I know you keep holding out hope. But IMO and based on what we've experienced for far too long, corp media doesn't give a f**k about trump's deranged and dangerous actions. Big media does not do journalism. They do corporate pro-trump propaganda.
The cowardice of the corporate media is matched only by the cowardice of most Democrats. While they would have no chance of even a vote, they should be filing articles of impeachment daily in response to each day's illegal or unconstitutional tRump action. They should be accompanied by a presser that also indicts the Republicans in the Senate and the House for protecting tRump. Or as I have said before, we need fighters, not Schumers.
Democrats deep in their foxholes, helmets on, awaiting someone to tell them tRump has gone, so you can come up for some fresh air now...pusillanimous poltroons, the lot.
I sadly recall the NYT having major difficulties calling Trump a liar in 2016+. They seem to be unwilling or unable to call him a fascist or pseudo dictator or demagogue or anything that aligns to what we can see with our own eyes!
It made me wonder if that kind of pressure is the reason for so many mamby pamby opinion pieces. I think many of us mistakenly thought opinion pieces are not interfered with. Given the dishonesty of conservative opinion writers like the WaPo’s Mark Theissen I doubt they get the same kind of pressure from editors as Krugman got at the Times. But then the editors know their right wing writers would immediately run to Faux News and scream about censorship from the woke left media.
[[Frankly, I’d like to see more than just better explanations in the mainstream media news coverage of Trump. I’d like to see some outrage in the institutional voice.]]
Dan, I wonder whether it might make your point clearer for civilian (non-journalism) audiences if you provided some examples of how what you're calling for might look. Specifically, if you were to rewrite a real Times or Post or CNN article in the voice you're calling for -- as a news story, in the outlet's institutional voice, but with the complete context that's currently missing, people might then be better able to read a standard Times or Post or CNN news article and better grasp what's missing. To add -- you wouldn't need to rewrite the whole thing. I suspect you could make your point within 5-10 paragraphs, so 2-3 examples might fit in a single column.
I love what you do and its necessary but why cant we just cheer cancellations and hope that WAPO and NYT die? In a time of fascist leadership and oligarchs corporate owned media is unworkable and might as well be state run media. INSTEAD I wish all of the amazing not for profit media, (MoJo, Lever, ProPublica, Intercept, Jacobin, The Lever, NPR if Fed funds are lost....) and unapologetically pro democracy media like Rolling Stone and teen Vogue(whose headline game has been off the charts) would form a consortium to grow and compete with behemoths in terms of setting the frame and sharing legal costs to fight the inevitable libel suits (thanks ABC) and coordinating coverage so I don't get 30 substacks and articles covering the same GD thing.
I've been reading the NY Times for seventy-five years and I can remember when its editorial pages regularly called for moral responses to immoral activity. I do not find such calls on those pages today. Donald Trump is immoral, an enemy of the people, an existential threat to the nation and the world and so are the Congressional Republicans and Justices of the Court who enable his evil. Today's editorial pages seem less concerned with sounding the alarm or calling for appropriate response than in establishing the moral superiority of the NY Times Editorial Board.
Thanks for your sadly accurate description of the MSM turning into Trump's propaganda machine. We need to change this year to read 2025/1984.
The journalists are tightening the noise around their own necks.
When Trump pushes his chaos to his Reistag moment, declares a national emergency and suspends Congress and the "free press", we'll see what rocks the NYTs and WaPo journalists crawl under to hide.
Wasn't his Reichstag moment on Jan. 6th, 2021? He might have been out of office for four years afterwards but that event seemed to help him consolidate power. But I think you're correct in your predictions...and I'll shed no tears for legacy media management when they become reality.
Dan Froomkin seems to assume the last four years under Biden were reported as if legacy media were better reporters then than now. They weren't. They never called out the Biden regime for all its illegalities, war crimes, support for two corrupt foreign countries while Americans are living in the streets with no healthcare, for stopping a peace treaty which would have saved thousands of lives, between Ukraine and Russia six weeks into the SMO, for bribe taking and theft, for refusing to stop a genocide. Could go on forever. Now we're supposed to call out reporters for pulling back from Trump's faults? MSM no longer knows real reporting, and hasn't for a long time. The crimes of legacy media did not begin with Trump's inauguration.
The Strict Father archetype is everywhere in patriarchal/religious right families and organization. Trump along 'can fix it' and god saved his life so he could rule/reign over us all. We are failed when we don't bring Christian Nationalism and Project 25 into these equation. Their theology is extremist and far out of the mainstream. Men dominate. Women submit and serve their Lords and everyone serves their latest Master.
Can the journalists learn to include 1) history, 2) intent of the actor, 3) probable results in the short and medium term, in their depiction of the “facts”?
Musk's takeover of Personnel Management computer systems is nowhere to be found on the NY Times site. This is such an alarming thing, in my mind worse than the distractions of rheotric by Trump. We are not seeing the forest for the trees. The forest is on fire, but we're looking at the trees that are just catching fire.
I know you keep holding out hope. But IMO and based on what we've experienced for far too long, corp media doesn't give a f**k about trump's deranged and dangerous actions. Big media does not do journalism. They do corporate pro-trump propaganda.
The cowardice of the corporate media is matched only by the cowardice of most Democrats. While they would have no chance of even a vote, they should be filing articles of impeachment daily in response to each day's illegal or unconstitutional tRump action. They should be accompanied by a presser that also indicts the Republicans in the Senate and the House for protecting tRump. Or as I have said before, we need fighters, not Schumers.
