reflectivepundit

Press Freedom or Selling Out to Authoritarian Bullies

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I just finished reading the historical novel “The Director” based on the actual life of film director G. W. Pabst and his family, in which the German author Daniel Kehlmann explores how a seemingly decent person makes a pact with the devil—in this case with Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. When given a choice between persecution and concentration camp or unlimited resources for making motion pictures for the glory of the Third Reich, he answers with the “Heil Hitler” salute and full compliance.

While I read the gripping narrative, I could not help thinking of our predicament today here in the United States of America. To be sure, we are not living close to what happened in Hitler Germany. But unless we completely ignore the news, we see and hear day-in and day-out the ever more brazen attacks on democratic law, political convention, and empathy for the suffering of people here and abroad.

The democratic fabric weakens and the authoritarian markers strengthen.

Attacks and threats against institutions and individuals in the media, education, court, and corporate systems become more frequent and more harmful.

Taking the example of the news media, it seems that the owners are bending their knees when facing the wrath of a vengeful president, who has attacked the non-Fox-like media frequently as “the enemy of the people.”

Last Sunday, ABC News which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, suspended correspondent Terry Moran after he posted on social media that White House chief of staff Stephen Miller was “a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred” and called him “a world-class hater.” Moran also described Trump as “a world-class hater.” ABC News declared in a statement that it “stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others.”

It was not prudent in terms of securing his journalistic position for Moran to characterize Miller and Trump the way he did . But what he wrote is true. After all, these two powerful men were instrumental in the dismantling of America’s global USAID network and thus prevented the distributing of available food in storage houses in the Third World to starving children and adults. We all know whom and what they hate.  And when it comes to name calling, Miller and Trump have a long history of the most extreme kind of insulting rhetoric.  

But ABC News and the Walt Disney Company bent their knees quickly to prevent another defamation suit after they settled another one by Trump last year by paying $16 million. In that case, Trump resorted to legal action because TV-anchor George Stephanopoulos reported that Donald Trump had been "found liable for rape" in the E. Jean Carroll trial. The actual guilty verdict was for “sexual assault” but as the trial judge Lewis Kaplan said, the verdict did not mean that Carroll "failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed ... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that."

There is also a pending lawsuit by Donald Trump against CBS News claiming that the network's "deceitful" editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during last years’ campaign misled the public and unfairly disadvantaged him.

Most legal experts agree that Trump has little chance winning this law suit.

Yet, Paramount and its controlling owner, Shari Redstone, do not want to stand up for press freedom but seek a law suit settlement with Trump at a time, when they seek approval by the FCC to sell the company.

Protesting the corporate bosses’ “heavy-handed” interference with “60 Minutes,” the long-time executive producer of the popular show, Bill Owens, resigned a few weeks ago.  

These cases (along with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, who exercises censorship of the newspaper)  demonstrate how the chilling effects of presidential hostility against the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression/press and corporate self-interests can and do short-circuit press freedom.  

That brings me back to the historical novel “The Director” and the price of selling out to authoritarian bullies.  

What are the alternatives? Collective dissent? Courageous opposition leaders?

Those are the questions to ponder…

Mr. President, Your Shortened Political Honeymoon Is Over

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Typically, following their inauguration, U.S. presidents enjoy political honeymoons of about three months or 100 days. During that time, the enthusiasm of their supporters tends to be sky-high and the opposition lays low. Public opinion polls show sustained high approvals.

Donald Trump’s political honeymoon, however, was over before he reached today’s 100 Days Marker. While the president and his MAGA supporters celebrate what they consider huge presidential accomplishments, polls reveal weakening public support for Trump’s policies and governing style.

When Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, he had the approval of 52 percent of poll respondents. Soon thereafter, he lost that majority approval and then some. Last Sunday, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported that merely 39 percent of Americans approved of Trump; other major polls reported 42 percent and 43 percent approval ratings.

A few days early, FOX News was the first news entity to publicize a significant drop in Trump’s approval to 44 percent. An angry president attacked FOX News and Rupert Murdoch for not removing their team of pollsters. It was another case of a powerful man trying to punish the messenger of bad news. Once other surveys confirmed the downturn in presidential approval ratings in general approvals and more significant declines for certain policies (economy, immigration, etc.), Trump called pollsters “negative criminals,” who should be investigated.

