To start, I want to show you a post from CNN’s reconstituted media maven, Brian Stelter. He was speaking with a network honcho about the state of the media these days. Specifically, this top-flight media figure was outright declaring that the media has failed in its mission, given that half the country (according to polls) supports Trump.
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Anonymous TV exec: “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.” https://t.co/zWiIqKYx1b
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 30, 2024
This is kind of staggering to see. Not that we do not believe this is how they have been behaving, but to see this admission coming from the top of a network shows the breadth of this effort. They see it as their mission to bring down Trump, and as a result, not only is objectivity tossed over the transom, but truth and the facts are cut up like so much bait and used as they see fit. This explains all of the slanted coverage we have seen this election season.
And Trump is further exposing their bias. Following his visit to a McDonald’s, where the press shamed themselves by saying the stunt was worthless and accomplished nothing, they defied their own claims by obsessing over smearing Trump for days. No one cares! shrieked the outlets that blasted headlines for days under a number of categories – all concerning his stunt in the drive-through that was driving them crazy.
On Tuesday CNN media guru @BrianStelter said THE RIGHT was making Trump’s McDonald’s publicity stunt a 3-day event, wrong to say the left was obsessed.
Let’s have some fun and commit journalism to explore where the obsession is found.
(We’ll Super-Size the irony at the end)
1/🧵 pic.twitter.com/0y5CCIyG7B— Brad Slager: CNN+ Lifetime Subscriber (@MartiniShark) October 24, 2024
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Now in the last five days the press has been tied in a knot – over garbage. The hype and hysteria over a comedian telling a joke has been shameless, and then Joe Biden arrived and pulled a Joe Biden, calling half of America garbage. Suddenly the press was in quandary: how could they spin this gaffe, excuse President Silveralert, and still push the Puerto Rican Offense at the same time?! Answer: They couldn’t.
The desperation has been magnificent to watch. Biden either never said this, or he did but misspoke, or (my favorite) he spoke with an apostrophe! The White House scrambled and ended up issuing three different transcripts attempting to mop up Joe’s verbal mess. And the press has done everything to help repair this fiasco. But more than making Joe appear cognizant, the real problem was this completely eclipsed their desire to bring down Trump over a joke somebody else told.
The best way to see just how purposeful this effort is in the press, they are trying to spin it that what Biden said had no bearing on Kamala and the campaign, but a comedian’s joke reflects Republican/Trump policies and positions. Biden is the head of the administration where Kamala is second in command, but he has no bearing on her agenda. A comedian few heard of before Sunday however…THAT’S THE OFFICIAL WORD OF THE GOP!
Now Trump has completely upended this by simply riding in a garbage truck, and the press cannot deal with the optics, and they cannot help themselves. CNN cut away from a Kamala Harris tongue-bath segment to cover Trump riding shotgun in a trash truck. The media hate that he did this, and cannot stop themselves from covering him at the same time. At CBS News, the attempt was made to claim Trump merely “tried” to steer the narrative with his truck stop – then, in ignorant fashion, Norah O’Donnell covered him anew as she worked on dismissing this “stunt,” saying it gave Biden no “grace” for his verbal gaffe. (Oh, so he did not speak directly about the comic’s comment, we see.)
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The best example of how Trump has the press unspun and flailing to recover was seen on CNN. Their report from Trump’s rally in Wisconsin has the reporter becoming deeply bothered by his whole effort that day. Listen to the comments by Kristen Holmes as she is clearly trying to recalibrate the fact that Trump’s moves were successful in driving the narrative – and driving the press crazy.
CNN reporter is mad that Trump got in a garbage truck because he is “changing the narrative” pic.twitter.com/CKgSkSFct3
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 30, 2024
A reporter can only be this bothered if there is a built-in opposition to Trump and his successful media grab is working. This displays the inherent opposition seen from journalists, one that is coddled and encouraged by their editors, producers, and executives. They are selling the concept – as Stelter’s executive source admitted – that Trump is unqualified, all while pushing the woman who has displayed nothing at all to show she has qualifications.
Hopefully what this source says is true: that a Trump election win would spell the end of the industry. This is needed. The problems with the press were not only made manifest in 2024, they have been exposed as a deep rot. The real issue is that few are even interested in repairing anything. A reckoning is needed at this point because as they have shown, the press industry has been sabotaged from within and they have no desire to take restorative actions to fix their issues.
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