FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2024
Also, Fox News goes there again: We hadn't heard of the interview until six days later.
For reasons which would become obvious, the interview(s) in question hadn't been widely discussed. We heard about them on August 25, in this news report by the New York Times' Bender and Gold:
Trump’s Carefully Scripted Week Kept Veering Off Script
[...]
In a concerted effort to draw a contrast with Ms. Harris, Mr. Trump, who regularly assails the mainstream media, embarked on a series of interviews, granting brief one-on-one sessions to CBS News, NBC News and CNN, among others.
Whether the effort worked to contain Ms. Harris’s momentum was unclear. But midway through his week of policy events, Mr. Trump made his disdain for the exercise clear as he mocked advisers who had urged him to limit personal attacks.
According to Bender and Gold, Candidate Trump had been trying to show the world that he wasn't afraid to speak to the press!
We'd never heard of those interviews. We decided to check them out.
As it turned out, the "brief one-on-one session" with CBS News had taken place on Monday, August 19—the first day of the Democratic National Convention. As best we can tell, the session ran maybe ten minutes, though it may not have run that long.
As best we can tell, the brief sessions with NBC News and CNN had been even briefer.
CBS News never transcribed its session with Candidate Trump. On that Monday evening, it aired less than two minutes of the interview on The CBS Evening News.
(To view that short report, you can start by clicking here.)
That same evening, CBS News did air almost six minutes of tape from the interview on The Daily Report with John Dickerson, a nightly, hour-long streaming program. To view that report, click this.
Even there, Candidate Trump filibustered away much of the time with standard, time-honored, non-answer answers—non-answers which were larded with groaning misstatements of fact and with familiar elements of delusion.
As we tried to research this brief interview session, we were struck by the extremely low journalistic performance by CBS News writ large. We were struck by the peculiar nature of the questions Candidate Trump had been asked, and by the failure of Caitlin Huey-Burns to challenge or question the candidate's obvious groaning misstatements.
We were also struck by the limited way the interview was reported by CBS News.
In fact, the interview had produced nothing resembling news—and Huey-Burns' superiors seemed to know it. That didn't stop Robert Costa from referring to "Caitlin's excellent interview" on the CBS Evening News that night—the "excellent interview" which had produced less than two minutes of usable content.
As for the way the interview was presented on The Daily Report with John Dickerson, substitute anchor Jericka Duncan offered this cringeworthy remark after airing less than six minutes of the basically worthless session:
"CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns joins me now with that great interview. I can only imagine sort of on the spot and being able to ask those questions about policy, one after the next."
Good God! Tomorrow, we'll show you what those on-the-spot policy questions actually were. In the meantime, let's hope that no one in such a high position within the high-end American press ever authors such an embarrassing, cringeworthy statement ever again.
Fellow citizens, please! It's relatively easy to see the madness—the insult to the democratic order—which is propagated on the Fox News Channel each morning and every night.
Any sane person can spot the madness—for example, the madness which occurred at 10:03 last night, when the Fox News Channel's Greg Gutfeld decided to go there again.
The fellow can't seem to help himself! At any rate, sure enough, the cable star did it again:
GUTFELD (8/29/24): Finally, sources say Barron Trump will not follow in his father's footsteps and will instead go to school somewhere in New York.
Hunter Biden, however, still plans on following his father's footsteps by banging Jill.
[AUDIENCE GROANS]
All right! Let's do a monologue...
In a modest concession to the moral order, the cable star didn't say "f*cking" this time! But as with one of our presidential candidates, so too here:
He just can't seem to stop doing this! This disordered fellow can't stop, and his owners hope that he won't.
Once again, Hunter Biden is planning to start banging Jill Biden! From there, it was on to the birdbrained pseudo-discussions, conducted with a flyweight panel, which constitute the propaganda delivery system of this transparently disordered "cable news" TV gong-show.
In theory, any serious journalist could spot the journalistic disorder which takes wing on this "cable news" channel each morning at 5 a.m., then starts again at 5 p.m. and runs on through the night.
Any journalist could spot this obvious cultural problem! That said, our major, high-end mainstream news orgs have made the decision to avert their gaze from this daily and nightly intellectual / moral squalor.