“Negative criminals” is a strange term to describe professional pollsters and by extension those news organizations that publish the results. Although White House aides continue to downplay poll numbers, Trump’s extreme rhetoric in reaction to his polling slump indicates how upset he is about the numbers.

There is reason for his concern. A case in point is the Canadian populace’s response to President Trump’s repeated threats to turn the neighboring country into the 51^st U.S. state. A huge public opinion lead of the Conservative Party’s electoral prospects vanished as the temporary Liberal Party’s Prime Minister Mark Carney became the most forceful anti-Trump voice. Yesterday, the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre, who mimicked Trump's extremism, did not merely lose the P.M. race but also his legislative seat in a rural district which he had represented for 21 years.

One wonders how Mr. Trump might respond to potential further decline of public support and similar developments in the Congress. Thomas Edsall addresses this question in an op-ed article of today’s New York Times titled “How Does a Stymied Autocrat Deal With Defeat?” The political scientists he consulted voiced different views, especially, on possible violent reactions of an autocratic president blocked by dissent.

I ponder whether the violent January 6 invaders of the U.S. Capitol that President Trump pardoned might be the type of “positive criminals” ready to giving an encore performance sometime in the future.

The Last, Best Hope Against Tyranny? A United—not Divided—Democratic Party

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Joe Biden’s late withdrawal from the 2024 presidential campaign and Kamala Harris’s thin defeat by Donald Trump continue to fuel a never-ending stream of critical analyses inside the Democratic Party and, even more so, among mainstream media commentators and reporters. I am not writing here about the right-extreme on- and off-line news and social media outlets that spent years to convinced King Donald’s subjects that Democrats and Liberals are evil-doers. Rather, my focus is on the mainstream liberal and moderate media and the Democratic Party.

While the party that loses an election deserves autopsies of its long- and short-term failures, the commentariat’s obsession with magnifying real and imagined tactical, strategic, ideological, institutional, and generational divisions inside the Democratic Party has gone over the top. And it has taken attention away from the scary words and deeds of the Musk-Trump regime.

Needed now are cool and courageous heads inside the Democratic Party who recognize that the only opposition party is the last, best hope to organize strong, peaceful, and potent protests against the clear and present danger we are facing today.

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) showed the way last weekend, when they drew huge crowds in Colorado and Arizona. Instead of theorizing about the threat of losing democracy, they talked about the butter-and-bread issues that regular, working people are worried about. Health care, social security, the basic standards of living.

But Bernie’s most important words were his appeals to the utility of unity in times of crises.

Forget about dwelling on whether Chuck Schumer should be replaced as minority leader in the U.S. Senate or whether Nancy Pelosi should refrain from running once again in 2026. Such issues are not the most pressing ones now; they can be addressed inside the party and without public spectacle.

If hundreds-of-thousands of people can come together on the streets of Istanbul to protest their autocratic president’s unjustified arrest of a political opponent, the leadership of the Democratic Party can and should be organizing far greater protests on a regular basis along the lines of Bernie’s and AOC’s mass demonstrations last weekend.

King Don’s Court Prefers Complicit Reporters

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the new White House order, the best and brightest political reporters representing the legacy press have lost their advantage to asking questions as part of the so-called press pool which has a limited and rotating number of wire, print, and television reporters. Traditionally, the pool members are selected by the White House Correspondents’ Association and share their first-hand observations with other White House reporters with both sides trusting each other.

All this changed eight days ago, when the White House announced that it would take control of the selection of pool members. Just as far-right online and television channels were regularly called on by Trump’s press secretary in the early weeks of his second term, they now are part and parcel of the press pool during events that allow only a limited number of reporters. This now prominent clique of MAGA courtiers mimics and promotes the narcissistic traits of their idol who strives to be king.

Take last Friday’s “made for television” assault on Ukraine’s president Zelensky by President Trump and his sidekick Vice-President JD Vance. After Trump himself had greeted Zelensky earlier with the loud remark directed towards the press, “He’s all dressed up today…,” a reference to Zelensky’s usual field uniform in support of his forces fighting Russia’s invading army, a pool “journalist,” asked the Ukrainian president, “Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit. Just want to see if…do you own a suit? A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the office.”

