Let's turn your supposition round, Dan, and ask: How will the media treat a President Harris? And if past is prologue, she will get a rough treatment...because she's a Democrat! tRump skates because....well, because he's tRump, a magnet for eyeballs, and a guaranteed moneymaker.
But Harris? Uh-uh, fair game for non-stop criticism, and where barely-concealed sexism will yet again prevail in coverage.
Bottom line: Bad news for all of us who just want factual and fair reporting, no matter which of the two occupy the Oval Office the next four years.
I think we know what our future is where the corporate media is concerned. If Trump wins, they will comply for fear of the concentration camp (which they will get anyway). The other question is what will they do when he loses and starts the same bullshit he pulled in 2020? Will they do the right thing and push back hard? Or will they cower in the face of the bully and repeat all of his mad rantings and lies about voter fraud and election theft? I wouldn't bet two cents they won't.
If Trump wins, the corporate media is going to roll over before he even takes office (see Washington Post) and it's not going to do them a damned bit of good. They might continue as mouthpieces as the new regime but the "independent journalism" the New York Times self-righteously boasted about will be dead as a doornail.
Mr. Froomkin, if Trump wins again you and many other members of the media (along with any/all Trump critics) need to fear for your lives. The Fourth Reich will have arrived in the US.
thanks as always, Dan. so frustrated and outraged that the most influential legacy outlets improved what, a week ago? after 30 million or so votes were already banked. does it matter now?
after nine years of endless frustration as story after story, year after year, hewed to the rigorous both-sides model and to pitiless parsing of the truth so that outrageous, copious lies were not what they are but some fuzzier terms that hung like a haze in the air but never punctured it with the brutal realities: lies, vicious lies.
all we were asking was for things to be called by their right name. now that would have been bracing, might have slowed the disgusting creep of euphemism that shielded so many powerful as they oozed toward embracing Trumpism, or at least accepting it to avoid the enemies' list. the antidote to the negation of reality and truth is in asserting those things as real and true.
watching the free press unwittingly but so stubbornly do the opposite of its purpose, by obfuscating rather than enlightening, is sickening. that if Trump wins, it will be partly responsible is heartbreaking but also enraging. their refusal to engage with these issues in good faith, instead standing haughty in their splendor, will have been an immeasurable contribution in kind to not just Trump but the forces of darkness poised to take over our governance and smash the republic.
sorry I'm so het up. media critics like you have been screaming into the void for years, and millions of us are with you. the betrayal by what are supposed to be the bringers of light is awfully hard to take.
A lot of the big media backed him. They are rich people who don’t want their income taxed. Lack of control of big business under Trump is what they want. They do not want the government interfering with their exploiting the American people.
Except for suspect polls and the betting market, all signs point to the orange felon going down to a historic defeat. I'm hoping for McGovern numbers, but any old landslide will do.
The media—using the broadest definition possible—still lacks a unified protocol for addressing the scale and severity of misinformation, as well as its own reliance on false equivalencies. This issue extends far beyond any single election outcome. As Bill Clinton recently noted, regardless of who wins, the anti-democratic, racist ideologies and their advocates will persist well beyond this presidency. The attacks on media credibility and integrity will endure.
Just as political or advocacy organizations hold post-election strategy sessions and lawyers prepare for election-related challenges, media organizations should be developing their own post-election strategies. Journalism schools, too, have a critical role to play; they should showcase initiatives that address the challenges posed by social media, curb the excessive use of false equivalencies, and develop rigorous methods for combating misinformation.
It’s time for the media and the institutions that support it to take meaningful steps to safeguard truth and democracy in this era of unprecedented informational warfare.
We need to magnify your concerns shared by Margaret Sullivan, Mark Jacob among others.
The "problem" is not just Trump. Trump's irrational, irresponsible, immoral, and incompetent behavior is a combination of his dyslexia and his childhood abuse from his alcoholic/authoritarian father. It is why Trump learned to lie to hide his illiteracy and learned to abuse others to hide his incompetence.
