There is a bottom $$$$ line to the Fourth Estate, like any other endeavor. There is the problem of readership, viewers and listeners.
What is the DEMAND? And for what? And by whom?
The Fourth Estate is as subject to US as we are to them. We should be glad that we still have the ability to use the Fourth Estate to communicate with each other in the Trump Era.
It could (turn out to) be a lot worse.
Letās hear it for recycling!!!
He says he likes āpositive thingsā instead.
Oh, right. In fact, even his meanest-sounding insults are actually meant as compliments. Heās too polite to say what he really thinks about other people.
Cognitive rigidity sums up conservatives pretty well. But many other people too, unfortunately. Loosening it makes it possible to notice absurdities in human nature.
Iām sure Roman satirists werenāt the first to observe this.
The Grand Chicken has spoken!
poor little snowflakeā¦ heāll never get over when president Obama made fun of him and the crowd laughedā¦ and he just had to sit there and take it.
typical bully.
Iāve been saying this for literally decades, long before Trump was even a blip on the political radar, and Iām sure Iāll have cause to say it again in the future:
The only thing thinner than Trumpās hair is Trumpās skin.
All late night TV hosts should be there!
you in a good mood today, yay
Trump Will Ditch The WHCA Dinner Again Because Itās āBoringā And āNegativeā
Boring and negative are personal observations indicating self-perspective. Heās afraid of being laughed at and humiliated. Good. Pour it on. Make Trumplethinskin feel even smaller. Turn up the offensive-to-him comments. The TRUTH works. Itās like salt on his wounded ego.
Donald Trump is the Don Rickles of humor.
Are you kidding? This is the WHCA weāre talking about here. Heās their golden goose, and they gotta, yāknow, make sure they have access.
I see no accusation of a conspiracy, either in the text you quoted or in the post itself.
They made the choices to give him air time for attention and ratings.
Thatās not an allegation of a conspiracy.
Not de facto either. Donāt see it.
There is, of course, stuff like this, from Very Fine Person and (Former) Big Media CEO, Les Moonves:
Man, who would have expected the ride weāre all having right now? ā¦ The moneyās rolling in and this is fun.
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Iāve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. Itās a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.
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Donaldās place in this election is a good thingā¦
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It may not be good for America, but itās damn good for CBS.
Our Fourth Estate at its finest, my friends. The sense of mission, of purpose, of patriotic duty, of its proper and necessary role in a constitutional democracy, of journalistic responsibility and integrity, just leaps, or should I say oozes, from every syllable.
At the the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. Because of course.
More capitalism than conspiracy, I think. How does the saying go? Never assume a conspiracy when it can be explained by pure rapacious greed. Or, well, something like that.
Iāll see your Grand Chicken and raise you a Blimp Baby.
Our perceptions differ. The original poster has chosen not to respond. Now youāre indicting the whole industry yourself for aggravated rapaciousness, based on the one famous Les Moonves quote. Thereās a select group here who do the same, seemingly under the impression that every individual in the news industry has a self-imposed duty to save a frivolous and foolish society from itself. Those execs are not monks, OK? They donāt take vows like that. Those large networks are for-profit businesses with a fiduciary responsibility to their owners and shareholders and a need to pay the bills. If people want to see Donald Fucking Trump on their TV, then Donald Fucking Trump is what the people will get. There are many people in the news industry more broadly who are skillful and persistent at exposing public corruption. Theyāre not concentrated so strongly in network and cable news. The industry is in no way monolithic. I would think sophisticated people would understand all that but I find I have to point it out over and over again.
Trump Will Ditch The WHCA Dinner Again
Oh, give him a break. Heās got windmill cancer for christ sake.
I wonder what would happen if we told the MAGA crowd that the fans in their air conditioners are actually miniature windmills put there by Democrats to cause cancer - and the only way to stay safe is not to use their AC this summerā¦?
