Christ, that’s saying something…
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I’ve been saying this for a long time. Since well before the election. The media has been like rubberneckers at a train wreck. They already know it is a train wreck. They already know if they don’t keep their eyes on the road they will have a wreck of their own. But they just … can’t … stop … looking.
In this case “looking” means bringing these people on the show to spew their lies on your airtime. You can still report about their lies without giving them yet another platform to broadcast from. Don’t rebroadcast footage of them telling the lie. Merely say, “X told yet another lie today, this time saying ‘Y’ when ‘Z’ is actually the case. Here is the evidence to back up the truth of Z.” In this way, every time they lie about something the actual truth about that thing is reinforced by giving it more airtime than the lie.
Do not bring on yet more sub-liars to debate whether the lie is a lie. You frikkin know it is a lie. Report that the lie was told, show the truth, then move the hell on.
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There aren’t any moderate goopers in office, or almost none on the federal level. But there are plenty of people who didn’t vote or barely voted for The Orangeastrophe.
Exactly.
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Perhaps more effective would be a sharply-worded letter to the managing editor of every news outlet, along the lines of:
“This is fair warning to you: whenever you put Kellyann Conway on your program, I will immediately change channels.”
If they get enough of those messages, they might start thinking about their jobs again.
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I’d spilt them between democratic Republicans and fascist Republicans. It’s the ones plotting the downfall of democracy we have to be worried about.
Policy is almost trivial outside of that. I can live with bad rules if we can vote to change them someday. We’re truly doomed if we can’t even do that much anymore.
And make no mistake: attacking the free press is as anti-democratic as it gets.
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Reporting on the Trump administration’s lies has the effect of spreading and validating them. That’s how the Orwellian Lie works. I prefer to hear 1) reports on the actions of the Trump administration and 2) reports on how people are solving the problems caused by the Trump administration.
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Dub the Game of Thrones scene where the sister cries “Shame! Shame!” as Cersei walks through Kings Landing to have her cry “Lies!” instead and play it whenever appropriate.
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Incidentally:
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Journalists are in a really unenviable position here. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. They have a watchdog role, and the public’s expectation of unbiased reporting and pursuing accountability to meet.
Unfortunately, knowing that what comes out of a spokesperson’s mouth will be flat-out lies isn’t reason enough to not interview them. Then they (the journalists) face accusations of bias, not presenting both sides of the story, censorship, etc.
Add a combatitive spokesman such as Spicer and “alternative facts” Conway into the mix and journalists are, well, fucked.
Disclaimer: I’m an Australian journalist. Who thanks every deity out there that I’m not in America trying to report this absolute clusterfuck right now.
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Not controlled by him but are willing to wait to see what spoils come their way before changing their tunes. Wait and see…
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That would be really fabulous.
BTW, that’s pretty much how NPR is now reporting on Trump
http://www.npr.org/2017/01/20/510629447/watch-live-president-trumps-inauguration-ceremony
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I was on the let-her-languish-in-obscurity camp but you have swayed me. To add what you have said, even if the left leaning news ignored her, the right leaning will continue to give her a platform with little to no push back. So we really need the left leaning news to offset the right by interviewing her and calling her BS and contradictions.
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If I were the press, I’d skip White House briefings, and basically take my questions to Paul Ryan and other congressional leaders. That would unravel Trump more than anything, and congressional republicans would certainly take the bait.
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Thank you. I’ll have to read that later.
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This is true too. And his strongest supporters will only see her exclusion as more “liberal” bias.
I’m not sure that not interviewing her is really an option, anyhow.
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If they (Capital Police) had let the Women’s March crowd into Lafayette Square right away he may have never been seen. Instead the crowd went past the White House blocking traffic along the way and spilling into adjacent streets. I heard the chanting. Thanks for posting now we know why.
Perhaps interviewing Kellyanne is ok as long as the interviewer turns their back towards her and looks at her using a mirror instead.
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So send an intern or a newbie journalist to her with a pre-written set of questions and just have the reporter be a stenographer (as opposed to an interviewer) as she spews her BS and lies. Let the outlet’s more experienced journalists tear apart the BS and lies and absurdities in the full article/package.
Show Conway and Spicer and the rest of the “alternative facts” crowd that their statements are already deemed so worthless and empty that they don’t deserve the news outlet’s best people wasting their time hearing them or interviewing them in person. And never, ever, give their faces or voices TV airtime – statements should be read out by the reporter or anchor in a neutral tone, or put it up on a Chyron. It’s when these media whores are represented only by their words that they’re at their weakest.
If I’m able to safely assume that everything spewing from their mouths are lies and BS even while taking them into account (because the statements do come from the White House and shouldn’t be ignored), the editors at the NYT and NPR and other reputable news brands can certainly do the same.
They still exist, but they don’t have the power they once did in our broken electoral system. The Teabaggers and those who voted for this confidence artist consider moderate Republicans to be the very same GOP party establishment they just rebelled against.
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“alternative facts” is archetypal doublespeak - is there a sense today the widespread condemnation and mockery of it has had any of that effect?
While I do find great humor in the idea of simply ignoring her, or other mouthpieces that continually lie, I think that Trump & Co. would happily accept that, because then it would quickly end up with nobody questioning anybody in the administration at all. Best to keep asking questions and absolutely, LOUDLY point out their lies for all to see. After all, that really is the purpose of a free press and the base purpose of the first amendment.
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