HOWEVER, almost all of Trump's supporters have the same combination of pathology as to their vision and childhood. THAT is why Trump's predatory dealings with people resonate with his supporters who fail to realize that he willingly will abuse and take advantage of them as he does his non-supporters.
Absolute truth, Dan. MSM completely threw all of us, and democracy, down, into the path of obeying in advance. Except for too few opinion voices, no real comparison of what was at stake was attempted. This is why myself, and thousands, maybe millions of us, rely on Substack, and other alternative news sources. We cannot rely on sane-washing BS if we want to keep the vote; progress in socially conscious actions; reduce the effects of climate change; promote true equality and opportunity amongst the sexes, identities, and ethnicities; and lessen the grip the top 2% millionaires and billionaires hold on our income inequality. We definitely must fight for a free and truth serving press to achieve such goals.
You don't realize everything you said applies to Biden. You can replace "Trump" with "Biden" and not miss a beat. And Harris will carry on Biden's "policies" which mean more bombs to Israel for the GENOCIDE, more bombs to Ukraine for the destruction of Ukrainians and the theft of that country for the likes of Blackrock, no healthcare/education for all, no housing for the homeless, more illegal coups and attacks on sovereign countries (ILLEGAL WARS) for the coffers of the MIC, the elites, the corporations, the rich. After all, she gleefully welcomed the war hawks into her campaign, and befriends the eugenicists, and no doubt will be on board for the next fake "pandemic," and shoving deadly vaccines on the public. next to GENOCIDE, worst of all, she's going to destroy the First Amendment, is already on board for the censorship that's already happening. Trump is not for these things, except he supports that shi tty Israel in its genocide. He has assets she doesn't: Kennedy and Gabbard, probably Stein, too. Do better research.
Let's turn your supposition round, Dan, and ask: How will the media treat a President Harris? And if past is prologue, she will get a rough treatment...because she's a Democrat! tRump skates because....well, because he's tRump, a magnet for eyeballs, and a guaranteed moneymaker.
But Harris? Uh-uh, fair game for non-stop criticism, and where barely-concealed sexism will yet again prevail in coverage.
Bottom line: Bad news for all of us who just want factual and fair reporting, no matter which of the two occupy the Oval Office the next four years.
This time around?!?! If the media had done its job the past four years, the country wouldn’t be faced with a “this time around” scenario, frankly.
I think we know what our future is where the corporate media is concerned. If Trump wins, they will comply for fear of the concentration camp (which they will get anyway). The other question is what will they do when he loses and starts the same bullshit he pulled in 2020? Will they do the right thing and push back hard? Or will they cower in the face of the bully and repeat all of his mad rantings and lies about voter fraud and election theft? I wouldn't bet two cents they won't.
If Trump wins, the corporate media is going to roll over before he even takes office (see Washington Post) and it's not going to do them a damned bit of good. They might continue as mouthpieces as the new regime but the "independent journalism" the New York Times self-righteously boasted about will be dead as a doornail.
Mr. Froomkin, if Trump wins again you and many other members of the media (along with any/all Trump critics) need to fear for your lives. The Fourth Reich will have arrived in the US.
The 4th Reich arrived with censorship first. That's the Harris plan, already humming along.
thanks as always, Dan. so frustrated and outraged that the most influential legacy outlets improved what, a week ago? after 30 million or so votes were already banked. does it matter now?
after nine years of endless frustration as story after story, year after year, hewed to the rigorous both-sides model and to pitiless parsing of the truth so that outrageous, copious lies were not what they are but some fuzzier terms that hung like a haze in the air but never punctured it with the brutal realities: lies, vicious lies.
all we were asking was for things to be called by their right name. now that would have been bracing, might have slowed the disgusting creep of euphemism that shielded so many powerful as they oozed toward embracing Trumpism, or at least accepting it to avoid the enemies' list. the antidote to the negation of reality and truth is in asserting those things as real and true.
