There were a few people asking this question, but not nearly enough. I don’t know where to begin with criticizing the media in this election. It is a very hard job, with little to no appreciation, probably not very good pay (?) and the real journalism is being done in a paper format that is dying. And by that I mean even the online sites with the exact same articles. It’s not dying because the internet is killing paper sales, it is dying because the average American is a moron who can’t read at a high school level. They need their news broken down into 5 minute segments and short sentences like “Make America Great Again.”
How do you cover Trump’s business, which I believe is a private corp making it more difficult, with any real depth when he says and does things that suck all the air out of the room?
Here’s my favorite example: In the second (maybe 3rd?) debate, a moderator asked about David Farentholdt’s reporting on his Foundation. He basically deflected, and then Hillary completely whiffed on her response. Even she didn’t seem to realize the importance of what was going on with the Trump Foundation. He was taking other people’s money to settle private company disputes that should have been paid out of their profits, not the Foundation’s donors’ money! But all Americans seemed to see was, well the money went to Veterans…so…whatever. The Trump Foundation is and was a fucking scam!
The exact same thing happened with Trump’s company. You have to dive through all the muck, all the different deals, all the foreclosures and bankruptcies, the depreciation write offs, the fact that he was blacklisted by all American banks. What we found is he is likely deeply indebted to foreign interests and has significant ties with very shady governments and individuals. But you can’t report all this in a 5 minute segment. So someone like Kurt Eichenwald goes on TV and says:
KE: “what Trump is doing is horrible, let me break it down for you…”
Anchor:“well, we don’t have time for the details, give us the problem in a nutshell.”
KE: “Trump is corrupt”
Anchor: “whoa, let’s not get into the weeds with name calling and ad hominems! Well, that’s all the time we have. Now, for this commercial aimed at the elderly.”
I think it can happen right before their eyes, and they won’t be able to admit they made a mistake and will continue to blame Obama and the Democrats for the upcoming misery. They just don’t have enough depth of humanity and maturity to admit, or care, that they’ve screwed the country.
Cut him some slack. He’s a blue collar billionaire and shes a scion “regular girl”. How long before they start hocking the White House china? They can blame the missing pieces on Bill Clinton.
I thought about putting a black wreath on the door to represent the period of mourning that we will feel when we lose our beautiful First Family…but then I was afraid I would be visited by the SS because it would be misinterpreted…
I will note that nobody in the Trump family acts very much like they are wealthy. If they were actually billionaires, a $10k bracelet would constitute nothing more than pocket change*. Either that or their just greedy, money grubbing assholes who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
*$10k is .001% of $1billion. I.e., 10k is a lot of money in regular people terms, but it’s next to nothing in billionaire terms.