Democrats deep in their foxholes, helmets on, awaiting someone to tell them tRump has gone, so you can come up for some fresh air now...pusillanimous poltroons, the lot.
I sadly recall the NYT having major difficulties calling Trump a liar in 2016+. They seem to be unwilling or unable to call him a fascist or pseudo dictator or demagogue or anything that aligns to what we can see with our own eyes!
This interview with Paul Krugman about why he left the NYT certainly sounds like they were trying to tone him down.
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/departing-the-new-york-times
It made me wonder if that kind of pressure is the reason for so many mamby pamby opinion pieces. I think many of us mistakenly thought opinion pieces are not interfered with. Given the dishonesty of conservative opinion writers like the WaPo’s Mark Theissen I doubt they get the same kind of pressure from editors as Krugman got at the Times. But then the editors know their right wing writers would immediately run to Faux News and scream about censorship from the woke left media.
The Corporate Controlled Conservative Press is all in for Trump. They have become a tool of the Republican Party.
What will they say when Trump cancels the federal elections in 2026 and 2028? That Trump is just "challenging US norms"?
"Giving us a breather" perhaps.
[[Frankly, I’d like to see more than just better explanations in the mainstream media news coverage of Trump. I’d like to see some outrage in the institutional voice.]]
Dan, I wonder whether it might make your point clearer for civilian (non-journalism) audiences if you provided some examples of how what you're calling for might look. Specifically, if you were to rewrite a real Times or Post or CNN article in the voice you're calling for -- as a news story, in the outlet's institutional voice, but with the complete context that's currently missing, people might then be better able to read a standard Times or Post or CNN news article and better grasp what's missing. To add -- you wouldn't need to rewrite the whole thing. I suspect you could make your point within 5-10 paragraphs, so 2-3 examples might fit in a single column.
Just a thought. Thank you for what you do.
Yes. I need to do exactly that. Thank you.
The lede would have to much stronger and incriminating.
I love what you do and its necessary but why cant we just cheer cancellations and hope that WAPO and NYT die? In a time of fascist leadership and oligarchs corporate owned media is unworkable and might as well be state run media. INSTEAD I wish all of the amazing not for profit media, (MoJo, Lever, ProPublica, Intercept, Jacobin, The Lever, NPR if Fed funds are lost....) and unapologetically pro democracy media like Rolling Stone and teen Vogue(whose headline game has been off the charts) would form a consortium to grow and compete with behemoths in terms of setting the frame and sharing legal costs to fight the inevitable libel suits (thanks ABC) and coordinating coverage so I don't get 30 substacks and articles covering the same GD thing.
I've been reading the NY Times for seventy-five years and I can remember when its editorial pages regularly called for moral responses to immoral activity. I do not find such calls on those pages today. Donald Trump is immoral, an enemy of the people, an existential threat to the nation and the world and so are the Congressional Republicans and Justices of the Court who enable his evil. Today's editorial pages seem less concerned with sounding the alarm or calling for appropriate response than in establishing the moral superiority of the NY Times Editorial Board.
Thanks for your sadly accurate description of the MSM turning into Trump's propaganda machine. We need to change this year to read 2025/1984.
The journalists are tightening the noise around their own necks.
When Trump pushes his chaos to his Reistag moment, declares a national emergency and suspends Congress and the "free press", we'll see what rocks the NYTs and WaPo journalists crawl under to hide.
Wasn't his Reichstag moment on Jan. 6th, 2021? He might have been out of office for four years afterwards but that event seemed to help him consolidate power. But I think you're correct in your predictions...and I'll shed no tears for legacy media management when they become reality.
Dan Froomkin seems to assume the last four years under Biden were reported as if legacy media were better reporters then than now. They weren't. They never called out the Biden regime for all its illegalities, war crimes, support for two corrupt foreign countries while Americans are living in the streets with no healthcare, for stopping a peace treaty which would have saved thousands of lives, between Ukraine and Russia six weeks into the SMO, for bribe taking and theft, for refusing to stop a genocide. Could go on forever. Now we're supposed to call out reporters for pulling back from Trump's faults? MSM no longer knows real reporting, and hasn't for a long time. The crimes of legacy media did not begin with Trump's inauguration.
Wonderful column. We’ve cross-posted it on our blog.
https://open.substack.com/pub/criticalread/p/why-is-trump-coverage-so-feeble?r=1uuyqr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
The Strict Father archetype is everywhere in patriarchal/religious right families and organization. Trump along 'can fix it' and god saved his life so he could rule/reign over us all. We are failed when we don't bring Christian Nationalism and Project 25 into these equation. Their theology is extremist and far out of the mainstream. Men dominate. Women submit and serve their Lords and everyone serves their latest Master.
Can the journalists learn to include 1) history, 2) intent of the actor, 3) probable results in the short and medium term, in their depiction of the “facts”?
That cannot be real. And yet, everybody is freaking out that they’ll have to share an office in the Pentagon. Boo frickin hoo.
Musk's takeover of Personnel Management computer systems is nowhere to be found on the NY Times site. This is such an alarming thing, in my mind worse than the distractions of rheotric by Trump. We are not seeing the forest for the trees. The forest is on fire, but we're looking at the trees that are just catching fire.
Because he’s not fooling anyone with his pathetic juvenile act. He’s just pissing them off, which is his intention. Baby man.