That they do. Perhaps you can show me where Iām wrong. Because my perceptions differ from those of Trumpers too, but that doesnāt make us equally right. Here, itās easy. Just point out the conspiracy language.
So what?
Thatās anā¦ interesting characterization. The part you left out is that he was president of one of the largest, most powerful and most influential infotainment companies for twenty-three years. You didnāt even bother to claim that itās in any way an outlier or atypical, because you know damn well itās not. Becauseā¦
Well, thatās very solicitous. And, indeed, yes, they do have a profit motive, which is awesome. Just like for-profit hospitals, prisons, health insurance companies. How dare I make a moral comment on such all-American, free-market ideals as these? Who cares if they play a substantial hand in running the country into the ground, denying health care, warehousing people at the least possible cost for maximum profit? Theyāve got bills to pay, after all, and shareholders to deliver to. We wouldnāt want to muddy things by any discussion of unicorn stuff like civic duty ā although in the case of the Fourth Estate, I must wonder why, if theyāre Just Another Business, they get such extra-special protection in the Constitution of the United States. One might think that a small duty, a sense of oneās role in a functioning constitutional democracy, would arise out of such extra-special protection, but one, apparently, would be wrong.
āMonksā, indeed. Nobodyās asking for monastic vows here, or poverty, either. Just a few shreds of decency. So Iāll thank you to put the straw back where you found it.
I canāt believe Iām reading thisā¦ stuff.
JFC what are you, obsessed with me? Do I have to go to the mods about this? I just gave you a medium-length and mostly polite answer to your list of objections to certain of my opinions and then whoops, I come back and youāve upped the vitriol level 700 percent and Iām excusing the parasites who are drawing us into the pit of oblivion and yadda yadda yadda. Just lighten up, Jesus. I think the idea that the media arenāt entirely bad is pretty defensible.
Donāt flatter yourself. Or personalize this; that skirts the ad-hom line and indeed may cross it. You know damn well this is an issue I care about, and if Iām āobsessedā about anything, itās the issue, not you; as well as some glaring inconsistencies in your responses on the issue.
For what? Responding to public comments in a public forum?
As you know, I referred to this comment of yours in my other one. Re-reading it reminded me of just how disingenuous it was ā at the time, and still now.
Oh FFS, just stop. Like it or not, those are completely valid inferences to draw from what you wrote. Your own comment here, to which I was responding, was pretty damn vitriolic in its own right. Nobody was claiming that media industry execs had to be monks or āsave a frivolous and foolish society from itselfā. Nobody wrote that. Nobody even implied that. Thereās a word for that form of argumentation. All I suggested was that there might juuuuuuust be a little duty to society beyond the profit maximization āfiduciary dutyā to shareholders. You completely ignored that. And, ICYMI, I suggested that, just perhaps, that āfiduciary dutyā of unrestrained and unfettered profit maximization, by any means necessary or convenient, might be just a wee tad out of place in certain āindustriesā, if you want to call them that ā āindustriesā like treating/curing disease and injury, housing and (dare I say it) rehabilitating people convicted of crimes, and yes, the provision of news and the profession of journalism. Nor is there any suggestion whatsoever in your comments here that you think any such duty exists, or that that profit motive should be restrained in any way. None. I happen to find that position rather appalling, and itās far from the mere position that āthe media arenāt entirely bad.ā Thatās a retroactive watering-down of what you wrote here. You are responsible for the words you write.
Now, I thought that part of what we did here was debate such positions. But that appears to upset you. Your positions, however, are not immune from criticism, even fierce criticism, that thing youāve decided to personalize and call āvitriolā. But itās not about you, itās about what you write and the positions youāve taken. Thatās the heat level in the kitchen, at least when Iām cooking, and donāt even try to suggest that you havenāt had a hand in turning up the gas yourself.
And JFTR, you still havenāt pointed out any language suggesting āconspiracyā youāre claiming fuzz was on about in the original comment, on which you based your accusation of conspiracy-mongering.