reflectivepundit

Trump Accomplice is Now a Political Analyst for NBC/MSNBC: A New Low for Legacy Press

By Brigitte L. Nacos

A free press is supposed to be a check on the institutions and officials of government by scrutinizing everyone involved in the political power play and informing citizens and voters fully. That’s why the press in democracies is understood as extra check on government in case the institutional system of checks-and-balances does not work. Moreover, a free press should reflect the whole range of political views among governing elites and governed constituents.

To discharge these responsibilities, political opinions voiced in the responsible press should not be one-sided but rather an amalgam of different viewpoints. In the American setting, this should mean that news consumers are presented with the ideological and policy positions of the two major parties and relevant additional views. When the views of political leaders and their followers threaten the democratic fabric of body politic, the press’s commentators must warn and alarm.  

Like in the past, mainstream news organizations, such as TV and radio networks and the large print/online presses, have today political commentators across the partisan spectrum.

Why, then, is the hiring of Ronna McDaniel as a paid political analyst for NBC/MSNBC News disconcerting and an insult to journalistic ethics?

McDaniel served from 2017 to recently as chair of the Republican National Committee. During Trump’s presidency and thereafter, she was a loyal supporter of the Trump. She became his accomplice, when he tried to overturn the 2020 election results by convincing fake state electors to nullify Biden’s victory. She backed Trumps and the MAGA/GOPs Big Lie, claimed consistently that the 2020 election was rigged, and refused to criticize the storming of the US Capitol that her boss incited.

In other words, as influential chair of the RNC McDaniel was for six years a pathological liar in support of the whims of one illiberal leader—not of the conservative roots of the Republican Party. She seconded her boss’s relentless attacks on journalists and thereby contributed to the hostility of MAGA crowds toward reporters at mass rallies.

In her appearance on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” McDaniel tried to distance herself from her past lies in the service of Trump. She seemed to accept that Biden won the 2020 election and claimed to oppose Trump’s plan to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists if he returns to the White House. But even as she reversed former statements during her NBC appearance, she claimed that she had not changed her positions.

She tried hard to protect her contract with NBC.

In doing so, she had the gall to tell other members of the “Meet the Press” panel, “I think you should trust me!” But many NBC journalists, along with colleagues across the media landscape, remained critical of her hiring. Thankfully, so.

A chronic liar cannot be trusted. Not by serious journalists and not by serious news consumers.

Trump warns of “a bloodbath” in case he does not win this year’s election. And the news media yawns

By Brigitte L. Nacos

On Saturday (3/16), Donald Trump warned during a campaign stop in Ohio that there will be “a bloodbath” if he is not elected later this year. When I checked the front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a bunch of well-regarded regional newspapers this morning, none of them carried the shocking warning on page one. The websites of Times and News, too, did not treat the former and perhaps next president’s outrageous threat as number one breaking news.

Instead, they paid more attention to the presidential candidates’ campaign donations, Trump supporters’ successful spread of disinformation, the election in Russia, arms smuggling to Yemen, and the Schumer-Netanyahu feud.

The Times headline “Trump Says Some Migrants are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He loses,” rated Trump’s old insult of “illegals”—he called them repeatedly “animals,” “rapist,” “criminals” and the likes—higher than his unprecedented “bloodbath” threat. And the story itself cited Trump’s new rhetorical low only in the third paragraph. Note, that the story was updated on Sunday morning.

Everybody should read and remember this explicit Trump warning issued this weekend: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”

The Washington Post headlined its report, "Trump says some undocumented immigrants are 'not people' and relegated the bloodbath warning to the subtitle. It is only in the sixth paragraph that the reporters get to Trump's most outrageous remark and cited it: "Later in the rally, Trump warned it will be a bloodbath for the country, if he is not elected. The comment came as he was promising to hike tariffs on foreign-made cars, and it was not clear exactly what Trump was referring to with his admonition." 

What could not be clear, when a presidential candidate predicts a bloodbath for the country, if he is not elected? And why would the news report call Trump’s warning of something horrific to happen to America an admonition? It sounded more like a threat of civil war or a terrorism threat that goes and in hand with his frequent warning that this election year will be “the last battle.”

When I grew up in Germany and was an aspiring young journalist, I looked at American journalists and the high standards in their professional ethics rules with tremendous admiration. And I was not an exception. Many of my colleagues felt the same at the time, when German journalism found a new beginning after the dark years of the Nazi regime and looked to the Anglo-American press model.

Yes, technology has changed the whole media industry. But if the news organizations that are perceived to be the best in the country and the world cannot or do not want to recognize and priorities truly extraordinary news, the old press model that I once admired greatly is on its way out.

Trump Spoke of “Cutting” Entitlements, the News Media Paid Little or No Attention

By Brigitte L. Nacos

This morning, shortly after 7:30 a.m., I was watching CNBC, when the co-host of “Squawk Box” Joe Kernen began his interview with Donald Trump. Before long, Kernen asked the former president and presumptive GOP nominee for this year’s presidential race,

“Have you changed your, your outlook on how to handle entitlements Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Mr. President? Seems like something has to be done, or else we’re going to be stuck at 120% of debt to GDP forever.”

Trump answered according to the transcript,

“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements. There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don’t necessarily agree with the statement…”

Trump was crystal clear as he touched the third rail of politics and spoke of “cutting” entitlements. While he did not go into any details of what, how deep and whom he would cut, the mere fact that he mentioned the “c” word for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid was a complete reversal of his previous campaign assurances that he would protect those programs.

A few news organizations mentioned Trump’s statement. But there were no “breaking news” highlights.

Around 3:00 p.m., some seven hours after the live interview, I wondered how the New York Times and Washington Post covered what I thought to be a news blockbuster. Instead, I found that the Times posted a lengthy story about the interview but it was solely devoted to Trump’s backtracking of his former demand to ban TikTok. I found no headline about Trump’s remarks on potential Social Security cuts. I looked carefully through the headlines on the Post’s website and found none on Trump’s words on entitlements in the morning.

Given that many millions of Americans depend on the so-called entitlements, I have no idea, why those two influential media entities failed to report on this promptly and prominently.

To be sure, Trump makes lots of controversial and shocking statements so that editors have to make choices on what to report. But for two of the most influential media to ignore for hours (and perhaps for good?) the very newsworthy statement of one of the two leading presidential candidates that will likely become a major issue in the presidential campaign is more shocking than Trump’s turn-around words on entitlements.