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The Media Learned Nothing From 2016
The press hasnt broken its most destructive habits when it comes to covering Donald Trump.
6:15 AM ET
James Fallows
National correspondent at The Atlantic
Were seeing a huge error, and a potential tragedy, unfold in real time.
Thats a sentence that could apply to countless aspects of economic, medical, governmental, and environmental life at the moment. What I have in mind, though, is the almost unbelievable failure of much of the press to respond to the realities of the Trump age.
Many of our most influential editors and reporters are acting as if the rules that prevailed under previous American presidents are still in effect. But this president is different; the rules are different; and if it doesnt adapt, fast, the press will stand as yet another institution that failed in a moment of crucial pressure.
In some important ways, media outlets are repeating the mistake made by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In his book about the Mueller investigation, True Crimes and Misdemeanors (and in a New Yorker article), Jeffrey Toobin argues that Muellers tragic flaw was a kind of anachronistic idealismwhich had the same effect as naivete. Mueller knew the ethical standards he would maintain for himself and insist on from his team. He didnt understand that the people he was dealing with thought standards were for chumps. Mueller didnt imagine that a sitting attorney general would intentionally misrepresent his report, which is of course what Bill Barr did. Mueller wanted to avoid an unseemly showdown, or the appearance of a fishing expedition inquiry, that would come from seeking a grand-jury subpoena for Donald Trumps testimony, so he never spoke with Trump under oath, or at all. Trump, Barr, and their team viewed this decorousness as a sign of weakness, which they could exploit.
George Packer: We are living in a failed state
Something similar is going on now with many members of the press.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/media-mistakes/616222/
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The Media Learned Nothing From 2016 (Original Post)
Mme. Defarge
Sep 2020
OP
We must change the narrative! Just turn it off until they bleed advertisers!!
Thekaspervote
Sep 2020
#1
And what the media doesn't understand that is mf45 gets a second term he will destroy
kimbutgar
Sep 2020
#3
Thekaspervote
(32,716 posts)1. We must change the narrative! Just turn it off until they bleed advertisers!!
BigmanPigman
(51,571 posts)2. No surprise here.
kimbutgar
(21,060 posts)3. And what the media doesn't understand that is mf45 gets a second term he will destroy
Them and media figures who spoke out against him will have bullseyes put upon them.
I can see him emboldened to say these reporters need to be killed. hearing Roger Stone saying advocating for insurrection and mf45 saying he wants protesters shot scares the crap out of me!
The warning lights are blinking wildly now on our democracy.