"Media" is a very broad term. There are many venues across a broad ideological spectrum. Perhaps necessary to read across the entire spectrum and to think critically to get a glimmer of the truth. Perhaps The Intercept and Democracy Now on the left; NY Times & WAPO for center-establishment-left; Wall St journal for center-establishment-right; & Breitbart for new right. Plus local media.
In some cases, looking at long history that goes back well before Trump, the media has done much to discredit themselves. Who is it but the media who cooperated with the CIA during Operation Mockingbird, to plant stories desired by the national security establishment? Including, per CIA memo & instructions to media, to try and weaponize the term "conspiracy theory" in wake of questions being raised about JFK assassination? Who is it but the media who employed the likes of Judith Miller and otherwise did the bidding of Bush administration in pushing the nonsense war in Iraq, where this nation is still stuck today? Who is it but the media who suppressed James Risen's reporting on mass warrantless surveillance, again at bidding of Bush? Who is it but the media who has adapted increasingly Orwellian language, such as moving from the term "illegal alien," as used in long-standing & still valid Congressional legislation, to "undocumented immigrant," to simply "immigrant"?
Media did all this without Trump. That said, let's all support 1st Amendment & media when they do get it right.
2
Frankly these experts who criticize journalists for telling the truth are infuriating and seem to me to be part of the problem if all they are doing is telling the media to allow Trump to continue to lie without rebuttal. The constant debunking of Trump's lies happens because Trump lies constantly, not because the media is "out to get him". In fact, I think he got as far as he did in the campaign because the media was too easy on him -look at how many negative Clinton articles there were in the supposedly liberal NY Times compared to those on Trump. I want these critics to start crafting strategies on how to counter these lies rather than just castigating journalists for doing their jobs.
9
In this article, you conveniently portray those in your profession as the Noble & Just ones. And Trump as the Big Bad Wolf. The reason Trump’s criticism is succeeding is because people see it for themselves. You, however, cannot see it. Those in your profession see this as a fight of “Good” vs. “Evil.” You are so invested that you cannot think straight. And you are doing the same thing that you accuse Trump of doing - ginning up your base with exaggerations, misinformation, disinformation, & sometimes outright lies. In essence, you ARE the Democrat party.
4
Journalists, real Journalists not Fox News, are risking their lives to inform our society about events all over the world. Freedom of speech and of the Press has been a sacred American value all of the 65 years of my life and goes back to the founding of our Republic.
The press has a been heroic in their collective attempts to make all of Trump’s tactics, whether anyone likes it or not, known to Americans and to the rest of the World. His vulgar, press bashing, lying tweets are an important part of Trump’s behavior because it is his favorite form of communication with his followers. All Americans need to know all they can in order to vote Trump and his Republican servents out of office.
7
If you really want to address this issue, all media outlets have to STOP REPORTING EVERY TWEET!! Ignore him and eventually he will in fact go away.
6
I think what Trump is doing - calling main stream media an enemy of the people - is despicable and wrong.
But, I think the media bears a little of the blame too. A number of "main stream media companies" have turned into political entertainment venues, yet still refer to themselves as new organizations. I think all MSM are a little guilty and some are wholesale guilty. Fox News and MSNBC should quit pretending to be news outlets, they seem like partisan propaganda outlets. Even the Times and the Post seem to have more opinion pieces on their front pages. Aren't those just individual's opinions? They all seem to lean one way or the other politically.
If the MSM would accurately label themselves either news - and stick to news, or political entertainment - and throw raw meat to the hordes, consumers/readers would know what to expect from each.
3
His Tweets may be working with his base, but not with the 60% of Americans who do not support him. And if there has been damage done regarding media credibility among the tRumpets it's the media's own fault for reporting every ridiculus and false Tweet that President Punchline writes.
4
The important point is not whether it’s working on the die hards; they voted for a sociopath and admitting that would mean that they are either equally deranged or are fools. The frightening part is that any normal humans are descending into the abyss of the Trumpian swamp. There are always nuts on the fringes but when usually sane and sensible people start believing garbage that’s when democratic governments are replaced by autocracies. That’s what we face today.
6
I have news. When the President lies, it is no longer news. The press news to report news and news only.
If the President tells the truth! Now that is news and you guys need to jump.
Otherwise, ignore the man. He is using you and heaping damage upon the Fourth Amendment.