We're speaking of the New York Times, but of MSNBC as well.
It was within the context of that refusal to serve that CBS News set out to interview Candidate Trump on Monday afternoon, August 19, up in York, Pennsylvania. According to that New York Times news report, the candidate was hoping to drive a message that day:
I do interviews with the press. My unintelligent opponent can't and won't.
This particular "one-on-one session" was with CBS News. Tomorow, we'll show you what happened.
Way back when, CBS News was synonymous with the work of Walter Cronkite. Presumably he wasn't a perfect journalist—no one is—but he was a serious person.
He became the anchor of that network's nightly news report in April 1962. Before that, he had plainly established himself as a serious person.
Cronkite was a serious person! We'll simplify the detailed account offered by the leading authority on his early career:
Walter Cronkite
[...]
Cronkite left college in his junior year, in the fall term of 1935, after starting a series of newspaper reporting jobs covering news and sports. He entered broadcasting as a radio announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City...In Kansas City, he joined the United Press International in 1937.
With his name now established, he received a job offer from Edward R. Murrow at CBS News to join the Murrow Boys team of war correspondents, relieving Bill Downs as the head of the Moscow bureau...
Cronkite became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe. He was on board USS Texas starting in Norfolk, Virginia, through her service off the coast of North Africa as part of Operation Torch, and then back to the US...
Cronkite's experiences aboard the USS Texas launched his career as a war correspondent. Subsequently, he was one of eight journalists selected by the United States Army Air Forces to fly bombing raids over Germany in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress as part of group called The Writing 69th, and during a mission fired a machine gun at a German fighter.
He also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne Division in Operation Market Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow from 1946 to 1948.
In 1950, Cronkite joined CBS News in its young and growing television division, again recruited by Murrow...
And so on from there! Twelve years later, Cronkite was placed in the CBS News anchor chair. Today, our struggling nation's TV "news programs" are anchored by such people as the disordered 59-year-old men who can't stop saying such things as this:
GUTFELD (8/29/24): Finally, sources say Baron Trump will not follow in his father's footsteps and will instead go to school somewhere in New York.
Hunter Biden, however, still plans on following his father's footsteps by banging Jill.
[AUDIENCE GROANS]
To his credit, he didn't say that Hunter Biden was planning to "f*ck" Jill Biden this time. That said, the New York Times averts its gaze from this baldly disordered nightly behavior. So does the collection of "beloved colleagues" who anchor the various programs on Blue America's "cable news" channel.
(Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic has never discussed this daily and nightly garbage can. Does anyone know why not?)
We've wandered far afield this week from where we expected to be by this time. At this deeply disordered time, American "news" changes with lightning speed.
Tomorrow, we'll try to complete the week's anticipated work. That said:
CBS News was once anchored by a fully serious person. Our question might be this:
Did that session with Candidate Trump show us what our upper-end press corps has come to be like today?
Tomorrow: Also, Ponnuru speaks
Somerby is phoning it in again today. He cannot repeat any question asked of Trump but he can remember to tell us what Gutfeld said about Hunter Biden's sex life. Meanwhile Harris gave an interview that provided no gaffes or unexpected moments and already the press is bored with it.
ReplyDeleteYup.
DeleteNoticeably, Somerby's tone has shifted in recent weeks; when Trump was ahead in the polls, Somerby was exploring his right wing-curious side, saying that their team made valid points about protecting our children from knowledge about racism and different kinds of identity, even questioning the efficacy of democracy, etc.
But now it looks like Trump is toast, and Somerby is subtly shifting his focus to the way corporate media grades Trump on a curve and the asymmetrical double standard that Harris must campaign as they prescribe (bend her knee to them).
Whatever Somerby's tone, he takes care to always maintain plausible deniability.
"Plausible deniability" from what? your observations are silly.
Delete12:47 your tone is intimidating.
DeleteWhich is strange, considering how empty your comments are.
Still, good to know where you stand, much obliged.
Saying an observation is "silly" is "intimidating"?
DeleteBe prepared to be intimidated further: Boo!
