBC. highlighting the differences between how the WH Press treated Biden and his press Secretary and how they’ve treated Trump and his not visible Press Secretary. Loud disrespect for the former 2 and supine meekness for the latter.
Notwithstanding that Biden should have been way more visible to Americans. This lack of regular exposure harmed our cause.
NotMax
Oh fer corn’s sake.
Wasn’t there a period of something like 300 consecutive days when one of Dolt 45’s press secretaries didn’t so much as set foot in the press room?
Kay
@Another Scott:
It does matter if it’s Biden himself though. You know that. No one elected his press team. He has to be seen by Americans. They have to hear him.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
I have hired (and yes fired – far fewer) a fair number of people as I owned/ran a business requiring specific skills and experience. Some look at a job as where you work and that it’s close to where you live. If it’s a good enough job/high enough pay, some will move. But most will not, unless they are young and starting out and amenable to change. Some will drive a fair distance if the job pays well enough.
My point is that not everyone works as a laborer, no matter what the outcome of the labor is. Some have or can develop skills that not everyone can. It’s nice to attend college and get advanced degrees for a better paying job but that takes time and MONEY. And some actually like being creative rather than just moving things and taking up space. Look around you wherever you go and see how many things that you have or see and have no idea how those things were made or happened.
Belafon
@Chris: My wife listens to NPR. My dad watches MSNBC. The average “I have a little bit of time each day to catch up on the news” Democrat isn’t going to find all of the sources that we’re choosing to subscribe to. They’re going to turn on the TV, turn on the radio, and possibly read the big newspapers.
Baud
I liked the idea of Dems taking on the media because the media is wired against us. But it doesn’t work unless we’re strong enough to win and we haven’t been.
tam1MI
So we withdraw our support for them and see how many MAGATs step in to make up the shortfall.
Suzanne
@Belafon:
They’re going to listen to five podcasts, flip through TikTok videos, and watch YouTube channels. And relatively little of that will be specifically “news” content. It’s all mixed up with lifestyle content, health, fashion, media, fandom, etc.
Chris
I think Biden’s behavior here was a pretty clear attempt to learn the lessons from 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran a far more transparent campaign than either of her opponents and simply ended up being the media’s biggest target anyway. It didn’t even matter what she put out; every new release or press conference was simply an excuse for the media to replay their old “but this raises questions!” “there are troubling clouds!” “why do voters still not trust her?” script. While Trump simply told them “fuck you. We released everything we’re going to release. If that doesn’t please you, fuck you. In fact, just on general principle, fuck you.”
This is where, again, I’d really like to hope that the Democratic electorate has finally learned the lessons of 2024, 2016, 2000, etc – that the media is not on their side, damn sure not on the side of honesty, and it’s okay for a president to push back and be combative against what are for all intents and purposes Republican operatives. Because that gives Democratic Presidents the leeway and public support that allows them to behave like that.
Baud
@Chris:
Agree on all points.
karen gail
I think the Harris campaign’s idea of alternate news sources was good. Hope Walz is showing that in order to reach people who aren’t old you need to be where they are; and most of the Democrats aren’t. AOC has seen the light with using other media than mainstream, but she is outlier. If the Democrats want to put someone in office they need to be reaching out to where they can be seen.
My opinion and 2 cents worth; or maybe it should be 2 dollars worth.
Jay
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-freed-jan-6-defendant-173148986.html
rikyrah
@Hildebrand:
That’s how I feel. They wanna ask bullshyt questions and be taken seriously.
Absolutely the phuck not. Not another press conference for those clowns.
Melancholy Jaques
@Ohio Mom:
Almost nobody anywhere does that anymore and certainly no one at the major outlets.
Respectfully disagree. I’m all for Democrats attacking & scorning the press. Go at them with their shortcomings. Be like Michelle Wolf at the correspondent’s dinner.
oldgold
Regardless of the reason, my eyes and ears informed me that Biden was not good at interacting with the press. In my opinion, this is why his accessibility was limited.
Chris
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
More precisely, the DC press wanted them to obediently line up and conform to their preferred narratives about Democrats, narratives whose moral and end result is always supposed to be that the Democrats lose.
It’s kind of like listening to military folk piss and moan about how their insurgent enemies are backshooting cowards who have the audacity to hide in caves and tunnels and among the population. They’re supposed to all line up in a nice open field in nice little squares like Wellington at Waterloo, so that our bombers and drones and artillery can slaughter them like civilized men, damn it!