Snap out of it. Gets your wits about you. Don't embarrass the Constitution.
3
Well of course 91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information and only 11 percent said the same about the news media. What else would you expect from people who are bombarded every day with "news" and lies from Fox and Trump? However, before saying that Trump's tactics are working, I would like to see what those figures would be like if the question were put to a much wider and more representative segment of the general population......and not just to "strong Trump supporters". I suspect the results would be vastly different.
2
You, the NYT and others MADE Trump the central figure. In the campaign, you covered him to sell papers. You built him up. You loved doing that. When Clinton or Sanders was giving a speech live media would pull away and go to Trump. You would give far more front-page space to Trump than to any of his opponents. Now you complain because the Frankenstein Monster you created has gotten away from you? Come on.
3
Real News. Fake President.
Want some answers why there's so much polarized feelings in America now. Look in the mirror Trump AND those who follow and/or support him. 'Nuff said.
Oh, one more thing, turn off Fox "news" and the other right wing bloviators.
1
To answer the last question in this informative piece, put the onus on Trump and his supporters. Simply list his claims as false. It is up to his administration to provide forensic evidence in support of the veracity of his claims. He (and his sad press secretary, et al,), ALWAYS fail to prove where the "media" has it wrong about him.
After providing the lists and stating his lack of fact-based response, move on to the actual news and issues of the day. Quit giving him "air-time." That is merely profit-making for the media. Shut OUT him and his words . Laugh at him like the members of the U.N. did recently.
Ignoring the ignorant is good policy. After all, he is an illegitimate resident in the White House. State that on a DAILY basis with a call for ridding our system of the vestigial idea of "the Electoral College." Some unfounded traditions are deleterious to the health of the nation and its citizens.
Maybe then, we won't have to wait for Trump's third term for a correction in the body politic. The American empire could not endure two terms. One-half has been MORE than enough.
5
Trump still has an electrifying effect on media, as we look for his next outrageous statement to pop up. And what happens now, as his followers are picking up their guns and asserting themselves? Media has to profit from this war, as Americans check the back and forth, the violence, the finger pointing. The author(s) of this article throw up their hands - what is media to do? Of course, media must profit. And it's so much less costly than real reporting ... just report on what the President says. Wait for people to take up his suggestion, however veiled or dog whistled, and report on that. Yes media are helpless ... they must report but they are hardly losing. Donald Trump is working perfectly fine for media.
Try reporting on everything BUT Trump. Simply black him out or the coverage.
For example, with the pipe bomb story, report in depth but don't even mention the president in any context whatever. Keep an eye on him, but simply don't mention him at all. It would drive him crazier than he already is.
Of course, no journalist will do that because he's the president. But he's not a president we need to hear.
4
I really blame the media for the whole Donald Trump phenomenon. Because of the 24 hour coverage which some stations have now, every single word the president says and tweets and every minute of his rallies are played over and over again. It's as though there is no other news worth reporting on. Please, all of you in the news media, stop reporting every quip Donald says ad nauseum and look for news worth reporting on. How about covering, in depth , the horrible things congress is passing, the criminal repeal of safety measures by the EPA . Go back and cover the survivors of our huge storms and flooding and fires and see how well they were taken care of. Go back and check on the citizens of Flint, MI. Can they drink the water yet? How about spending a little time on international news? Please stop covering every move the president makes. He loves it!
2
I am not educated enough to put a scientific label on what I believe trump to be, but he sure lies a lot, and he knows it! He makes up all sorts of stories to make Democrats the bad guy, when all the Democrats want is for him to shut up! He doesn't care that all his lies are causing America to be heading to another Civil War! We have never before had a President that is as completely ignorant and uncaring as this trump fool has turned out to be. When people are busy trying to earn a living, they don't generally have the time to study what is going on in Washington. We have a President who we trust to keep America the best country in the world, so that is what we expect. Well, it's time to start paying attention! What we actually have is a ruthless crude wimp with a big mouth who wants to be the BMOC, which he never was and could never be. He hides behind our military, feeling that they will be able to protect us (and HIM) from all the crazies that he continues to lie about and to, in order to make America STRONG again. America is strong, but we are not pushing for a war to prove it. We have had way too many of those, lately.
In the world we live in, peace and prosperity come at a high cost, in dollars and lives. trump should learn this, if he has ANY idea of what it means.