As it happened, this White House selected pool member represented a far-right cable channel with a history of conspiracy theories. He played his role to the full satisfaction of those who selected him over reporters who understand the crucial role of the press in a democracy—among them the Associate Press wire service. Note, that no far-right or any other White House reporter has asked Elon Musk during his repeated performances in the Oval Office why he did not wear a suit. Presumably, they all know that President Trump would not like such a question.

Even more shocking was the presence of a man working for the Russian government wire service TASS among pool reporters during the pro-Russian rhetorical assault on Zelensky. The White House claimed later that the guy was not approved for the pool and removed once his presence became known.

That is not credible. Whoever has been in the White House as member of a foreign press outlet knows that nobody without secret service clearance and security checks all along gets near or into the Oval Office. In this case, another pool reporter observed that White House officials, who reviewed reporters’ credential before allowing them to enter the Oval Office, waived the TASS reporter in. Thus, a journalist representing and paid by the Russian government attended the event that a Kremlin spokesperson characterized later as demonstrating that both governments have “coinciding visions.”

The Digital Robber Barons Have Staring Roles America’s New Oligarchy

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Joe Biden was right, when he borrowed the 19^th century “Robber Barons” metaphor to warn contemporary Americans of the present threat presented by money- and power-hungry digital oligarchs. Once the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Fists, Rockefellers, and others exploited public lands, oil, minerals to assemble their private wealth at the expense of the public good and their own workers; today the new American oligarchs use publicly financed high tech innovations, starting with the internet, to build global communication spaces of unprecedented economic, political, and cultural influence.

Yes, the old industrial oligarchs along with their high finance moguls could count on the nationwide newspaper chains owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. But the reach and influence of the old press-lords paled in comparison to the on- and offline communication platforms controlled by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch, and a few others.  

The Robber Barons of old became highly successful because they had significant influence on the governmental leadership of their time. Today’s Robber Barons are not satisfied that their generous donations to Donald Trump’s campaign and inauguration assure them political influence, where it counts. They want a piece of the incoming president’s power. The ideal vehicle is the non-existing “Department of Efficiency” that Elon Musk created for cutting billions of dollars in “wasteful” government spending that will free up resources for lowering the taxes for the largest corporations and the wealthiest individuals.

Among the many targets of the digital Robber Barons’ axes are regulatory agencies that watch out for the public interest. The National Highway Traffic Administration, for example, keeps track of car accidents’ causes. No wonder that Musk wants to abolish the agency that documents how many deadly accidents are caused by his self-driving Tesla automobiles. But that particular interest of Mister X is tiny in comparison to the several $billion worth of U.S. government contracts that Musk’s SpaceX and other companies receive each year. As the constant companion and inside advisor of soon-again President Trump, Elon Musk will have a direct voice in cutting government benefits at the expense of millions of regular Americans on the one hand and boosting increased benefits for a small group of rich individuals and large corporations on the other hand.

According to press reports, Trump has nominated an unprecedented number of thirteen billionaires for cabinet posts. They and the digital “Robber Barons” add up to an astonishing core of America’s new oligarchy that has fully embraced an authoritarian president as leader or vessel to bring about a new “gilded age” of political selfishness and corruption.

How does all this fit into Donald Trump’s populist campaign that attacked the elites of the “deep state” and valorized workers and farmer promising immediate pocketbook uplifting upon returning to the White House?

A friend asked the other day, why so many Americans are uninformed about politics and policies. I answered that most people are informed but they receive contradictory information from different sources. Thus, Americans do no longer agree on what qualifies as fact and what as fiction, what is the truth and what is a lie. I just read Timothy Snyder’s excellent book “On Freedom.” He considers the over-consumers of the leading online sources—social media-- as the targets of “brain hacks” and “surveillance capitalism.” If anything, this ill-influence of online sources will become more extreme given Zuckerberg’s decision against further fact checking which will result in unfettered access of hate speech and Big Lie extremism of the far-right variety.

Green light for America’s new oligarchy.      

The Washington Post as We Knew It Is Dying in Daylight

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In February 2017, weeks after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States, the Washington Post put the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” underneath its masthead. These four words warned of democracy’s vulnerability and assured this leading newspaper’s journalistic pledge to defend democracy.

