Post by acptulsa on Feb 19, 2017 8:42:04 GMT -8
ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos ended with the host--who was not George Stephanopoulos--looking at the camera and, in gloriously self-righteous tones, declaring that the free press is a wonderful thing. He promised that the media will continue to be the media, as though there was any doubt.
What he did not do was parse the statement from the president which precipitated the whole conversation. The statement itself was revealing, and the fact that an ostensibly defensive media refused to take it at face value was simply funny as hell. Trump said, the media is not his enemy, it's the enemy of the American people. It does not take a deep understanding of the English language to see that this does not put Trump and the American people on the same side. We can all take this as a cue that we should have a childlike faith that Donald Trump is on our side, I suppose. But what the man said was just exactly the opposite. He drew a line in the sand with those words. And he and the media are on one side, while we are all--liberal and conservative alike--on the other.
The media is making hay while our attention span lasts about the horrible Russians and their interference in our election. The vigorous free press, they say, is essential to the nation and they will continue to be vigorous in telling us how terrible the Russians were to muck about in our electoral process. But what is this great intervention that they're talking about? Simply put, the Russians got ahold of some inside information from one of the major party presidential candidates' campaign and revealed it to the American voting public.
Yes, that was really what they did.
Now, the Russians did get ahold of that information by hacking some emails. Is that deplorable? Yes, friends, it is. And the next time you email to a friend that your toaster broke, then before you even begin shopping for one, you begin seeing ads for toasters popping up around the edges of your favorite news site or forum, you should be deplored. But when it comes to major party candidates getting their sensitive information sucked from their email accounts by the Russians, maybe we should be more alarmed that a major party would put forth a candidate so ignorant, or so cavalier, about security.
In any case, the bottom line is that the Russians revealed information about one of our candidates that our media didn't. And our media considers that deplorable. Would they have considered it deplorable if it had been Lincoln Chaffe or Jim Webb whose campaign secrets had been broadcast in that way? Or does it only rise to the level of deplorable if it's their candidate of choice? Or was it deplorable because a rich and powerful person should have a greater expectation of privacy than the rest of us? Would that mean they agreed with Trump when he said he should be the exception to the age-old American tradition that political candidates cannot sue for libel and slander?
Russia is deplorable for revealing facts about our political candidates to the American voter. There's the bottom line. The media considers informing the American voter to be interference in an American election. Everyone figures it's the media's job to inform American voters. But apparently the media considers information from the Russian government to be tainted, somehow. There is no dispute that the information the Russians provided is factual. There may be some question about whether it was gentlemanly of the Russians to be poking around in the emails of the Clinton campaign. But no one is alleging that the Russians lied to us. This free, vigorous, independent press of song and story is simply telling us that when the Russians provided the American voters with factual information that the media did not give us, the Russians were interfering with the American election.
The implication is clear. It does not take much reading between these lines to see that the media does not actually consider itself to be the provider of information for the American voter, in the sense of a vigorous watchdog ferreting out facts from below the surface. No, it's abundantly clear that the corporate-sponsored media unabashedly views itself as the information gatekeeper, meting and doling out our pablum like a nutritionist to a baby, self-righteously ensuring that we don't get any little chance to swallow anything that wasn't pasteurized for our protection. Or, at least, for someone's protection.
Russia is depolrable because it exposed you to factual information. Think about that. Is factual information a problem now? If there's no dispute about whether the information was factual, what could possibly be wrong with it? Clearly, someone considers this the wrong factual information. Clearly, someone considers it essential to the American electoral process that the American electorate maintain a certain level of ignorance.
The media isn't Trump's enemy. The media handed Trump the nomination on silver platter. The media gave Trump a gazillion dollars' worth of publicity absolutely free of charge. The media carefully maintained just confrontational enough a relationship with Trump that he could sell himself as an outsider, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The media is not his enemy. The media is the enemy of the American people. The media demonizes Russia for doing the media's job, for exposing us to facts that the media withheld from us, and then preaches to us about the glory of the free, independent, vigorous American press.
