Category Archives: Media Watch

Trump is on trial, but what should we call it?

Suggestion from the 2018 State of the Union

Donald Trump is on trial right now in New York City, facing criminal charges for “business fraud.” However, that term is really the last step that began with (1) having adulterous affairs (2) with porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal (3) just months after Trump’s wife Melania gave birth to son Barron, then (4) covering up the Daniels affair by paying $130,000 in “hush money” to Daniels (5) through Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, as well as (6) involving the Trump-friendly National Enquirer in paying $150,000 to McDougal to kill the story of her affair with Trump, and (7) paying off a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child Trump allegedly fathered out of wedlock. According to the New York prosecutors, the covering up of such payments by Trump and others constitutes falsifying New York State business records. Ultimately, all of these actions were designed to influence the 2016 presidential election by keeping important information about Trump’s character and crimes out of the news. And while the cover-ups worked to some extent in 2016, presumably the facts are not hidden anymore.

Understandably, however, the news media have had a bit of a hard time describing the subject matter of Trump’s trial for purposes of short headlines or to appeal to the short attention spans of many readers and viewers. Thus, we have seen the trial described as:

O.J. Simpson and the Norm MacDonald connection

O.J. Simpson in his TV pitchman days

As so much of the news coverage this week indicates, former football star and acquitted murder suspect O.J. Simpson died Wednesday of cancer. Simpson was preceded in death by comedian Norm MacDonald, who also died of cancer, in 2021. However, the connection between Simpson and MacDonald is much stronger than just their both having had cancer.

MacDonald was “Weekend Update” anchor on NBC‘s Saturday Night Live (SNL) from 1994-1998, coinciding with the period in which Simpson was on trial for murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman. Taking advantage of the the unprecedented news coverage of the Simpson trial, MacDonald made a cottage industry out of mocking what he believed was the very guilty Simpson. MacDonald’s many hard-hitting jokes about Simpson’s guilt have been collected on YouTube and can be found here and here. Perhaps MacDonald’s most infamous O.J. joke on SNL came after the jury acquitted Simpson of murder in 1995. MacDonald said: “Well, it is finally official: murder is legal in the state of California.” Eventually, this relentless mockery of Simpson led to Norm being fired, reportedly because NBC West Coast division President Don Ohlmeyer was a close friend of Simpson and could no longer stand to see his buddy kicked around on TV by MacDonald. As the previous link indicates, Rolling Stone magazine dubbed NBC’s MacDonald firing number four on its list of “The 50 Worst Decisions in TV History.”

NBC News fails political test with Ronna Romney McDaniel

NBC’s peacock, now with ruffled feathers

NBC News a/k/a NBCUniversal News Group (which includes NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC) suffered an embarrassing setback this week, as it was pressured into letting go former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel just days after hiring her at MSNBC. A swift outcry from the public and, incredibly, some of NBC News’ well-known anchors, made it clear that McDaniel’s position at the company was untenable. These events also provide some lessons into what a television or cable TV “news” network should and should not do when it comes to politics.

First, we can stipulate that it is not out of bounds or even unusual for a TV news network to hire political people. Unfortunately, TV and other news media now largely focus on politics, something for which we often criticize them. No sooner do we see coverage of some news event (for example, the recent Francis Scott Key Bridge accident in Baltimore) than the coverage turns political, with TV panel discussions (or politicians’ statements in print or social media) about how the role of government or the current administration is somehow involved, and with the political folks at these media outlets retreating to their predictable political camps and talking points. Accordingly, those who watch broadcast or cable TV news will see familiar political faces such as James Carville, George Stephanopoulos (both from Bill Clinton‘s 1992 presidential campaign), Nicolle Wallace (George W. Bush‘s White House Communications Director), Michael Steele (former RNC Chair), Jen Psaki (Barack Obama‘s White House Communications Director), etc. on a regular basis, in addition to a bevy of guests with political jobs.

The difference here with Ronna Romney McDaniel is that, as RNC Chair during Donald Trump‘s White House term, including before, during and after the 2020 presidential election, she actively participated in the Trump/Republican attempt to nullify, overturn and steal the election. That is what triggered the immediate backlash from the public and from very prominent NBC News and MSNBC hosts such as Chuck Todd (who is NBC News’ Chief Political Analyst), Joe Scarborough, his Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, and Rachel Maddow. As Brzezinski stated on-air last Monday:

To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and Republicans are terrified of Taylor Swift

Latest Republican obsession Taylor Swift

Of all the bizarre, circus-like political outbursts from Republicans in the past eight years or more, one of the silliest has to be the GOP’s explosion of fear over pop music star Taylor Swift. That Republican terror is set to peak this Sunday during the Super Bowl, which features the Kansas City Chiefs versus the San Francisco 49ers, and which is being played, appropriately, in Las Vegas.