"J.D. Vance refused to apologize for resurrecting an ancient internet meme that had caused a then-teen girl to consider taking her own life.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican vice presidential nominee tried to preemptively mock Kamala Harris' hotly anticipated interview Thursday night by posting a 2007 video clip of Caitlin Upton, who represented South Carolina at that year's Miss Teen USA pageant, badly fumbling a response to a question about Americans' inability to locate their home country on a map, and CNN's John Berman confronted him over the difficulty that contestant later faced." [Rawstory]
JD Vance has no gaffe from the Harris interview to work with, so he used an internet meme of a young woman flubbing an interview question to mock Harris. Just as Hunter has nothing to do with Harris (and Joe Biden is no longer running for office), and Jill Biden has never deserved to be sexually mocked for being the president's wife, this young woman has nothing to do with Republican politics or Harris or anything else happening today. Does she deserve to have her public humiliation dug up and reposted by JD Vance and the Republicans (he got that clip from somewhere)?
The cruelty exhibited by the right wing is red meat tossed to their vulgar and hostile supporters. It exists because lack of empathy is a defining characteristic of the right wing, where greed is good and assholes admire Ayn Rand's selfish belief that self-interest should drive public interest. These are mean-spirited people led by a monster like Trump and a wannabe grifter like JD Vance, who is not a nice person and apparently thinks it is OK to use other people's pain for his own purposes.
The Republicans reveal their ugly selves every day but Somerby can't be bothered to notice. He is waiting for Kamala Harris to trip over her tongue so he can tell us again that she is mediocre. And if she doesn't do that, then he will repeat some more Gutfeld "jokes".
"(Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic has never discussed this daily and nightly garbage can. Does anyone know why not?)"
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Goldberg is Editor In Chief of The Atlantic magazine. Before that he covered foreign affairs. He is not a media critic and never was. Perhaps that is why he has not written about Gutfeld.
It is not news when a Republican behaves like an asshole. It is normal, because that is what they do. The same is now true for Somerby, who seems to have found the lowest show on TV and made it his nightly favorite.
Whenever some judge is found with kiddie porn on his personal computer, his defense is: "I was just watching it to understand what it is like, because I have a case coming up concerning it." No one accepts that as true. Similarly, Somerby claims he is watching and talking about and repeating Gutfeld to show us how bad these miscreants are on Fox News. It isn't that he himself likes watching Gutfeld or enjoys their lewd and crude attacks on hapless Jill Biden. Should we believe Somerby when he says this? Why? It seems pretty obvious Somerby likes wallowing with the pigs while pretending to be a media conscience. Yet his idea of criticism is scolding, not analysis and he has never defended Jill Biden, much less Hunter, from these moronic attacks. I think Somerby likes this stuff and is repeating it for partisan political purposes, just as Gutfeld does.
So, if Somerby criticizes blue media, it proves he's a conservative shill. If Somerby criticizes red media, it proves he's a conservative shill. And this seems to make sense to you.
DeletePP flinging his poo poo, per usual.
Deleteanon 12:27 - what in god's name do you mean by "PP flinging his poo poo. per usual." What did he say that leads you characterize it as "slinging poo poo?" Have you no shame? How is it that anyone could say something so stupid?
DeleteOf all “red media” content to observe, Somerby does seem to be obsessed specifically with Gutfeld, whose show is described as a talk show using comedy and satire, and isn’t presented as straight news or journalism.
DeleteI applaud his obsession. To give Gutfeld a pass would be to ignore a cancer.
DeleteGutfeld is bad, but isn’t he mostly a comedian, like Colbert? There’s plenty of stuff that passes for “news” on the rest of fox that never gets discussed here.
DeleteAC/MA: the fainting couch is to your left. I hope you recover soon.
DeleteThe comparison to Colbert is interesting, as we watch him become more and more integrated into the upper echelon of the Democratic Party.
DeleteGuts, don't worry, I'm perfectly fine. Keep up the depraved jokes about Hunter banging Jill,
DeleteWrong again AC.
Delete"We've wandered far afield this week from where we expected to be by this time. "
ReplyDeleteWhose fault is that?