RaflW
@Ruckus: I guess I don’t see how this relates to people quitting the Washington Post because it has lost its journalistic bearing?
I understand that maybe a copy editor or layout person, or even a beat reporter can’t afford to flounce off with a flourish. But there have been high profile quits, and I was asking (a bit circuitously) if anyone has info on ones that might be newer than Rubin.
Chris
@JMG:
FDR also invented fireside chats, so that he could talk directly to the people through the radio, instead of allowing the media moguls to be the filter between him and the public, and therefore selectively edit everything he said to death in order to make him look worse to the voters.
It’s notable just how long the problem of “I need a way to reach the voters without the media jamming the signal” has been around for liberal presidents.
Suzanne
@karen gail: FWIW, I agree with you very strongly about going where people are. I think it gives more of an opportunity to build a relationship with Americans that is unmediated by Maggie Haberman or whoever.
I think of Big Dog playing his saxophone on Arsenio Hall and how much that did for him.
narya
@Baud: Maddow has been, and is continuing to be, a supporter of local media. She did a long piece last night on the East Palestine, OH grifter who’s now in the Felon’s administration. And O’Donnell’s piece the other night SHOWING the difference between the respectful silence accorded to the Felon while he signed his name and the absolute screeching at Biden was quite telling. LOD let the screeching go on for a bit so you could she just how egregious it was.
Chris
@Belafon:
Right. That’s my fear. Like I said, I’m sure people like us are leaving, and every individual person who leaves is a good thing, but my fear is that this isn’t indicative of much for anyone who wasn’t already like us, and we weren’t the problem in the first place.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
I don’t know if this has been covered much and the MSM will no doubt erase the two people who were not law enforcement but a incident at the Canadian border during a traffic stop resulted in the gun shot deaths of the border patrol officer and one of the people in the car, apparently a German national on a current visa.
Shots fired at Canadian border in Vermont
eclare
@Melancholy Jaques:
A friend of a friend was at The Colbert Report taping right before Colbert hosted the White House Correspondents’ dinner. Someone asked what he planned to do.
“I’m going to mock the president to his face.”
Belafon
@Chris: That’s why I think we need to also be better at pushing existing places left. We tend to just run and take our money with us.
I’ve heard the story of how Gingrich caused NPR to go right when he threatened their funding. If we truly wanted to fix them, we would make sure they didn’t need any government or corporate money. Since the left doesn’t do billionaire media owners, it would take most of us doing it, and holding them accountable.
Shakti
TL, DNR: So how are you staying informed, getting news, etc, instead? I’m not sure what’s good ‘news’ consumption anymore and how to tweak mine. Other than subverting all the paywalls, I don’t know?
Rant: Well, some PR flacks holding a microphone to ask the stupidest fucking questions that won’t be answered is happy Trump is President and will have loads of logorrhea to transcribe without any actual reporting, so that’s what’s truly important.
He’s a content machine!
That’s why I subscribe, guys!
I actually will ride archive today and google cache and 12 foot ladder until it breaks b/c why give them clicks or ad revenue or anything when the way they serve ads is indistinguishable from malware, makes the experience terrible, and slows down the machine with all the trackers and actually is informative of nothing and not even entertaining.
Many years ago, I decided I had no interest in journalism b/c I had little interest in going up to people and asking questions. But apparently I’m a crack investigator compared to these guys — [and those search engines keep breaking b/c of AI, so fuck those guys too.].
Chris
@Emily B.:
Oh, Ramaswamy.
It’s genuinely hilarious to me that a man with that name and that skin color thought he could say out loud something like “I have to hire foreign workers, native-born Americans have a culture that values mediocrity over excellence!” without getting run out of town on a rail. As if valuing mediocrity wasn’t the entire point of MAGA.
Something about being rich really does disable all your neurons.
Chris
@Belafon:
We don’t even need them to stop imbibing mainstream media. It would do a ton of help if they’d simply continue imbibing it, but with the understanding in their heads that this thing is not on your side and that anything it reports against your political team needs to be taken with a mountain of salt.
Republicans were reading the mainstream media like this, with far less justification, long before they ever had any alternative ecosystem.
Ksmiami
@tam1MI: fuck them all. The MSM propagandizes for clicks, they don’t inform. Best to find good sources like Krugman etc and directly support them
p.a.
