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.

The Chutzpah of Tucker Carlson: Now the Fired Fox News Star Sells Himself as Truthteller

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After years of falsifying the truth and promoting non-factual tales and ridiculous conspiracy theories that contributed mightily to dividing Americans into hostile political camps, the fired Fox News star and darling of the hard-line MAGA movement Tucker Carlson sells himself as victimized truth-teller. And he promises to return to counter the “liars.”

“Both political parties, and their donors, have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state…,” he said in the first response after his fall. And then, in a first-rate propaganda trick he compares the honest people against the liars—the “us” versus “them” thing—and sends a message of hope to his fans:

"When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars, who have been trying to silence them, shrink and they become weaker. That’s the iron law of the universe. True things prevail. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some.  And that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon."

In other words, Carlson tells his fellow “honest people” that he will not be silenced for long. The American cable channels with more extreme Far-Right ideologies than Fox News offer him options. And then there is the Russian government’s propaganda arm RT that invited Carlson with the tweet, "Hey @TuckerCarlson, you can always question more with @RT_com.”

More telling is that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented unprompted during a news conference on Carlson’s firing implying that it was a move by the US government. “Perhaps it would be useful to consider how things are with freedom of speech in the United States,” he said with a straight face.

To be sure, Moscow is not happy that their favorite American TV host lost his Fox News perch from which he dispatched anti-American messages that found their way into Russia’s government-controlled media.

If one had not witnessed the perennial truth-twisting by Carlson (and his like-minded colleagues), one would be shocked by the fired TV-host’s complaint that the U.S. looks now like a one-party state. Isn’t that what Carlson and his fellow autocrats in the Far-Right GOP movement see as model? He and they have not hidden their great admiration for strongmen like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Hungary’s Victor Orban.  

But, then, it is hard to understand the logic of these people. Instead, we need to remind us that  there are two  “realities” in American body politics with drastically different perceptions of what is fact and fiction.

Performance Artist Trump and his Big Helpers in the Mainstream Media

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the United States of America, the loyal opposition is dead.

Instead of debating political differences with opponents in rational debate that differentiates democracies from autocracies, the leader of the Republican Party continues to up the ante of his usual crude rhetorical insults and degradation.

At a campaign rally in Ohio on the eve of the midterm elections, former President Trump called the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, “an animal.” And, as he has done many times before, he also labeled her “Crazy Nancy.”  

Shortly after the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former and would-be next president Trump contributed to instantly circulating right-extreme conspiracy theories, according to which the assault on the 82-year old husband of the Speaker was staged by the liberal cabal or the result of a gay relationship gone bad—all contrary to the police version supported by video footage of the break-in.

Trump did not condemn the attacker’s political violence; probably, because the perpetrator’s posts revealed the same violent far-right extremism that is at home in the MAGA cult and the community of QAnon conspiracy theorists—both Trump’s staunchest supporters.

The Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election is merely one big whopper among the ex-president's daily spoken and written lies.

Lies or not, the ex-president consumes more mainstream media news oxygen than most other politicians—on many days more than the sitting president.

The legacy news media, involved in sharp competition with each other and social media platforms, attract the largest audiences to their political reporting, when their infotainment stars unorthodox political performance artists—like Donald Trump. That’s appreciated by news organizations’ managements and stock owners. After all, higher audience ratings rake in higher profits.  

The key to Trump’s nomination and election victories in 2016 was not FOX News, the army of Far-Right radio hosts, his tweets, or his rallies during which he preached anger, hate, division, and—yes—violence. Instead, Trump’s biggest helpers during the decisive pre-primary and primary seasons were mainstream media organizations. The huge volume of coverage devoted to his rude speech during his performances and the attention to outrageous tweets he or his team posted gave him unprecedented free propaganda that was not available to his opponents.

After Trump announces his next presidential candidacy, we will get an idea whether the mainstream media will repeat their mistakes of Donald Trump’s first presidential run.

I am not optimistic that a self-correction is in the cards.

Democrats in Need of Soundbite Messages

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In today’s print edition of the New York Times a full-page column by Ezra Klein is headed by the headline, “Can Democrats Find A Winning Message?” (The online version has a different title). This is a pressing question for those who still hope that Donald Trump’s handiwork in favor of illiberal democracy and authoritarian rule can be stopped. Klein’s opinion piece analyzes the dire predictions of election analyst David Shor, who foresees for the near future massive losses for Democrats in the U.S. Congress, most of all the U.S. Senate. That is not only based on the undemocratic electoral process set up by the U.S. Constitution, but also on the disability of the Democratic Party and its leaders to translate even the most attractive and most publicly supported features of their and President Biden’s agenda into compelling soundbites understood by the American public at large.

These are the terms that Americans hear from Democrats in Washington day-in and day-out—not only in their conversations in the halls of Congress and the White House but also in their appearances in television and radio, in their tweets, and in their coverage by the press: reconciliation bill, filibuster, John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and so on.

Go out and meet regular people and ask them about the purpose of the voting rights advancement act. Or the filibuster controversy and the content of the reconciliation bill that Democrats are fighting about. Or the filibuster controversy.

Compare that to Trumpian soundbites:

Stop the Steal, Save America, Make America Great Again, America First. These are simple, catchy phrases.

Go out and ask regular Americans what is meant with MAGA and the other slogans above. Most know.

It is not enough for the fighting so-called liberals and progressives within the Democratic camp to get onto the same message. Although that is a precondition at a time, when democracy is under attack from the former president, his supporters, and those who disagree but fear to say so publicly.

Democrats needs to translate their bureaucratic messages into simple words that every American can understand. Soundbites that bite.