For those few who haven’t been exposed to this latest circus, Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter who has millions of fans, has won multiple Grammy awards, has sold approximately 200 million records worldwide (near the top of the all-time list for musical artists), and encourages her fans to register to vote. Swift also dates Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce. Swift often attends Kelce’s games, during which the broadcast network airing such games invariably turns the cameras on Swift, wearing a Chiefs jersey and cheering from the skybox, for a few fleeting seconds here and there.

The last two parts are what terrify Republicans, including those at Fox “News.” They have lashed out at Swift, the National Football League (NFL), and even President Joe Biden‘s administration. These Republicans first charged that Swift is part of a Biden administration “Pentagon psy-ops” effort. Okay, that doesn’t even make sense. Now Republicans also say that the NFL rigged the entire 2023-24 season in order to put the Chiefs into the Super Bowl so that Taylor Swift can be featured prominently for political reasons. Okay, that also doesn’t even … you get the idea.

Can we please stop talking about Trump’s fee-fees?

Guess who’s picture is not being featured?

Over the past several years, especially since Donald Trump was defeated for re-election and Joe Biden became President of the United States, there has been a weird and annoying trend in the news: when something big happens, when some important action or decision takes place, instead of the story being the thing that happened, the focus (as evidenced by the news story headline and lede) becomes about how Donald Trump reacted to it. For example, take a look at these stories:

New York Times: Trump Rages at U.A.W. President After Biden Endorsement

Clearly, the important story is that the United Auto Workers union endorsed President Joe Biden for re-election, not how Trump feels about it (quite obviously, he wouldn’t be happy not to get the union’s endorsement).

CNBC: Trump lashes out at financial monitor in business fraud case after she reports errors

Once again, the real story here is that the independent financial monitor in the Trump business fraud case in New York has found serious irregularities in the Trump Organization’s business operations, including a questionable $48 million loan. Surely, it is not a surprise, and not the main story, that Trump is unhappy about the monitor uncovering his potential wrongdoings.

The Guardian: Angry Trump fumes after $83.3m damages ruling in E Jean Carroll case

By now, you can identify the pattern. The big headline should be that a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million dollars for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of an earlier rape. That Trump was then “angry” about being hit with such a huge verdict is merely a very foreseeable consequence.

Two ways to spin Trump’s Iowa caucus win

The media’s dream for the Republican primaries

Last Monday night, as expected Donald Trump won the 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucus. Trump’s win, with 51 percent of the vote, ahead of Ron DeSantis (21.2 percent) and Nimarata Nikki Haley (19.1 percent), was the largest margin of victory in Iowa Republican presidential caucus history. Indeed, the Associated Press called the contest for Trump just 30 minutes after the polls had closed, and other news outlets quickly followed suit.

At the same time, however, some Democrats, such as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, said that the Iowa results showed “the weakness of Donald Trump.” According to Pritzker, “Almost half of the base of the Republican Party showing up for this caucus tonight voted against Donald Trump.” Pritzker added that the Iowa results were therefore a good sign for President Joe Biden, who is running for re-election.

The 2024 presidential primaries are coming up fast, with controversy

Vermin Supreme, 2024 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary candidate

It’s hard to believe, but the first 2024 presidential primary contest is just 11 days away. Specifically, on January 15, Iowa will hold its Republican presidential caucus. In advance of the Iowa GOP caucus, CNN is holding another Republican presidential debate just five days beforehand, on January 10. However, only three candidates qualified for the CNN debate: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nimarata Nikki Haley. Since Trump previously announced that he was skipping these debates, it will be just DeSantis and Haley, who are dead even in the Republican polls (though both are way behind Trump), flinging mud at each other. Both DeSantis and Haley are spending millions of dollars (either directly or via supportive PACs) to attack the other.

Eight days after the Iowa caucus, on January 23, comes the New Hampshire primaries, both on the Democratic and Republican side. Here’s where the controversy begins, and it’s with the Democrats. At the urging of President Joe Biden and his campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted in favor of asking New Hampshire and Iowa to move their primary and caucus, respectively, to a later date, after that of South Carolina (which holds its 2024 Democratic primary on February 3), in order to “increase diversity” at the front end of the primary process. However, while Iowa agreed to move its Democratic caucus back to March 5, New Hampshire closely holds onto its first-in-the-nation primary status, which is written into state law, and both New Hampshire Democrats and Republicans (including Republican Governor Chris Sununu and Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan) opposed any such change.