Press Corpse: we need direct contact or all we’ll produce is reich-wing framing and lies.
Press Corpse: thank you for the access here’s the opposition response of reich-wing framing and lies.
🤷🏻♂️
Chris
@Suzanne:
“We’re Animaniacs,
Dot is cute and Yakko yakks,
Wakko packs away the snacks,
While Bill Clinton plays the sax,
We’re Animaniacs!”
I am far too young to remember Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall, or even to know or care who Arsenio Hall is, but I still know about it, just from that one stupid kid’s show. Now that’s making a long-lasting pop cultural impression.
(Incidentally, I’ve been saying for years that Democrats should go all-in on nineties nostalgia, especially now that the people whose childhood that was are the middle-aged).
Baud
@Chris:
Hey Macarena!
FelonyGovt
I’m making sure not to click on any articles, especially mainstream press articles, that mention Orange Shitgibbon or his family or his horrible pronouncements or ideas. Let them find out that he is not the ratings bonanza they expected.
Chris
@Belafon:
I think this might overestimate how much power we have; most of these outlets survive on corporate ad money more than subscriptions, IIRC.
Suzanne
@Chris: I’m of the age where I knew who Arsenio Hall is, but I wasn’t allowed to stay up that late! But I still saw that moment replayed, over and over and over.
The more modern version would be a video clip or a meme going viral. But the principle is the same. Those sort of moments can be invaluable for imagecraft.
zhena gogolia
@FelonyGovt: I’m hearing this from a lot of people.
Belafon
@Chris: Yes, but some of that is because they have to cover people leaving. The threat of losing money is real – see Gingrich – and since NPR doesn’t make a profit, it doesn’t have the margin to lose money. Our power would be in being part of the group that gives them that last bit of money, and we demand they change before leaving.
dnfree
I agree that for whatever reason, whether his own inclination or decisions by staff, Biden wasn’t as visible as he should have been. I think somehow he thought just keeping his head down and doing the job quietly would be effective at bringing the country back to “normal”, but especially when up against the continual PRESENCE of Donald Trump, it didn’t work. And the failure to promote every single new bridge or road repair, or factory, with large signage was an “own goal”. I don’t know whose job it was to be aware of that.
Sadly, Trump still appears to be dynamic and forceful to many people, and even though Biden could still ride a bike and wear aviator glasses and drive a Corvette, somehow he just couldn’t compete. He appeared older and more frail. That shouldn’t matter but apparently it did, combined with the failure to constantly promote his accomplishments somehow.
Gretchen
Brian Karem is on Bluesky agreeing with CJR that the Biden press shop was bad, didn’t “promote “ their achievements. Isn’t it the job of the press to explain to the public what they were doing? But that’s HARD!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@TS: He attacks them publicly and flatters them privately. So they just brush off his attacks as him playing politics. The key point is his chaos style and big mouth mean they have a constant stream of content to report on without much effort.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@FelonyGovt:
Same.
RaflW
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Even so, WaPo is not going to see the huge spike in daily visitors they got with TFG 1.0. Or I will be very surprised if they do. Some of that is just the ageing of the audiences.
Younger people are not developing a WaPo/NYT habit, and quite a few people have cancelled and not gone back among the Target audience. Tacking right won’t earn them anything with conservatives. They’ll never trust those sites.
So the moves right will alienate more of who we’re willing to pay (and yes, advertising pays bills, but that needs daily views and engaged readers to command good ad rates).
I don’t celebrate any of this. What we need, we won’t get by WaPo collapsing. But the OP is right that we’ve been in a shitty feedback loop and breaking out of it is a necessary step. What follows? I dunno.
grumbles
After reading that, I consider it my patriotic duty to ignore these nihilistic shitbags.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@RaflW: I still have a WaPo subscription. I click on a lot of actual news, but not on Trump articles. It is a deliberate choice. I don’t care to read their breathless speculations and opinions about his latest blather. I can get the high level overview of what horror he produced today from NPR in route to work.
Citizen Alan
Yeah, but when we saw Obama, he was usually arrogantly and aloofly blacking around all over the place.
Citizen Alan
@Trollhattan: I imagine she’s out buying new kneepads.
Citizen Alan
Yeah, but the problem was that he would defend himself and in the process make them look stupid, and they took offense to that. Remember when some WHPC jackass got snippy because Obama wouldn’t answer a question and he replied ” “Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.” And the media was FUCKING FURIOUS about it!