Whose fault did anyone say it was?
Delete"PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—The Trump campaign on Friday was scrambling to contain the damage from newly-unearthed comments by JD Vance in which he disparaged cats who choose not to have kittens.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP vice-presidential nominee’s blistering attack on “kittenless cats” occurred during a 2023 podcast appearance in which Vance claimed that “cats without kittens have no stake in our nation’s future.”
“The kitten birthrate in the United States lags far behind that of all other industrialized nations,” Vance said. “Increasingly, female cats in the U.S. are selfishly choosing careers over kittens.”
The Ohio senator painted a dire picture of an America in which female cats refuse to reproduce, warning, “Soon we will be a country overrun by mice.”
Harris is getting positive reviews for her interview on CNN.
ReplyDeleteHere is some actual media criticism of the NY Times by Tom Sullivan at Digby's Hullabaloo:
ReplyDeletehttps://digbysblog.net/2024/08/29/the-times-doesnt-it-again/
I didn’t see the Comma La interview. We had company for a couple of days and I went to bed early.
ReplyDeleteThe old man watched and said it was lackluster and she essentially said “yes and no” to everything.
There’s one blip on Drudge about it and it’s pretty quiet all over the net otherwise. No ecstatic “joy” over her wonderfulness and Bob is talking about Trump’s frequent but…weird… exchanges with the press. She had her daddy with her and evidently he uncharacteristically kept it low key. Guess that’s over…
She did a good job, gave the right wing no ammunition, so Cecelia must refer to Walz as "her daddy."
DeleteAnonymouse 11:20am, I suppose that was the whole intention of saying yes and no to everything.
DeleteGo ahead and comment on something you didn’t see, Cecelia. Your input is distinctly worthwhile here.
DeleteYou make it sound like she gave one-word answers to the questions. That isn't what happened. You guys must be so disappointed. Somerby clamored for this interview and today has nothing to talk about but Gutfeld telling an old joke (that is not really a joke but a slur).
DeleteWhat amazing fact about Harris was uncovered that changes the nature of this presidential race. Nothing.
Calling Walz “her daddy” is obnoxious. It’s also sexist. Every presidential candidate in the recent past has done a joint interview with their vice presidential candidate post-convention: Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan, Trump/Pence, Biden/Harris, and now Harris/Walz. Was Pence Trump’s “daddy?”
DeleteAnonymouse 11:26am, the silence is deafening.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:31pm, all of the top of the ticket candidates of those teams had been 1:1 with interviewers too and had microphones stuck in their faces routinely.
DeleteCecelia, I may be a bit too much, but, honey, you are a bit obscene.
DeleteCecelia, the tradition for the first interview after the nominating convention has been for both candidates to be interviewed (president and vice-president). Pretending that is something unusual and showing weakness just for Harris is sexist.
Delete@11:39, the silence makes it seem like the cries for a press interview were much ado about nothing. She did what Somerby and right wing wanted, and now they have nothing to say about it. This does not bode well for Trump during his upcoming debate with Harris.
DeleteCecelia, I may be a bit too much, but, honey, you are a bit obscene.
Delete(get a grip Bob, you ain't foolin me)
Not many days ago, Trump was blasting out that he "knew" Kamala, knew her well, knew about how she viewed her identity, on and on.
DeleteThen yesterday Trump talks with Dr Phil, and explicitly says, "I don't know her, don't know anything about her. Who is she?"
This was shortly after Trump admitted he lost the 2020 election "just by a little bit", which will surely be used in the DC trial, where Trump will be convicted (those DC juries are not playing).
Gloomy Trump is just fascinating to watch as he melts down.
Anonymouse 12:16pm, no, you’re a bit too fatuous, but that’s to be expected.
DeleteI watched just enough to know your husband is full of crap.
DeleteAnonymouse 1:23pm, it’s not the first time he’s heard that.
Delete“Deadlines around time” was the most memorable Comma La answer.
DeleteCecelia, you may have said Kamala is an attractive woman. What do you think of JD Vance? Is he a good looking man?