Soundbites that speak to the hopes and fears and anger that drives red and blue America further apart yet. At Trump’s rally last night in Iowa, one of his female supporters told a reporter with emphasis that the “civil war” was coming. Must come. Just one illustration of dangerous polarization in our country.

More than two decades ago, Jeffrey Scheuer wrote in his book “Soundbite Society: Television and the American Mind” that TV news was “filtering out complex ideas in favor of blunt emotional messages that appeal to the self and to narrower moral-political impulses.”

According to Scheuer, this obvious bias in favor of simple messages was not the result of intentional slants but rather the nature of the medium—TV with limited air time.

For the Right, there was and still is typically the choice between right or wrong, good or evil. Perfect for short soundbites. For Liberal, these differences were and still are far more complex to press into a meaningful soundbite.

The TV soundbite society of then has long expanded to an overall soundbite society—and not only because of Twitter’s limited text requirement.

In the last decade, but especially since Donald Trump appeared on the political stage in a starring role, aggressive, violent, shocking, insulting, threatening soundbites have become the most-used propaganda weapons of Trump’s Republicans.

Democrats must not copy the viciousness of Trumpian soundbites. But they need to quickly translate the policies they want to enact into simple, effective messages.

That’s not an easy task.

But without making it an urgent effort and succeeding, David Shor’s disheartening predictions may well come true in 2022, 2024 and beyond.  

Media, Corporations, and Gender Bias in America’s Sports

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Yesterday afternoon (Sunday, July 14) was not unusual for television’s treatment of male and female golf professionals: CBS aired the men’s John Deere Classic; NBC covered the Scottish Open; ABC showed the “American Century Championship” with golfing celebrities—when I looked for a moment, “Larry the Cable Guy” was hitting a ball; the Golf Channel covered the 2019 Bridgestone Senior Players Championship. Finally, at 6:00 p.m. the Golf Channel got to the LPGA Marathon Classic.

If you consulted the weekend’s Sports Calendar of TV highlights in the New York Times you did not even know that there was an LPGA tournament—merely the domestic professional men’s tournaments, John Deere Classic and the Senior Players Championship, were listed. Ignoring LPGA events in the calendar of the Times was not an unusual oversight but is quite common as I know since I am a frequent watcher of LPGA and PGA golf tournaments on TV.

For all the coverage surrounding the exceptional performance and win of America’s marvelous women’s national soccer team at the World Cup tournament in France, I doubt that this will result in more attention to the games of the women’s soccer league once the hype of the Cup victory has subsided. Nor will it improve the volume of reports about other female sports.

To be sure, some personalities like Michelle Wie in golf, Serena Williams in tennis, and, now, Megan Rapinoe get special media attention.

And when controversies or confrontations arise, reporters will be there to cover it. Think about the pay inequality between male and female members of the national soccer teams. When the spectators at the World Cup’s final in Lyon screamed “Equal Pay” after the U.S. team’s victory, there was massive coverage. When complains are expressed over the lack of females in coaching positions, whether concerning teams or individuals, the press is interested in reporting. But when it comes to day-to-day coverage, media organizations display their gender bias openly. Just one example: Have you ever seen two female broadcasters calling the plays of PGA tournaments? I have not. These roles are reserved exclusively for males. Women, yes, can report from one or the other hole or interview players after they have finished their rounds. At LPGA tournaments it is not unusual to see and hear two male broadcaster calling the plays or one female and one male.

Trump—the Media-Assisted Candidate

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The now certain presidential GOP candidate for the highest office in the land did not spend a lot of money for paid media in form of television ads during the primary months.

He did not have to. Trump got all the free media he wanted to promote his brand—the Donald.

Whenever and wherever he spoke, he got live coverage on the cable networks and plenty on the broadcast networks’ newscasts. In this respect, he loomed from the outset large over all other Republican and Democratic candidates.    

Only when his competitors switched to attack mode, did they occasionally get sudden attention.  And live coverage. Thus, when Bernie Sanders sharpened his criticism of Hillary Clinton, this earned him the same privilege.  

Conflict is what newsrooms are after.

Whenever Trump called into the morning shows, he was granted access—certainly not in order to ask him tough but important questions.

After all, TV executives were and are convinced that Trump’s outrageous rhetoric is driving up ratings and advertising prices.

No journalistic ethics here. 

But nothing demonstrated the news media’s insatiable appetite to showcase Trump than NBC’s decision to move its entire “Nightly News” broadcast on Wednesday night to Trump Tower, where Lester Holmes interviewed Trump and continued to anchor the rest of the program from the GOP’s candidate’s office.

Perhaps, the rest of the TV networks will follow suite and relocate to the Trump building which would save the real estate mogul turned TV Reality celebrity turned presidential candidate trips to TV studios.

Jim Rutenberg, the media critic of the New York Times, wrote today,

“you have to point the finger at national political journalism, which has too often lost sight of its primary directives in this election season: to help readers and viewers make sense of the presidential chaos; to reduce the confusion, not add to it; to resist the urge to put ratings, clicks and ad sales above the imperative of getting it right.”

Film-maker Rob Reiner noted in today’s “Morning Joe Show” on MSNBC that the media gives Trump a free pass simply because he is a celebrity. "The words that come out of his mouth, you'd see a guy in a park, a lunatic in a park on a soapbox and you'd walk right past him."

Indeed! And there is no reason to believe that the coverage will change for the rest of the primary season and during the general election.

Populists and demagogues were always news-makers; but in today’s highly competitive media landscape they are more so than ever before.

That’s one reason why nobody should underestimate Trump’s chances to win in November.