Former NYT Public Editor Margaret Sullivan joins me to discuss how corporate media needs bold leadership and must pivot from pleasing the right-wing in order to save itself & democracy.
I think the fallacy Margaret was referring to is the "false balance" fallacy, colloquially known as "bothsidesism". It is a media bias in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence supports. I agree, some journalists seem to twist themselves into knots in appearing to be neutral. It's dangerous and a poisonous disservice to the public.
Thank you for your continuous coverage, critique, and solutions with the corporate media's failure at reporting our politics in relation to their role to also protect our democracy. Thank you, Thank-you, Thank-you. The solution part is why I keep coming back. It inspires and gives me hope. XOXOXOX
No doubt the TV networks in 2016 bent over to show Insane Clown's rallies start to finish. But Hillary could have demanded equal time and they would have been obligated to give it to her. She never did that. Many people (including no doubt Hillary herself) blame the NY Times for breaking the e-mail and Uranium-1 stories. Insane Clown can throw shit at the wall a lot faster than anyone can clean it up. That is just a reality that makes fact checking in real time impossible. Bare assertions ("stolen election", "killing babies", "eating cats") are easy and grab your attention. Rebutting with facts ("studies show blablabla") is much more cumbersome and put people to sleep. How about if Kamala just issued a blanket fact check at the start of each of her rebuttals "you are full of shit and I will leave it to the fact checkers to clean it up later".
I don’t think factchecking in the paper the day after the debate is very helpful. The people reading that article are mainly going to be people who knew there were dozens of lies without being told. It is the people who watch the debate but do not go further with information gathering who need to be told that what they are hearing is invented wholesale. Trump lies about his business success, his fortune, his Wharton background and without other information they believe he will do a good job of handling the economy. No one in the financial arena has agreed with that position. Trump speaks forcefully and repeats. People begin to believe what they hear. And to some extent I think there is a residual tendency to trust a former President. We are taught to think of them as honest brokers, though we learn they have just been men like all other men. Trump should not be allowed to benefit from hate mongering and self-promotion through false advertising. If he were marketing a product he could not get away with this kind of misinformation. He would be up on charges before the FTC or similar. So why does he get to behave this way in politics?
I was deeply disappointed by CNN. Letting Trump get away with not answering the questions asked of him, and not flagging his statements as false put Biden in an awful position. Biden was called for time repeatedly, but Trump got away with murder. It is wrong, and it is foolish. Why wouldn’t people assume Trump is telling the truth if they are a common or garden voter? There should be flashing red lights so the viewers know just how far out he has gone. I was so angry that I have stopped watching CNN. I used to admire Tapper and Bash. But when push came to shove they rolled over. It was sickening. Then CNN will be surprised that Trump is still winning over undecided voters. I wonder why that is (heavy sarcasm). Look—Trump never pays a price for any kind of wrongdoing. No one else would get away with the horrors he has pulled in his lifetime.
Trump is frighteningly entranced by Putin. In all his years and two different sets of backers as he tried to build Trump Tower Moscow, all he wanted was for Putin to acknowledge him. That was his goal. In his second attempt he even planned to give Putin the penthouse. Trump is like a fan waiting for an autograph at a stage door. Putin can do no wrong. Remember that Trump, as his former advisors have told us, knows shockingly little about history, geography or anything that would have taught him about Stalin and the Terror or Hitler and the Final Solution. He has an animal instinct for tactics, but he knows nothing. He is a perfect dupe for foreign autocrats.
Going back to the beginning-there is every reason not to give Trump any latitude.
I wouldn’t call that fact checking. I’d call it identifying blatant lies. The moderators didn’t have to check anything but their own minds.
I think the fallacy Margaret was referring to is the "false balance" fallacy, colloquially known as "bothsidesism". It is a media bias in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence supports. I agree, some journalists seem to twist themselves into knots in appearing to be neutral. It's dangerous and a poisonous disservice to the public.
Thank you for your continuous coverage, critique, and solutions with the corporate media's failure at reporting our politics in relation to their role to also protect our democracy. Thank you, Thank-you, Thank-you. The solution part is why I keep coming back. It inspires and gives me hope. XOXOXOX
No doubt the TV networks in 2016 bent over to show Insane Clown's rallies start to finish. But Hillary could have demanded equal time and they would have been obligated to give it to her. She never did that. Many people (including no doubt Hillary herself) blame the NY Times for breaking the e-mail and Uranium-1 stories. Insane Clown can throw shit at the wall a lot faster than anyone can clean it up. That is just a reality that makes fact checking in real time impossible. Bare assertions ("stolen election", "killing babies", "eating cats") are easy and grab your attention. Rebutting with facts ("studies show blablabla") is much more cumbersome and put people to sleep. How about if Kamala just issued a blanket fact check at the start of each of her rebuttals "you are full of shit and I will leave it to the fact checkers to clean it up later".
I have not been able to get any sound for this or the most recent podcast.
Thank you.
I don’t think factchecking in the paper the day after the debate is very helpful. The people reading that article are mainly going to be people who knew there were dozens of lies without being told. It is the people who watch the debate but do not go further with information gathering who need to be told that what they are hearing is invented wholesale. Trump lies about his business success, his fortune, his Wharton background and without other information they believe he will do a good job of handling the economy. No one in the financial arena has agreed with that position. Trump speaks forcefully and repeats. People begin to believe what they hear. And to some extent I think there is a residual tendency to trust a former President. We are taught to think of them as honest brokers, though we learn they have just been men like all other men. Trump should not be allowed to benefit from hate mongering and self-promotion through false advertising. If he were marketing a product he could not get away with this kind of misinformation. He would be up on charges before the FTC or similar. So why does he get to behave this way in politics?
I was deeply disappointed by CNN. Letting Trump get away with not answering the questions asked of him, and not flagging his statements as false put Biden in an awful position. Biden was called for time repeatedly, but Trump got away with murder. It is wrong, and it is foolish. Why wouldn’t people assume Trump is telling the truth if they are a common or garden voter? There should be flashing red lights so the viewers know just how far out he has gone. I was so angry that I have stopped watching CNN. I used to admire Tapper and Bash. But when push came to shove they rolled over. It was sickening. Then CNN will be surprised that Trump is still winning over undecided voters. I wonder why that is (heavy sarcasm). Look—Trump never pays a price for any kind of wrongdoing. No one else would get away with the horrors he has pulled in his lifetime.
Trump is frighteningly entranced by Putin. In all his years and two different sets of backers as he tried to build Trump Tower Moscow, all he wanted was for Putin to acknowledge him. That was his goal. In his second attempt he even planned to give Putin the penthouse. Trump is like a fan waiting for an autograph at a stage door. Putin can do no wrong. Remember that Trump, as his former advisors have told us, knows shockingly little about history, geography or anything that would have taught him about Stalin and the Terror or Hitler and the Final Solution. He has an animal instinct for tactics, but he knows nothing. He is a perfect dupe for foreign autocrats.
Going back to the beginning-there is every reason not to give Trump any latitude.
Thank you, Margaret and Waj!
Some of the best reporting I've seen was by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman
during the levee break in New Orleans, hurricane Katrina, 2005.
Waj, I would love to see you interview Juan Gonzalez on race and class-baiting in the media.
Looking forward to your episode on NAZR. peace and love