Pernicious lie: Trust The Leader.
Truth: The things this man says have no resemblance to truth.
Pernicious, unstated lie: The President gets to decide what is and is not fake news.
Truth: We have a free press enshrined in our founding documents.
Source: Amendment 1 of the US Constitution, reading in part: "...or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Falsehood used to advance the underlying lie: CNN is fake news.
Truth: CNN is real news.
Source: CNN acted in accordance with journalistic integrity. They did not publish the dossier, but did inform us that there is reason to believe the PEOTUS is in the pocket of Russia.
It doesn't actually matter if the dossier is true. CNN published an important story that they had reason to believe was true and relevant, and omitted the worse details.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/313777-trump-berates-cnn-reporter-for-fake-news
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/313777-trump-berates-cnn-reporter-for-fake-news
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Contrast with this lie: "Obama is a foreign born Kenyan muslim terrorism"
ReplyDeleteObama never threatened to remove press credentials, no matter how much time was given to birther nonesense.
Contrast to The West Wing: Wapo (I believe) published a story negative of Bartlett. His press Secretary suggests they retaliate. Instead, POTUS cancels his personal subscription, as it is no longer a publishes he wishes to see in the morning. Not the 1,000+ subscriptions for the White House -- just the one going to the Residence.
This is how a President with a respect for truth and democracy acts.
Yeah, CNN was pretty responsible with this. I have problems with some of their coverage and lack of coverage, but this is fine.
ReplyDeleteTrump is just having a big man-baby tantrum.
(Huh. I mistyped that the first time and wrote it as, "Tantrump." I'll have to remember that one.)
EDIT: This might be one of those things where Trump doesn't understand which things are the same and which are different. Like, he might honestly not realize that it was Buzzfeed that released the whole thing, whereas CNN: 1. isn't Buzzfeed, 2. didn't release the whole thing.
It's like that thing where Trump doesn't seem to understand the connection between Wikileaks, Russian hackers, and Assange.
Michael Moceri Almost entirely agreed, except on the "just".
ReplyDeleteTo say he's "just" having a tantrump suggests, at least to my way of thinking, that there's nothing deeper going on. I think this is part of a strategy, rather than just an emotional reaction to people being mean to him. I don't think he's the mastermind, but rather is being manipulated by those who control the puppet.
I could be wrong! I for sure hope so! But, I think it is ... reckless is too strong, but in the right neighborhood -- to say this is just POETUS being a crybaby.
FWIW, some context: 1/7/2017, the New York Times published an opinion piece by one of their writers, who detailed effective citizen-activist routes to undermining the "game the AI" business model through which Breitbart, specifically, pulls advertising dollars from companies that would never willingly pay them.
ReplyDelete1/8/2017: Breitbart went on a no-holds-barred counter-offensive against ... basically ... the entire rest of the media, calling outlet after outlet "fake news." It shows up as the lede on articles specifically calling out other outlets, it shows up in attributions in articles where they're depending upon the reporting of other outlets. Hard to say for sure, but it may be a site-wide new editorial direction to be at constant war against the legitimacy of other news organizations.
1/11/2017: Trump dismisses the legitimacy of respected media outlet by calling it "fake news."
Hey, there's one possible strategy. POETUS may be implementing, whether he knows it or not.
ReplyDeleteThese press conferences were so much better in the original German.
ReplyDeleteWe're finally seeing the result of the last Republican administration's cynical manipulation of the intelligence community and media come to fruition. They successfully de-legitimized the New York Times and other stalwarts of journalism by feeding lies and getting the media to report those lies.
ReplyDeleteThey know major news organizations report fake news. They have the receipts.
The right has learned that truth doesn't matter. The only objective reality is power and wealth.
This is the inevitable result of politicizing and mobilizing radicalized evangelical fundamentalist Christians. People who choose to believe things that are dubious at best and demonstrably false at worst. When faith becomes more important than reason or evidence, there can be no discourse.
[ Everybody: Please be kind to Brian. He's not on G+ much, and is accustomed to the cesspit that is reddit. ]
ReplyDeleteBrian: You may well be right. I'm undertaking a longitudinal study of news outlets, trying to get an idea of their patterns from the variety in their reporting on known public facts. So far the New York Times is holding up fairly well, but I'll keep my eyes open for problems.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, a big factor in good journalism is proper attribution. My sense is that in the previous administration, the major outlets were frequently put in the position of saying "The White House reports that . Press Secretary Tony Snow said ''" I feel that, in cases where the lies are not immediately disprovable, it's legitimate journalism to report "This person said this thing." That is, after all, fact ... and makes clear the lines of authority regarding the original information: You should trust it to some approximation of the product of your trust that the NYT wouldn't lie about what Snow said, and your trust that Snow wouldn't lie in the first place.