DeleteAnonymouse 1:39pm, he could be. I’ve talked about the length of his hair and beard, his need to drop some pounds, and to lighten his hair and beard.
DeleteCoincidentally, they’ve done some of that. His hair and beard are lighter and shorter. They’ve added some touches of grey in his sideburns. He’s lost some weight, but needs to lose a bit more. He’s making an effort not to scowl as much.
So yes, little filly. I’ve been evenhanded as to he and she.
...We had some guests over and I went to bed early...
DeleteNo doubt they were relieved. Ostensibly with an interest in politics and cannot stay up past 9 to watch an interview or tape it. It is hard to keep awake or operate the TV remote when you start in on the box wine at noon.
Anonymouse 2:22pm, they had left by late afternoon. We cleaned up, remade the bed in the guest room, scrubbed the bathroom in there, washed and folded towels and sheets.
DeleteWe run a tight ship.
I was pooped from being a delightful hostess. He needed some alone time and we understand each other.
Politics ain’t everything.
Robert Reich:
ReplyDelete"Verbally abusing and pushing the cemetery employee who was trying to enforce the law, after she notified Trump and his staff that it was illegal to stage political events at the ceremony, recalls other instances when Trump and gang have pushed people aside, using violence to try to get their way. Think January 6, 2021.
That the employee in question is a woman brings to mind the multitude of ways Trump has employed violence against women, from grabbing their genitals to raping them to stirring up his followers to threaten them. She declined to press charges because, according to military officials, she feared retaliation by Trump supporters.
The entire incident is also a microcosm of Trump’s utter disdain for morality, honor, and patriotism — the public virtues, the common good. The cemetery is a sacred, hallowed ground. It is considered to be a national shrine. Trump sullied it to achieve his personal goal of the moment: to get a news clip in which he could bash Biden and, indirectly, Kamala Harris.
The incident rings the warning bells, rekindles the dark memories, revives the fears.
What happened at Arlington National Cemetery earlier this week was much more than an erroneous photo op. It was Trump on full display."
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-cemetery-gate
Here is some actual media criticism about the double standard in fact-checking when applied to Kamala Harris compared to Donald Trump:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.publicnotice.co/p/politifact-glenn-kessler-amy-gardner-linda-qiu-dnc-fact-check
This is really important, another achievement of Biden:
ReplyDelete"Another major story from yesterday is that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has finalized two rules that will work to stop corruption and money laundering in U.S. residential real estate and in private investment.
This is a big deal. As scholar of kleptocracies Casey Michel put it: “This is a massive, massive deal in the world of counter-kleptocracy—the U.S. is finally ending the gargantuan anti–money laundering loopholes for real estate, private equity, hedge funds, and more. Can't overstate how important this is. What a feat.”
Heather Cox Richardson describes the money-laundering and sanctions evasion practices by Russian oligarchs and the corruption that produced. She explains Biden's anti-corruption efforts and why this success in changing our laws will benefit our democracy:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-29-2024
As one would expect from a propagandist like Richardson, her description makes some valid points but is also biased and full of subtle reasoning errors that are intended to deceive her readers and promote her preferred political cause.
DeleteWould you like me to show them in detail?
I would.
DeleteThe article takes Casey Michel's statements at face value, presenting his quotes as definitive judgments rather than scrutinizing them with evidence, as an objective journalist should.
DeleteIt assumes that the new FinCEN rules will automatically combat money laundering and corruption effectively without considering the potential challenges in their implementation. This reflects a biased and overly optimistic viewpoint.
The article oversimplifies the connection between post-Soviet oligarchs' investments in U.S. real estate and Republican policies while contrasting them with Democratic policies. It fails to account for the complexities of the political and economic situations in both the post-Soviet states and the U.S.
It subtly implies that Republican policies inherently protect wealth and enable illicit activities, while Democratic policies focus on transparency and combating corruption—an assertion not grounded in objective analysis.
By conflating the Arlington Cemetery incident with the new FinCEN rules, the article muddles the argument, which should be discussed separately for clarity.
It overgeneralizes by suggesting that U.S. policies broadly cater to oligarchs, organized criminals, and corrupt officials, while portraying all Republican policies as designed to protect them.