Ruckus
@Kay:
Joe Biden doesn’t work that way.
As an old not that much younger than Joe Biden and as a past employer of skilled workers, I can say with confidence that many people work the way he does, and many are in a manner, more like shitforbrains. We all have personalities and there are all manner of human personalities to go around. We all learned to be quiet or loud as youngsters, from learning how to get along and not to get into fights for no reason. I’ve said this here before that I didn’t grow from 7 to well into 12 yrs old. And I got shit for that, mainly from assholes. I was pretty sure I would never grow another inch. I’ve grown quite a few of them. And as a freshman in HS I was picked by my class mates to go up on stage and be made fun of by Father Schaffer, a well known ASSHOLE, for being the shortest kid in school. Good Times. I told them to fuck off and that if I stood up I was walking out the back door flipping off Father Schaffer the entire time. And that anyone that tried to stop me would get exactly what they deserved. None of the freshmen had a clue what Father Schaffer was going to do, well, other than me, and the shock on their faces afterwards and the looks they gave me told me that most of them had never seen this level of bullshit. I had seen it most every school year since the second grade. Never to quite this level but the experience was not at all new. I had long ago learned to fight rather dirty and do it right from the start if one wanted to be successful at my size. And well into my 12th year I started growing to what I am now, a couple inches over average height for my age.
Citizen Alan
@Belafon: My absolute favorite Joe Biden moment was when he laughed right in Lester Holt’s face.
Glory b
@Ohio Mom: A professor at the Columbia School of Journalism ince said that they could send interns to the daily briefing, which interns would like and take seriously, while they went out and did some actual investigative journalism.
He had great contempt for pressers.
Ruckus
@tam1MI:
He’d first have to come to the conclusion that he has loser stink on/all over him. I seriously doubt he has any concept of this.
Captain C
@NotMax: There were probably a ton of leaks in that time, though, even if they were juicer than they were substantive.
suzanne
@Citizen Alan: I remember Obama going on the Daily Show, and Stewart asked some dumb question, and Obama just looked at him like he was an idiot and paused and said “No”, with perfect comic timing. The audience busted out laughing. He was so good at those moments.
The vibes are not the whole story, like-ability isn’t the whole story….. but they matter.
Ruckus
@Chris:
The media is on the side that pays them for their efforts.
And as we have seen the media sort of finds their benefactors and then writes to them. If any media source is going to have any concept of who their audience is, it is going to be the people that purchase their product. Because that is what they are doing – creating a product – a product with an attitude, a direction, an interest direction. And really any newspaper is going to have a direction that is slanted towards their largest group of costumers, good, bad or indifferent. The NYT is no different than any other newspaper. Or business. They either bend towards the owner’s point of view or the customers. Whichever makes them the most money. If you own a business that your customers can’t do without and you create a good or great product, you will make money. A newspaper often creates a product that attempts to bend the customer’s thought process to their product’s direction. The more directions they have to aim for often ruins that product. This country is made up of humans from a lot of places/political sides and degrees of fixation with a certain direction. Add directions and you either get a mess or groups join with other groups to strengthen their direction. Any political source, newspapers, radio, TV is going to have a direction. If that direction does not change/go with the largest group of paying customers, the business will lose customers. And no business can lose a lot of customers for long before that bottom line becomes a loss. If the financial loss to the company is big enough, that company can easily go out of business. Newspapers are no different. They have to have a large customer base because printing and delivering a daily costs a lot of money.
moonbat
What I can’t stand is when we gaslight ourselves about this. If 2016 taught us anything it should have been that among the MSM the fix was in against Dems. More Biden pressers and ‘availability’ wasn’t going to change that. It just gave them more footage to selectively edit.
Someone above mentioned Biden laughing at a question from Lester Holt. He did that after Holt implied that Biden was failing/unwell/not campaigning after a week when the president had been doing multiple rallies and events. BUT THE MSM WASN’T COVERING IT. Biden could have showed up to every ribbon cutting, ground breaking, bow-taking opportunity possible but it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference if it wasn’t getting covered. And it wasn’t.
Another Scott
@Kay: They did hear from him frequently.
Also, the organization is called the “White House Press Corps”, not the “Presidential Press Corps”. Their job is to cover events and public statements and actions of the White House organization (EOP) (which is thousands of people, not just one guy or gal).
If they wanted an exciting job, they should have picked another line of work.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.