Yesterday, two minutes before noon on Friday, October 25, 2024, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis published a short opinion piece declaring that the paper would not endorse any presidential candidate. He ended a practice going back to the endorsement of Jimmy Carter in 1976. It is also telling that the decision came after the opinion editor of the paper along with several member of the editorial board had drafted an endorsement of Kamala Harris.

This retreat from journalistic ethics, namely, the responsibility of journalists and editors to hold those in power responsible for undemocratic behavior, was for me the last straw.

I canceled my subscription immediately.

As I read the Lewis declaration, I was momentarily shocked. But I was not surprised. I had noticed well before that the formerly sharp and deep bite of the Post’s watchdog role was getting increasingly weaker in the days and months after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, appointed Lewis earlier this year.

The controversial British journalist and media manager honed his skills in several of Rupert Murdoch’s papers. Shortly after his take-over in Washington, he got rid of the well-respected editor-in-chief Sally Buzbee and hired several of his former British colleagues away from Murdoch papers for the highest editorial positions.

There came an announcement of staff reductions with an opportunity to get rid of the best and brightest reporters and editors and there were multiple editorial initiatives and changes that seemed more appropriate for a tabloid, not for a serious newspaper.

The Washington Post as we have known it since its fine investigative roles in the Pentagon Papers Case and the Watergate Scandal is dying in bright daylight. And that at a time, when democracy is under attack from a far-right movement and its anti-democratic leader who makes no secret of his fascist plans.

The Murdoch-ization of the Washington Post is progressing fast. One can only assume that this was what Bezos had in mind, when he put a Murdoch crew in charge.

Columbia University Must Not Hand the GOP Woke Police President Shafik’s Scalp

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After teaching for more than three decades at Columbia University, I have followed the protests on and around the campus from afar. To say that I am troubled by the deep divisions among students, faculty, and administration is an understatement. Lately, I have been asked by several people about my take on the Morningside Heights situation. I do not have a quick and simple answer. In confrontations like those at Columbia and many universities today, the conclusion what side or sides are right or wrong cannot easily be made. Especially not, when media reality does not fully reflect factual reality on the ground.

On one point, however, I do have a categorical position: Columbia’s faculty, students, and ultimately the board must ignore all calls for the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign. If she is forced out, it will be a total victory for Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who first trapped the presidents of Harvard University, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania during a congressional hearing with hostile questions, none of the witnesses seemed prepared for. It cost two of them their jobs.

After Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, was forced to resign, Stefanik posted on social media, “One down. Two to go.” That was her goal from the outset. Behead the leader of ivy league universities, the long-time targets of the far-right. Shortly thereafter, Harvard’s Claudine Gay resigned. MIT president Sally Kornbluth has so far survived the Stefanik-led far-right attack.

Recently, Dr. Shafik and two members of Columbia University’s board appeared before the same committee and seemingly tried to appease Stefanik and other woke hunters. That did not please part of the Columbia faculty and student body. And it certainly did not appease Stefanik. The onetime moderate Republican from up-state New York, who became a MAGA militant on a fast track to power in Washington, wants to add Dr. Shafik’s scalp to her trophy collection.

On Monday, Elise Stefanik, and the other members of New York’s GOP delegation in the House, sent Dr. Shafik a letter urging her “to step down immediately so that someone who will take action against this mob can step up...”

Today, House Speaker Mike Johnson, perhaps fearful to be outflanked by Stefanik, called for Dr. Shafik’s ouster as well before he visited the Columbia campus to speak with Jewish students.

So far, the Columbia senate, in which faculty, students, and board members are represented, consideres censoring president Shafik, especially, for calling in the police to arrest protesters who refused to leave their camp site amidst the Morningside campus. There seem no calls, up to now, for her resignation from within the Columbia community.

A major point of those who oppose the forceful removal of protesters is that these students were not violent. What they and most people mean, when they think of or say violence, is causing physical harm. But just as serious, or even greater mental and even physical harm can be caused by hate speech, vocal attacks, and visuals (such as burning crosses, displaying swastikas, or waving Hamas flags).

I will write more about my thoughts on the current campus protests in future posts.

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.