3
I have no idea how old you are, but I am 52. I have lived through 8 presidencies. No president has behaved with DAILY contempt for all decorum. No president has made such an unabashed, relentless attack on the 4th estate (you MUST see the significance of what he said to Leslie Stahl). No president has made the CIA and the FBI a public, open enemy of the POTUS. No president has worked, with open contempt, to enrich his private enterprises with the office of the president. I could go on and on... so, no the press is not "unfairly attacking" Trump, compared to other presidents. Trump is a very new and unique pile of slime.
1
I learned a long time ago, via a personal encounter with the media (a newspaper) in which I was interviewed and it was published, that the media doesn't print the absolute truth. Or even an accurate, condensed version of the truth.
Almost without exception it's content that matches the editorial and management objectives of the outlet in question. In my case I was president of out local civic club in Montrose in Houston. Back in the day it was a pretty mixed place but was on the upswing. But a few problem spots (businesses) existed, selling drugs and prostitution. Of course we were ignored by the politicians. After weeks and weeks of constant speeches in front of city council, during their open mic sessions, the Houston Post called up wanting an interview.
Mind you, our problem was drugs and prostitutes. Syringes all over the place, waking up in the night finding them plying their trade in our front yards and back alleys. The resulting article was nothing about that. At the time Houston had very limited zoning laws and many places were in an uproar over sexually oriented businesses, like pornography stores and strip clubs. They had me on the front page and the entire article was focused on those kinds of businesses.
Doesn't mater what side of the aisle your on. If you read something and believe it to be the absolute truth you're a fool. President Trump is partially correct about the media, generally speaking.
2
This is a real concern for all of us. Truth seems to be on vacation, for at least half the population of the country.
Before I retired, I had worked with someone, a Ph.D engineer who had, before, been a full colonel in the United States Air Force. I contacted him occasionally but when he found out that I had not voted for Trump for president, he stopped talking with me.
What does Trump provide that causes people to lose their common sense?
3
A Harvard study demonstrated about 90 per cent of "news" about the POTUS has a negative slant. Objectively that is bias however you cut it. Trump demonstrated readily with his highly popular tv show that he is a master of the broadcast media. He is winning because he has the presidency and a natural gift across the televised medium. That is a tall wall to climb for the broadcast and paper/ online journalists with a different slant than his. Does anyone really believe a man with this much talent and power will be a one term president? Recall what the POTUS did on broadcast debates to 16 seasoned Republicans. Hey there is a political pendulum. It just doesn't seem poised to swing the other way. This too shall pass.
2
Twitter never should have expanded tweet size from 140 characters to 280. One can't be as rambunctious with 5 to 10 words. I suppose in 2020 it will double up to 560 characters.
Not everyone has partaken of Mr. Trump's Kool-Aid. Reporters are like everyone else: usually they are right, but sometimes they are mistaken. Outside of the fringe element, I've never known a reporter to set out to write lies.
Perhaps one solution, though slow as molasses, is to teach critical thinking skills much earlier in the lives of our citizens.
It's hard to fathom how some people have believed the most egregious lies and then acted on those falsehoods.
Fifty years ago, I took a course in international relations at Purdue University. I still remember the core principle our professor stressed: the most important news is not on the front page. It is buried in a paragraph or two farther back in the newspaper.
That may be true now, but it's hard to keep up with today, let alone figure out what is important in the world of Trump-itis.
@Barbara
As a teacher, great idea about critical thinking skills, but when students only care about their GPA for college and teachers base much of their grading on simply turning in homework, it’s difficult to implement.
With 757 comments already posted, no one will read this. But have to say that regardless of Trump, the American press, particularly television and radio, has been rolling over and playing dead for quite some time.
One example: Even notice how interviewers will never ask just one question? They will state a question like "why do you support this" then immediately say "many others in your party have said blah-blah-blah" followed by "American polls have indicated blah-blah-blah." So what does the interviewee do? Since asked 3 questions, the interviewee simply answers the easiest one. "Not everyone in my party has said this" or "The polls are biased. My poll says the opposite." Never do we find out why the interviewee really "supports this." That was the first, best and most pointed question?
Do interviewers just want to show off how much they know about a subject so they provide 2 additional perspectives? Or is there really an understanding with the interviewee that no 'hard questions' will be asked? Or (most probably) are they just filling more airtime until the next commercial break?
