There's an article by someone named Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post in which she advocates that the "responsible" media ban Kellyanne Conway from the airwaves. Why, you may ask. The reason is that Kellyanne consistently presents things that the Trump White House says as facts when they are obvious lies. Indeed, Sullivan goes even further. She argues that not only should someone like Kellyanne be barred from appearing on news shows, but also the news media should get over its "addiction" to "both-sidesism". In other words, Sullivan wants the media to stop presenting the view of the White House and stick only to the views of those who attack the White House.
Since the 2008 election, there have been people arguing that journalism was dead. In 2008, journalists sung the praises of Barack Obama, no matter what he said or did. That treatment of Obama continued throughout his presidency. Obama could consistently get away with "learning about" one scandal or another in his administration "from reading news reports." For the media, it was fine that he was pretending to be the most oblivious president in the history of our country. Obama could switch positions on an issue and just say he "evolved" with little resulting criticism. After all, he was Barack Obama, and for the media he could do no wrong. Often, most of the media did not even cover bombshell events that painted the president and his people in a bad light. It was propaganda, not news that they presented. Pravda would have been proud.
In 2016, the media switched methodologies twice. During the Republican primaries, many in the media latched onto Donald Trump and pushed him non-stop. Coverage of Trump drowned out any mention of the other GOP candidates. Trump got tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in free media. Then he clinched the nomination. Over the next few months, the coverage switched. When it was discovered that Hillary Clinton and the DNC had rigged the primary process against Bernie Sanders, the media covered it, but it focused more on how the story came out than on what the documents disclosed. As Wikileaks disclosed the emails of John Podesta that showed the corruption at the heart of the Clinton campaign, the media downplayed it. Meanwhile, they went into full attack mode on Trump.
Since the election, the media has been unrelenting in its attacks on Trump. No president in modern history has ever gotten such a uniformly negative coverage by most of the media. Sullivan laughably wants the media to stop "both-sidesism". The media, however, did that long ago. Normal coverage is to present an attack and then to mock the White House response as either a lie or silly. The media, however, still pretends that it is impartial and objective. It is neither.
Sullivan deserves credit for being upfront in her desire for the media to present only their "truth". She wants a full use of the media for propaganda only. Sadly, the media went that way long ago. Indeed, it only presents the White House view in order to maintain the fiction that it is engaged in journalism.
Since the 2008 election, there have been people arguing that journalism was dead. In 2008, journalists sung the praises of Barack Obama, no matter what he said or did. That treatment of Obama continued throughout his presidency. Obama could consistently get away with "learning about" one scandal or another in his administration "from reading news reports." For the media, it was fine that he was pretending to be the most oblivious president in the history of our country. Obama could switch positions on an issue and just say he "evolved" with little resulting criticism. After all, he was Barack Obama, and for the media he could do no wrong. Often, most of the media did not even cover bombshell events that painted the president and his people in a bad light. It was propaganda, not news that they presented. Pravda would have been proud.
In 2016, the media switched methodologies twice. During the Republican primaries, many in the media latched onto Donald Trump and pushed him non-stop. Coverage of Trump drowned out any mention of the other GOP candidates. Trump got tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in free media. Then he clinched the nomination. Over the next few months, the coverage switched. When it was discovered that Hillary Clinton and the DNC had rigged the primary process against Bernie Sanders, the media covered it, but it focused more on how the story came out than on what the documents disclosed. As Wikileaks disclosed the emails of John Podesta that showed the corruption at the heart of the Clinton campaign, the media downplayed it. Meanwhile, they went into full attack mode on Trump.
Since the election, the media has been unrelenting in its attacks on Trump. No president in modern history has ever gotten such a uniformly negative coverage by most of the media. Sullivan laughably wants the media to stop "both-sidesism". The media, however, did that long ago. Normal coverage is to present an attack and then to mock the White House response as either a lie or silly. The media, however, still pretends that it is impartial and objective. It is neither.
Sullivan deserves credit for being upfront in her desire for the media to present only their "truth". She wants a full use of the media for propaganda only. Sadly, the media went that way long ago. Indeed, it only presents the White House view in order to maintain the fiction that it is engaged in journalism.
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