Republican Presidential Primary debate, September 16, 2015
If you are trying to decode the rather bizarre mainstream media coverage of the 2016 election, it’s pretty simple: The corporate mainstream media are reverse engineering the election to suit their profit motives, and maybe their political biases as well. Take a look at what they’re doing, after the jump:
Dick Cheney, CNN’s go-to right wing apologist
In 2015, the traditional news media — what we call the Corporate Mainstream Media — have continued to move to the right, in some cases sharply so. These television and newspaper media outlets are no longer reliable conveyors of facts that Americans need to make decisions at the voting booth and elsewhere. We should ditch these corporate mainstream media. Instead, we need to become our own news aggregators.
Here are some of the many examples of the mainstream news media’s rightward drift:
Protesters disrupt Bernie Sanders event in Seattle, WA
Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton. A presidential race between two dynastic candidates, focused on sharp policy differences. That’s the campaign we were supposed to get. Instead, as of August 2015, we are getting the Entertainment Campaign featuring sideshow issues involving Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Maybe it’s the presidential campaign we should have expected.
Kenyan ambassador Amina Mohamed, July 24, 2015
Fresh off its “dildo flag” fiasco, CNN once again has lost its journalistic marbles. Once again, the subject is terrorism, and once again CNN has made a wild, unfounded claim on air, this time regarding President Barack Obama‘s trip to Kenya. And once again, CNN’s terrorism frenzy involves anchor Suzanne (pronounced SuzONNE) Malveaux.
This time, as President Obama was embarking on his historical trip to Kenya, CNN went with hysterical rather than historical, calling Kenya “a hotbed of terror.” CNN even had former Obama Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow on to state:
People have been anticipating this trip since the day that he [Obama] was first elected. So the people that want to hurt the president, you know, have been planning for the last seven years for this trip.
Donald Trump with his version of the White House
The Huffington Post published a notice last Friday stating that, from now on, it will cover Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign under its Entertainment section rather than under Politics or News. According to the notice from Huffington Post Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim and its Editorial Director Danny Shea:
Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s campaign fired back at the Huffington Post, saying:
The only clown show in this scenario is the Huffington Post pretending to be a legitimate news source. Mr. Trump is not focused on being covered by a glorified blog. He is focused on Making America Great Again.
In fact, the Huffington Post’s decision to dump Trump from its political coverage is completely arbitrary, and is a huge mistake.
CNN‘s desperate attempts to raise its flagging ratings have led to actions that can be viewed as either sad or comical. CNN spent months devoting the majority of its coverage to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, MH 370, beyond all reasonable proportion given that there were no new developments for days on end. The result was hours of cringworthy speculation, including the infamous moment where Don Lemon asked:
[W]hat if it was something, fully, that we don’t really understand? A lot of people have been asking me about that, about black holes and on and on and on, and all these conspiracy theories. Let’s look at this, ah, Noah says, ‘what else can you think? Black hole? Bermuda triangle?’ And then Deji says, ‘Huh? Just like in the movie LOST?’ It’s also referencing the Twilight Zone, which is a very similar plot. That’s what people are saying… is it preposterous…?
Now that even CNN has had to curtail its MH 370 coverage due to lack of any news, CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker recently gave some hints as to his plans for CNN’s direction. What emerged is an audience-driven format that seems to bear little resemblance to actual news coverage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLZPHkYfukA
Last Thursday on CNN‘s “Crossfire,” Louisiana Senator David Vitter took a double shot from Van Jones and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders regarding the Affordable Care Act. It was a clash of Republican messaging versus Democratic messaging, and, for once, the Democrats won the battle.
Bill Maher, who says he is the most frequent guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” over the past 20 years, sat with Leno Tuesday night and proved once again why political comedians are killers. Maher recapped his feud with Donald Trump, calling Trump an “insufferable racist,” an “egomaniac,” and perhaps most insulting of all, “a pop reference from the 80s. In return, Trump merely posted a couple of pathetic tweets attacking Leno and Maher:
“I’ve always defended @jayleno but he never defends me. He’s not a loyal person & I now understand why everybody dumped him. Jay sucks!”
“I hear this moron @billmaher said nasty things about me (hair etc—boring) on the terminated @jayleno show. Stupid guy/bad ratings!”
Bill Maher is part of a slate of political comedians, including Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, some of their cohorts such as John Oliver, and John Fugelsang, with whom, if you’re a politician, you just don’t want to tangle. These guys write the best material, in some cases along with their writers, and deliver it in deft ways. Recall Stewart’s appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire” in 2006, slamming hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala for “hurting America.”
It’s also worth noting that all of this effective and funny political comedy is coming from the Democratic or progressive side. When Republicans and conservatives try political comedy, it falls painfully flat.
Bill Maher and this crop of political comedians are looked to not just as a top source of comedy, but as a top information source as well. They deserve both honors.
CNN has done it again. On a day filled with important news about Syria, Martin Luther King, Fort Hood and more, CNN.com led its headlines yesterday with … Miley Cyrus at the Video Music Awards. Deservedly, the Onion had a field day with this, writing a satirical piece so biting and truthful that CNN.com’s managing editor, Meredith Artley, had to take to Twitter to say that she didn’t in fact write the Onion piece.
CNN, you may recall, made its bones with fabulous in-person coverage of the first Gulf-War in 1991. How sad that CNN has now twerked its way down to its current level of “journalism.”
CNN announced yesterday that it is resurrecting its “Crossfire” television program this fall. According to CNN, the new “Crossfire” will feature Newt Gingrich and S.E. Cupp on the right, and Stephanie Cutter (ex-Obama White House) and Van Jones (ex-Obama White House until President Obama cut him loose due to right wing pressure) on the left.
CNN President Jeff Zucker stated that “‘Crossfire’ will be the forum where America holds its great debates.” Yet “Crossfire,” which first aired on CNN in 1982, helped usher in what is referred to today as “argue tv,” that coarse staple of television news networks such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox “News,” as well as other networks, in which hosts and guests bash each other, often with ad hominem attacks and prepared talking points.
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