In the wake of this farce, Ana Marie Cox and I’m sure many others are prominently making the argument often made here that news outlets shouldn’t send anyone, or at least not their leading reporters, to White House briefings. In the situation today you will not discomfit these shameless sociopaths no matter how many questions you ask, and you will not get one true word out of them. Cox said go out and cover the things they don’t want covered. Don’t waste time and talent on this futile arm-wrestling. I think it’s a hell of a good idea. But I don’t think it will happen.
Why not just print the press releases verbatim and skip the press conferences?
Well, even if you could get questions about the release answered in some follow-up way, TV needs sounds and images. They need to show their representative up there, jousting with the administration’s champion. In a word, they need tension. There are no stories by any definition without tension. And going toe to toe with Sarah is, frankly, cheaper and easier than creating stories about, you know, actual stories.
More like toe-to-hoof with Sarah…
They simply refused to be intimidated and the White House backed down.
All it takes is guts. That’s it.
Trump says, and probably superficially thinks, that the media need him because he’s good copy. But deeper down he knows that’s not true. The media existed before Donald came along and would have done fine without him. It was always, always Donald who needed media exposure to get where he thought he wanted to go. He’ll be more and more enraged as the news gets worse, but I don’t think he’ll be able to stop thinking of media coverage as something like oxygen, a necessity for life as he knows it.
Does anybody remember the old comedy routine with Jody Powell and “Question Time”?
The question is who backs down first? These people are trying to rein in the media, and if the media goes for it, because they fear losing access, then the media becomes stenographers, and there’s no need to send high priced talent to cover the WH. If the WH backs down, then tRump will face more of these situations where his lies and evasions get challenged.
tRump needs the media more. The media covers his tweets ffs, and if you take that away, he his screwed.
I may be hopelessly old school but how is a screen capture of a tweet preceded by a brief re-wording of the tweet journalism?
I’ve said this before and it seems to not have made any impression. Maybe we have to buy Prime to get an actual STORY.
You’re right. Why ask questions at all when you know the answers will all be lies? Asking questions and repeating the lies makes the media complicit in deceiving the public. If the WH Press do ask questions they should limit their scope to questions live, “why did you lie to us just now,” or “how can we verify what you’ve just told us so we can publish it,” or my favorite, “how can you stand working for that man?”
Ha ha I’m going to argue with myself now. There’s no information to be gained. But just today Jonathan Chait called the ritual “democracy theater,” a demonstration that the administration can and presumably should be challenged to talk truthfully about and justify its actions. There’s that, and it’s a tradition being performed by a tradition-bound profession, and television networks need images to show. So even if you know perfectly well they’ll tell one lie after another, there are reasons to go. I think a boycott could be an effective protest, but I don’t think that’s likely, so I think the status quo continues.
I think maybe not covering them live is an option. This would allow for “truth sandwiches” and allow the news orgs to cover the event without allowing the administration to simply lie with impunity. Simply start off with a panel discussion of the event, “SHS lied when she said “A” and why.” Play the exchange where the reporter asks their question and her lie. Then go back to a panel where they reiterate what was a lie and what was the truth. It would even allow time for follow ups to be asked in writing, followed by, “We attempted to follow up with the White House but they declined to respond.”
So basically this whole thing has been a stunt and the no more than 1 question per reporter is also an empty threat.
Got it.
But isn’t that pretty much what happens anyway? The producers and editors decide what the lead and secondary stories are, they feature the relevant bits, and add context and comments to the extent that, like, ever happens. I don’t watch broadcast TV much day to day but I doubt many people watch this stuff the way we do, live all the way through.
Yeah, I suppose you are right. I rarely watch live news. Still see no reason to ever show it live. Most won’t see it in real time maybe, but unless you’re Fox, there’s no good reason to allow them to broadcast lies unchallenged.
I doubt it ever would be on the main network feed live. But if you can put it online, why not? Hell, municipal meetings are streamed live now and then archived. Not much reason not to.
I’m with everyone else on the need to really address the constant lying and reality distortion of this administration. Just throwing in a “baseless” occasionally isn’t enough. You have to face it—they lie constantly as a strategy, and denigrate the media, and if you don’t address it straightforwardly it’s going to work. If you alienate wingnuts too bad. This is life and death.
In my humble opinion I say that trump, in taking Acosta’s pass, and Hamhock’s doctored video …has gone against his oath of office again. He vowed before all America and the world, with his hand on a bible, that he would “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…”. Obviously the oath means nothing to him. NOTHING, nothing at all.
I would hope that trampling on the Bill of Rights ought to be grounds for impeachment.
But that is just my own humble opinion.
And I freely admit that I am exceedingly biased in the negative toward trump and his character as a man. May he live in shame and sleep on the couch of shame
As @bazarov said in a different context he’s a …
Needle-dicked bug fucker.
And dang that felt good to say.
Regrettably, with a few exceptions, they are stenographers.