I can't tell you how often I've screamed "Just shut up" at Anderson Cooper, et al, for simply running at the mouth after asking a critically targeted question I'm dying to hear answered.
The American press is doing the public no favors when interviewers make it so easy for interviewees to avoid accountability.
4
@ekimak
They need to ask exact, specific question that demand competence, such as, “Can you cite examples...”
2
GOOD! Finally we've got some kind of counter balance to the 24/7 psychological oppression, the 1% paid for brain washing done by our major media "4th Estate". Trump for all his faults has done modern civilization an immense favor by revealing in no uncertain terms that what the common people are told by all manner of authority figures through the mass media is often outright lies, and almost always is carefully engineered selective reporting of, deletion of many, and emphasis on facts intended to achieve responses and goals favorable to rich and powerful elites. At last the superstitious myth that 'papers of record' like the NY Times are "objective" has been totally destroyed.
6
Three years ago we wouldn't have thought we'd see what's happening today, but here it is, right before us. Trump lies, exaggerates, and brags daily. His supporters drink it in, regardless any evidence of truth. Trump supporters are
all-in, that can't be changed. Fox News plays a large part in this, their propaganda drum beat being "Trump good, Republican good, Democrat bad. No exceptions" And of course Trump himself, who I must say is very very skilled at telling people what they want to hear. I can only say for myself, I don't believe a word he says.
3
"Sanders recited a litany of complaints against the press and blamed the media for inflaming tensions in the country."
Trump is treating the press as the enemy, communicating with his voters through tweets that are then repeated by the very press that he attacks. Ignore him and his tweets. Very difficult, but necessary. He lies, and is himself the enemy. Treat him as such. Quit covering his lies.
5
I totally agree. Ignore his rallies and tweets or just give them the passing attention given speeches by any other politician. If there are definite policy announcements, report that but leave rants and rabble rousing out of it. The media only spreads the lies and hate through repetition.
Then report the lie, untruth, with the truth. Show the pictures. Draw lines from the words to the consequences. Stop complaining and show the alternative.
3
The reality is clearly stated in this article. It works for trump supporters which are a very small part of the population.
As trump stated this is theatrical and has no meaning or relevance beyond playing to his base. I wouldn't know about trumps tweets were it not for the media which feels obligated to publish each and every one of the incredibly stupid tweets.
trump is playing the media well. This picture that accompanies this article couldn't possibly have been a better example. trump, with mouth open spouting whatever nonsense is on his mind at any given second and reporters recording every second of it.
trump is not smart enough to run this country but his administration has many people that are systematically destroying our land, our air, our water, our civil rights, education, the judicial system and just about anything else that actually matters This is what the media should be reporting on and really digging into what is happening and stop being distracted by the bloviating buffoon. trump will distract and the media will follow. How about following up on the hideous things he is doing instead of forgetting what you reported on yesterday to chase what ever he spits out today. This is how he gets away with everything - distraction.
4
Why is Trump not held to the definition of workplace violence?Defined by OSHA as, "Workplace violence is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site." With an emphasis on harassment, intimidation and other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site (basically everything other than physical violence), he seems to have checked all the boxes. In my view, politics and getting re-elected should not be exempt from our laws.
2
@Larry
Checked all the boxes? Maybe if you're a snow flake.
1
Thank you for this article. Why not write about the news instead. This is more of the same old same old. See Cari408 below with which I agree. The heck with the tweets. What about the policies? What about the real news?
Like the good piece on leasing our western lands to oil companies!
4
In many ways the key takeaway from this important article comes at the end: the demise, in public discourse, of "conventional standards of judgment" that Trump has undermined.
In the long term (the election may be too soon to consider much else), we need to look at the failure of the American education system – even in putstively "good" schools and universities – to teach students how to use genuine evidence and think logically. We have focused too narrowly on "skills" – practical skills – to the exclusion of *thinking* skills, so even nominally well-educated people fall prey to propaganda and misinformation.
It may take a generation to remedy this defect.
I would personally like to see more in-depth and regular reporting on what the (presently) GOP-run Congress has been up to in the back room (e.g. some of the things mentioned by other people in the comments, such as dismantling environmental and other protections, "finding ways to deal with the debt" i.e. possible cuts to Medicare and Social Security, and whatever else we will only find out when it is a fait accompli). I'm not saying what the president says or does is unimportant, but the unbalanced front page media focus on the president's every tweet is IMO overshadowing matters that can impact all voters whoever their preference, and I think that's precisely what the GOP has wanted all along. Congress makes the laws, not the president, and we need to be well-informed about what our representatives are actually doing and considering doing.
