Politicians want to talk. And want to shape their message. Journalists surrender power in these situations. I know “on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog” but I train journalists for a living. The David Brooks’ of the world have sold out.
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Should’ve simplified the question to: “Liar says what?”
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You misunderstood - I was reinforcing what Abramson wrote by framing it in a different way. Abramson framed it as a 14% error. That’s bad. I took the same information and framed it as a time-based error. That’s bad too - dealing in week old information in the midst of a rapidly evolving situation does not speak to competence or grip.
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The “access journalism” being discussed here, as practised by most people in that press room under the Imperial Presidency, is a specific and pejorative term (one known to this former journalist for decades):
Put another way, they’re courtiers.
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I am betting Alt-Washington is also Incel-Washington.
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sorry for jumping straight to war. i had a rough week, and am becoming overly sensitive i think
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Same here. And if Trump ignores the first reporter asking the question, then subsequent reporters should ask the same question until he answers it… or until he sneers a “thank you” (as he did a couple of days ago) and walks off the stage.
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Of course. One side is fascist in this case.
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I won’t link to Brooks’ latest column, but his headline is: “This Is Where I Stand: The power of conservative radicalism in an age of upheaval.”
He’s doing his part!
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Plus there’s a shower of piss-artists from Fox, One America News, Breitbart and whatever they give passes to, ready to feed him questions to nudge him on track.
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100% agree.
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He’s such a douche.
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… and lying to his campaign donors, pretty much since 2015:
The scale of BadOrangeMan’s grift is circles within circles…
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^^^This. Always this.^^^
Had it been a woman of color instead of a man with white hair we would have seen this classic Trump rebuttal. Either that or they finally found a combination of medications that actually calm him down now.
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I think someone gave him the talk we give kids, about how if you want to show true power to people messing with you, you just choose not to give their presence any power over you. About halfway through the whole corona briefing era, he started just walking out when people messed with him much. Someone evidently got through to him.
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Could be!
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And there’s always someone to talk to. Access can be adversarial. The minister only wants to give you “the inside scoop” off the record so it’s “government sources say”? Fine, I know an activist who would be delighted to forensically tear down the legislation and show how far short of what was promised it is.
ETA And they will know the issue much better than the minister having lived it and worked with it for years. The minister is just a professional dilletante rather than a discipline expert in the vast majority of cases. Already you improve the calibre of discourse.
The institutions of power are unwieldy and multifaceted no matter how much centralising the fascists in charge of the UK and US are currently engaged in. Dissent is easy to find. Don’t get the inside line from those on the up. They have departments paid to spread that anyway. Your contribution as a journalist is at best worthless and at worst actively damaging to democracy if you engage in access journalism/beltway courtier/embedded political correspondent models.
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I wouldn’t call Bobo a journalist, and in all fairness I doubt he’d call himself that these days, either. But I wholeheartedly agree that for decades he’s been the most rotten and odious individual whose writing appeared in the pages of the NYT on a regular basis.
The man’s entire remit has been to make educated Boomers who sold out the ideals of their youth and the futures of their children for Reaganism and consumerism feel better about their selfish choice. Dig far enough into any of his disingenuous and intellectually dishonest op-ed pieces and books and you’ll find that mission at its base.
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There’s a wonderful piece from a few years ago that looked at “cocktail circuit” journalists who traded soft-balling for access, and the symbiotic relationship those journalists have established with politicians. It was a wonderful take-down of that “type.” And now I can’t find it.
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