No wonder the Comedy Channel and The Onion are struggling. Who can compete with this stuff?
What he did not do was parse the statement from the president which precipitated the whole conversation. The statement itself was revealing, and the fact that an ostensibly defensive media refused to take it at face value was simply funny as hell. Trump said, the media is not his enemy, it's the enemy of the American people. It does not take a deep understanding of the English language to see that this does not put Trump and the American people on the same side. We can all take this as a cue that we should have a childlike faith that Donald Trump is on our side, I suppose. But what the man said was just exactly the opposite. He drew a line in the sand with those words. And he and the media are on one side, while we are all--liberal and conservative alike--on the other.
The media is making hay while our attention span lasts about the horrible Russians and their interference in our election. The vigorous free press, they say, is essential to the nation and they will continue to be vigorous in telling us how terrible the Russians were to muck about in our electoral process. But what is this great intervention that they're talking about? Simply put, the Russians got ahold of some inside information from one of the major party presidential candidates' campaign and revealed it to the American voting public.
Yes, that was really what they did.
Now, the Russians did get ahold of that information by hacking some emails. Is that deplorable? Yes, friends, it is. And the next time you email to a friend that your toaster broke, then before you even begin shopping for one, you begin seeing ads for toasters popping up around the edges of your favorite news site or forum, you should be deplored. But when it comes to major party candidates getting their sensitive information sucked from their email accounts by the Russians, maybe we should be more alarmed that a major party would put forth a candidate so ignorant, or so cavalier, about security.
In any case, the bottom line is that the Russians revealed information about one of our candidates that our media didn't. And our media considers that deplorable. Would they have considered it deplorable if it had been Lincoln Chaffe or Jim Webb whose campaign secrets had been broadcast in that way? Or does it only rise to the level of deplorable if it's their candidate of choice? Or was it deplorable because a rich and powerful person should have a greater expectation of privacy than the rest of us? Would that mean they agreed with Trump when he said he should be the exception to the age-old American tradition that political candidates cannot sue for libel and slander?
Russia is deplorable for revealing facts about our political candidates to the American voter. There's the bottom line. The media considers informing the American voter to be interference in an American election. Everyone figures it's the media's job to inform American voters. But apparently the media considers information from the Russian government to be tainted, somehow. There is no dispute that the information the Russians provided is factual. There may be some question about whether it was gentlemanly of the Russians to be poking around in the emails of the Clinton campaign. But no one is alleging that the Russians lied to us. This free, vigorous, independent press of song and story is simply telling us that when the Russians provided the American voters with factual information that the media did not give us, the Russians were interfering with the American election.
The implication is clear. It does not take much reading between these lines to see that the media does not actually consider itself to be the provider of information for the American voter, in the sense of a vigorous watchdog ferreting out facts from below the surface. No, it's abundantly clear that the corporate-sponsored media unabashedly views itself as the information gatekeeper, meting and doling out our pablum like a nutritionist to a baby, self-righteously ensuring that we don't get any little chance to swallow anything that wasn't pasteurized for our protection. Or, at least, for someone's protection.
Russia is depolrable because it exposed you to factual information. Think about that. Is factual information a problem now? If there's no dispute about whether the information was factual, what could possibly be wrong with it? Clearly, someone considers this the wrong factual information. Clearly, someone considers it essential to the American electoral process that the American electorate maintain a certain level of ignorance.
The media isn't Trump's enemy. The media handed Trump the nomination on silver platter. The media gave Trump a gazillion dollars' worth of publicity absolutely free of charge. The media carefully maintained just confrontational enough a relationship with Trump that he could sell himself as an outsider, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The media is not his enemy. The media is the enemy of the American people. The media demonizes Russia for doing the media's job, for exposing us to facts that the media withheld from us, and then preaches to us about the glory of the free, independent, vigorous American press.
No wonder the Comedy Channel and The Onion are struggling. Who can compete with this stuff?
