Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Sorry But He’s Still the POTUS
There’s a bizarre new push from some in the media to stop carrying the President when he talks. His rallies I could do without, but in advance of his address to the nation tomorrow night about the shutdown and the state of the southern border, media watchers and commentators have been pressuring the networks not to carry the address.
I'm waiting to hear back from ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox broadcast about whether they will carry Trump's prime time address tomorrow night. The networks don't automatically say yes when a president asks for airtime.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 7, 2019
Finally the networks agreed to cover the speech from the President of the United States, with CNN’s media reporter reporting later:
For network execs, tradition and news judgment — "a presidential address from the Oval Office" — outweighed concerns about a speech filled with falsehoods. https://t.co/JLHsrkdRQz
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 8, 2019
Sadly, this appears to be a minority opinion:
I’m in what appears to be the limited media camp that this is the right call.
The federal government’s closing in on a historically long impasse. The person at the top of it should say *something* of substance, and people should easily be able to watch.
Go from there. https://t.co/SgGRROjLw5
— Ross Maghielse (@Maghielse) January 8, 2019
My friend (and fellow LadyBrain podcaster) correctly pointed out:
Okay—networks don't want to cover Trump's address? Fine.
They should also agree not to give any analysis of it thereafter.
You can't say it's your mission to inform people and then, in lieu of informing them, give them only a manipulative version of events.
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) January 7, 2019
How much does the media expect to get away with? Can they really refuse the President of the United States air time while he’s addressing the country about a potential executive action and a shutdown that’s affecting air travel (the TSA isn’t being paid and there are massive “sick-outs” being reported) and IRS refunds? For a good portion of the day, they pretended they could, that they would be the arbiters of what he said, but without giving Americans the courtesy of at least hearing it from the horse’s mouth first.
This gambit may have worked in a time before the Internet, but it certainly won’t fly now. As much as the press doesn’t like the President, they can’t stop the American people from listening to what he has to say. It is an unbelievable amount of chutzpah for members of the press to even pretend that they are charged with ‘protecting’ the American people from hearing the words of the President of the United States.
Once again, for a press scratching its head about the plummeting levels of trust the American people have in their judgment, here’s a clue: your job isn’t to prevent Americans from hearing the President; it’s to report on what he says. The President may go to the “the media are the enemy” well too frequently, but let’s keep in mind he keeps returning only because he finds water there each time.
Published in Journalism
“A speech filled with falsehoods”
Apparently Stelter owns a time machine.
Hear, hear!
What should we do about our awful media class?
Because we really need to do something.
They are reluctant to normalize him.
They have a great illusion going. Grab a few words from a presser by the helicopter, spend ten minutes with ‘experts’ telling people what he meant, what he wants, what he’s thinking and how wrong/stupid/ evil he is.
I wish they would all grow up. It’s so tiresome to see their tantrums and hand wringing.
It’s very arrogant and reinforces Trump’s opinion of them along with many Americans – selective opinionated coverage – not real news.
I’ll allow it if they stop carrying all future Presidential speeches.
What do you mean “going to the ‘media are the enemy’ well too much”? He can’t do it enough for me. That’s why I supported him in the first place, and continue to. He takes the fight to the Enemy, and the “press” is Public Enemy Number One. And how dare the “press” purport to do any “fact checking”, when they do not admit that there are such things as facts?
Sort of like de-platforming him.
Editor Note:
That may be so but you must adhere to Ricochet’s code of conduct nevertheless.It is entirely possible that I may be wallowing in other issues. During these times. I am less inclined to adhere to common civilities. [Redacted] the MSM. That is all.
“We’ll pretend he’s really not the President.”
I see such a view as a continuation (escalation?) of their desire to undo the election of 2016.
Consistent with what @bethanymandel says in the OP, I cite actions such as this as part of why I don’t trust the “news” media.
[There may also be media concern that what the President is likely to say will reveal to more people that the Democrats are the unreasonable party in efforts to resolve the partial government shutdown.]
Even I’m smart enough to figure out this cause and effect.
Wait, wait, wait… There are people who still watch ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox broadcast television? Netflix isn’t running the speech, is it?
No one watches TV anymore. If the networks don’t want to carry the speech, it won’t matter.
If the networks throw a tantrum and there’s no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
FST,
I think you have hit the nerve. Like a child putting their hands over their ears and going nah..nah..nah..nah, they wish Trump didn’t exist. At this point, I had hoped they would snap out of it and start to be more concerned about the country rather than their own bruised egos. They apparently think they are the country as they revel in their echo chamber. They need to import as many illiterate migrants as they can. They need to manipulate the young. They look for resentments and exacerbate them if at all possible. When the only thing you have to sell is deranged propaganda you need weak characters to sell it to.
They think of themselves as the shapers of public opinion. A boring collection of parasites would be a more apt description of them.
Regards,
Jim
Lots of people watch tv. I don’t. I don’t even own one. The speech will be live on YouTube and Facebook. (I don’t have FaceBook either. I deleted my account last year and don’t miss it at all.) so Network’s are losing some influence but still have a lot of it.
Almost makes me long for Mike ‘wouldn’t alert a US soldier of an enemy because journalistic ethics’ Wallace. His principles were screwed up, but at least he had principles.
I like to refer to them as “CNN (formerly a news network)” and “NYT (formerly a newspaper)”.
Back during the 2016 primary season — when the conventional wisdom in Washington and New York was Trump would be a disaster as nominee and the Republicans at at least 3-4 other candidates who would have a better chance of beating Hillary — the broadcast networks, and especially CNN, had no problem giving Trump as much uninterrupted air time as possible, because they were 110 percent sure just letting him speak would stir up the GOP base for him, but make him unelectable among the swing voters in November. And once the primaries were over we transitioned into the current mode, albeit less hyperbolic, where the networks were far more interesting in picking and choosing Trump sound bites on which then could then execute punditry against.
That’s what they’d really prefer to do Tuesday — brief sound bites of the speech, followed by extended punditry against it. But after three weeks of saying the government shutdown is the biggest nightmare to befall the nation since it was decimated by tax cuts and the end of net neutrality a year ago, even the nets couldn’t justify to themselves not carrying the speech in full (and while. yes, they did deny Obama air time to deliver a speech while he was in office, they hadn’t being going 24/7 about what Obama was going to speak about while caterwauling about how the president was plunging the nation into crisis).
I quit a few years ago myself, and life is so much better.
It’s working.
How much? Everything.My guess is they will carry the President’s address because they think they can do more damage letting him speak, then applying tons of negative analysis. Besides, they know the speech will be available on other media, so they can’t hide anything any more like they could in the good old, three networks-and-PBS days . . .
In before “It’s their right!”
It’s all the rage!
(Rage being an appropriate word.)
I have one, but it’s only there for watching Netflix or DVDs.
And yet supposedly I get all my information from Fox News! And supposedly the only reason I support the President is because I’ve been brainwashed by Fox News.
This set a very bad precedent. It can be cited to avoid covering any Trump attempts to communicate. I did not like Obama, but when a President asks to speak to the nation, it should be granted.
“Networks scramble to give equal time to Republicans following Obama addressing the nation”
A headline you never saw.
PBS isn’t a private entity; CPB isn’t and I don’t think NPR qualifies as private either. Do they get a choice? What are they doing?
Not that I really care.
And I would suspect that a large proportion of the potentially persuadable people are the TV watchers who are not immersed in digital media.
Yes, absolutely.