watching the free press unwittingly but so stubbornly do the opposite of its purpose, by obfuscating rather than enlightening, is sickening. that if Trump wins, it will be partly responsible is heartbreaking but also enraging. their refusal to engage with these issues in good faith, instead standing haughty in their splendor, will have been an immeasurable contribution in kind to not just Trump but the forces of darkness poised to take over our governance and smash the republic.
sorry I'm so het up. media critics like you have been screaming into the void for years, and millions of us are with you. the betrayal by what are supposed to be the bringers of light is awfully hard to take.
A lot of the big media backed him. They are rich people who don’t want their income taxed. Lack of control of big business under Trump is what they want. They do not want the government interfering with their exploiting the American people.
Except for suspect polls and the betting market, all signs point to the orange felon going down to a historic defeat. I'm hoping for McGovern numbers, but any old landslide will do.
Thanks Dan,
The media—using the broadest definition possible—still lacks a unified protocol for addressing the scale and severity of misinformation, as well as its own reliance on false equivalencies. This issue extends far beyond any single election outcome. As Bill Clinton recently noted, regardless of who wins, the anti-democratic, racist ideologies and their advocates will persist well beyond this presidency. The attacks on media credibility and integrity will endure.
Just as political or advocacy organizations hold post-election strategy sessions and lawyers prepare for election-related challenges, media organizations should be developing their own post-election strategies. Journalism schools, too, have a critical role to play; they should showcase initiatives that address the challenges posed by social media, curb the excessive use of false equivalencies, and develop rigorous methods for combating misinformation.
It’s time for the media and the institutions that support it to take meaningful steps to safeguard truth and democracy in this era of unprecedented informational warfare.
We need to magnify your concerns shared by Margaret Sullivan, Mark Jacob among others.
The "problem" is not just Trump. Trump's irrational, irresponsible, immoral, and incompetent behavior is a combination of his dyslexia and his childhood abuse from his alcoholic/authoritarian father. It is why Trump learned to lie to hide his illiteracy and learned to abuse others to hide his incompetence.
HOWEVER, almost all of Trump's supporters have the same combination of pathology as to their vision and childhood. THAT is why Trump's predatory dealings with people resonate with his supporters who fail to realize that he willingly will abuse and take advantage of them as he does his non-supporters.
See www.trumphasdyslexia.com for the videos, screening tests, and detailed explanation.
Absolute truth, Dan. MSM completely threw all of us, and democracy, down, into the path of obeying in advance. Except for too few opinion voices, no real comparison of what was at stake was attempted. This is why myself, and thousands, maybe millions of us, rely on Substack, and other alternative news sources. We cannot rely on sane-washing BS if we want to keep the vote; progress in socially conscious actions; reduce the effects of climate change; promote true equality and opportunity amongst the sexes, identities, and ethnicities; and lessen the grip the top 2% millionaires and billionaires hold on our income inequality. We definitely must fight for a free and truth serving press to achieve such goals.
You don't realize everything you said applies to Biden. You can replace "Trump" with "Biden" and not miss a beat. And Harris will carry on Biden's "policies" which mean more bombs to Israel for the GENOCIDE, more bombs to Ukraine for the destruction of Ukrainians and the theft of that country for the likes of Blackrock, no healthcare/education for all, no housing for the homeless, more illegal coups and attacks on sovereign countries (ILLEGAL WARS) for the coffers of the MIC, the elites, the corporations, the rich. After all, she gleefully welcomed the war hawks into her campaign, and befriends the eugenicists, and no doubt will be on board for the next fake "pandemic," and shoving deadly vaccines on the public. next to GENOCIDE, worst of all, she's going to destroy the First Amendment, is already on board for the censorship that's already happening. Trump is not for these things, except he supports that shi tty Israel in its genocide. He has assets she doesn't: Kennedy and Gabbard, probably Stein, too. Do better research.