To tout President Biden’s accomplishments, make it bite-sized

President Biden boosts high-speed trains and infrastructure

As we are now less than one year from the 2024 elections, there have been some lists of President Joe Biden‘s many accomplishments floating around online, including from the White House itself. The lists are quite long and impressive, comprising legislation (American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), executive orders (creating new national monuments, steps to curb gun violence, AI safety measures, and more. These accomplishments are important to share, because mainstream media outlets often refuse to acknowledge them. However, the comprehensive lists of what President Biden has achieved can be overwhelming, especially for anyone trying to recite these accomplishments in conversation, on video, or even in writing.

Therefore, a better method might be to pick one subject at a time, and focus on that. For example, earlier this year, the Biden team began enlisting what some call “an army” of mostly young social media influencers, and even gave them a special briefing room at the White House. These influencers use social media such at TikTok to create short pieces on topics in which they have chosen to specialize, such as financial policy, gun violence, marijuana decriminalization, electric vehicles (EVs), and more.

While these social media influencers are well-known, with large audiences and familiar platforms, there is no reason why the rest of us cannot similarly use the tools of communication at our disposal — blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, old-fashioned letters to the editor of local or national newspapers, website comments, and even face-to-face conversations with friends and family at upcoming Thanksgiving and other holiday dinners — to share all this good Biden administration news. In doing so, sticking to one topic at a time might be most palatable to those listeners and readers with short attention spans due to holiday food comas or otherwise.

Besides being able to hold people’s attention spans, a further advantage of this bite-sized approach to sharing President Biden’s accomplishments is that it lets individual Democratic voters play up the issues that are most important to them.  For instance, one who thinks climate change is the most crucial issue we face can talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, with its tax credits for EVs and solar energy installations. Another person who is most passionate about protecting abortion rights in the wake of the Republican majority U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade can bring up President Biden’s executive orders to safeguard abortion and contraception, and so on. In this manner, all of the important issues likely would get aired, no one’s eyes would glaze over with exhaustion, and President Biden would get the full credit he deserves.

Photo by Maryland GovPics, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/GaEPVS

Why comments about Matthew Perry’s death give us hope

Matthew Perry

Since 54 year-old actor Matthew Perry died in his hot tub last Saturday, the medical examiner in charge has not yet released a specific cause of death. As usual, however, that has not stopped online commenters from coming up with their own theories, some of them qualifying as conspiracies. The most boneheaded such theory thus far, which can be seen on various social media platforms, is that Perry died because he previously received the COVID vaccination. One such example found on Reddit (which appears to have been reposted from Twitter/X), was phrased like this:

I wanna ignore it but I can’t, Matthew Perry was vaccinated. Is it a coincidence?

Note that the theory was posed in the form of “I’m just asking the question.” Jon Stewart once made fun of the frequent use of this technique by Neil Cavuto and others at Fox “News.” Such a qualifier lets folks raise any crazy, groundless theory they want, e.g., “Was Matthew Perry abducted by space aliens, then returned to his hot tub to die?”

The twist here, however, is that commenters who replied to this online theory about Matthew Perry and the COVID vaccination almost uniformly slammed the people who put it forth. Here are just some of those reply comments:

The state of U.S. Republicans

Republican behavior

At a time when the United States is being called upon to lead in the dangerous crisis between Israel and Gaza, U.S. Republicans are locked in their own civil war, and have been unable to choose a Speaker of the House of Representatives.

During this dangerous crisis, Donald Trump has taken the side of terrorists against our ally Israel.

One Republican U.S. Senator has blocked the U.S. from filling crucial military posts, including 12 leadership posts at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which protects U.S. allies and interests in the Middle East.

Another Republican U.S. Senator says the U.S. should bomb Iran‘s oil fields and refineries, which would create a worldwide oil panic that would cause oil and gasoline prices to go through the roof.

Republicans are acting like the drunks at the bar whose car keys need to get taken away before they can get behind the wheel and kill someone. They are proving over and over again that they are unfit to govern.

So let’s not hear the media refer to “Democrats in Disarray” ever again.

Photo by Sharon Mollerus, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/x30dGq