It uses loaded, propagandist language like "massive, massive deal," "gargantuan anti–money laundering loopholes," and "iron triangles of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders" which is a tactic she is using to further deceive her readers by playing on the insane bout of tribalism that has afflicted them so deeply.
I could provide more examples if needed—this is just the tip of the iceberg.
re. the accusation Republican policies inherently protect wealth:
Deletehttps://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/
@3:58 - you're quite the Heather Cox Richardson whisperer.
DeleteMight we consider for a moment what started this?
ReplyDeleteA TV program where dumb Americans indulged their
sadistic streak by tuning in to see a bully fire someone.
Generally one of the most painful life experiences,
degrading, scary;, the new Republican actually enjoyed
seeing this play acted week after week as entertainment.
So Bob is surprised our "comedy" has sunk to the level
of Gutfeld?
This is the meat and potatoes of Bob's good friends
and neighbors, something he knows is true but will never
admit.
the part of the interview Bob won't like is when She very effectively reminded everyone that Trump killed the boarder deal for his own benefit. Bob hates it when anyone brings that up.
ReplyDeleteNo he doesn't and you're stupid for saying he does.
DeleteHere is a story from the Goldberg-era Atlantic profiling Gutfeld:
ReplyDelete“A Late-Night Show for Red America
Greg Gutfeld has owned the libs all the way to the top of the ratings.”
By James Parker
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/06/fox-news-greg-gutfeld-late-night-rise/629634/
Does Somerby want Gutfeld to be taken seriously and debunked, or ridiculed as a clown, or…? This article illustrates a typical “mainstream” media approach to figures like Trump and Gutfeld. They don’t seem to want to upset the “others”, so it comes off as more of an approving profile.
Debunk Gutfeld? As in searching out evidence to disprove that Hunter is sleeping with his step-mom?
DeleteSeems more like Bob wants msm to condemn Gutfeld. But to do so would be to condemn his viewers, those oh-so-not-deplorables.
“ Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic has never discussed this daily and nightly garbage can. Does anyone know why not?”
ReplyDeleteSee above comment.
David Muir or Lester Holt or Norah O’Donnell occupy a position equivalent to Walter Cronkite, not Gutfeld or any MSNBC hosts.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Trump's been digging into the numbers again:
ReplyDelete"Rigged and worthless": Trump trashes Fox News over poll that shows Harris leading in swing states
Was he a stats major at Wharton?
https://www.salon.com/2024/08/30/rigged-and-worthless-trashes-fox-news-over-polls-that-show-harris-leading-in-swing-states/?in_brief=true
Today, Trump has gone all Sgt. Schulz in re the Arlington fiasco. He even went a bit further to suggest the controversy was all a "setup" by the Biden administration.
ReplyDeleteThe man's a nut.
Does he really believe it was a setup, or is that a momentary bullshitting idea that crossed his mind to try to deflect blame?
DeleteIn the end, does it matter?
DeleteWe'll never know. He may never know.
Delete“We’ll never know. He may never know.”
Isn’t that the case for everything now days?
https://abc7chicago.com/post/july-13-will-premiere-thomas-matthew-crooks-trump/15067715/
“Cohen, who specializes in the phenomenon of mass shooters, added that investigators may never determine a single or precise motive for the attack. Sources familiar with the investigation have told ABC News that a search of the suspect's phone history has revealed no indication of Crooks' political views or his motive for the shooting. Investigators have also found no digital footprint from the suspect suggesting any affiliations with international or domestic terrorist groups. They have also been unable to identify any ideological nexus to Trump and/or Biden, according to sources”
What happened?
Delete"Isn’t that the case for everything now days?"
DeleteNo. There are many verifiable facts about the world and to suggest otherwise is to point to madness.
Hector, I think you get my meaning.
Delete@3:42
DeleteWhen asked by CBS News, Trump proposed that the Arlington Cemetery incident was a setup orchestrated by the Biden administration because his presence at the cemetery made Biden look bad.
Inspector Trump of Scotland Yard sees the clues that others miss.
DeleteI heard it was ANTIFA.
DeleteHillary
Delete