6
I dont see it as working.
We the people , as prior, present and in the future are responsible for judging our own journalism. If people cant tell something happened without getting every little fact ''acceptably straight" is weird, cause well as we have just been told, "this aint a court room and you are not on trial" . You can understand something happened, or get the gist of something, though a fact may be askew. If you as a person cant understand this, then think about this, ... the smallest lie or small incorrect fact about yourself, then makes you... fake... and no one would actually use that criteria to judge themselves.
1
Trump is a master manipulator and a master at psychological warfare. He has easily learned to use all media platforms to spew his simplistic, yet deadly messages of hate.
Look at how easily his base is controlled and observe how effortlessly the Republican leadership buys into the Trump rant of the day because the Republican leadership has given up its collective voice of discourse; they have allowed their callow leader to think for them because they, too, are a collection of cowards, afraid of offending their leader.
2
Starve the Beast. Stop reporting, printing or commenting on any words, tweets or words uttered or typed by trump and his enablers.
3
The Media today, is in a precarious place. As many have said, it’s a Faustian bargain. They incessantly (and too much), provide free news coverage every time the person or candidate scratches their backside, yet are appalled when that very same person denounces them.
Are ratings everything? Then put up with the heartache to follow. Otherwise, gives us wise, measured, carefully thought-out coverage and analysis.
Most of the reason why Trump is in the White House is because of his bad behavior and EXTENSIVE media coverage before 2016 election. In essence, you get what you focus on.
The legitimate media has no choice but to keep fighting back. Do not give up. The media is the only bulwark remaining against this Neo-Nazi onslaught that has overtaken the Executive, Congress and the Judiciary.
“So began day 645 of a presidency that has made denigrating the media one of its identifying features.” How precious to see that coming from a NYT writer. The Times, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC are well into the 700’s in days spent denigrating the President. This paper declared, in writing, that it would not cover him journalistically, but rather editorially throughout.
Your bias which for many years was a topic of discussion is now blatant and you wear it as a badge of honor. Your one-sided coverage will actually help this man whom you revile to get re-elected. Had you covered him fairly, more voters would take your writing seriously. Now you’re like a car alarm in the city - heard but ignored.
9
A friend of mine suggested that the media should not report anything about Trump for a week-- not mention him at all. That would be the most devastating blow against him. Of course, an unrealistic goal. But perhaps the most effective way to diminish his power would be to ignore him. Take away his punching bag.
3
Sometimes I wonder if it would be best if all the news agencies could collaborate just to ignore him for a day. Any really important activity can be covered a day later and his bile wouldn't be heard. Granted he'd probably just throw another temper tantrum.
1
'Even with its saturation coverage of the pipe bombs, Mr. Pinker argued on Twitter, “The press gets gamed again.”
'In a telephone interview, he said the news media had read too much into the acts of one disturbed person. “It’s not a reflection, in itself, of the mood of the country,” Mr. Pinker said.'
What's relevant, Mr. Pinker, is not whether Mr. Sayoc's actions reflect the mood of the country. What matters is that millions of Trump-worshipers, at Trump's insistence, reject the role that Trump's reckless, inflammatory rhetoric played in moving a dangerously unbalanced man to send bombs to people whom Trump explicitly told him should be his targets.
Do you recall when, during the 2016 campaign, this evil-minded demagogue obliquely but unmistakably hinted to his rabid gun-loving base that perhaps they should murder Hillary Clinton?
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump said, as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.” - NY Times 8/9/2016
Paul Ryan called it "a joke gone bad," and Trump went on Fox and dismissed the outrage of Democrats, speciously claiming he meant that gun fans should vote against Hillary, although he was clearly talking about them resorting to murder AFTER the election, if she won.
And, as was usual during that campaign, the press let it go and moved on, letting Trump get away with an incitement to assassination dismissed with a transparent lie.
How thin-skinned are the fake media. They appear to think that they are beyond criticism when they indict and make any kind of baseless accusations with impunity. Guess what, the rules have changed. You will be challenged and held accountable. Unlike the fake news, Trump is relevant and effective. And the fake news apparently unknowingly proves his points and multiplies the results by constantly attacking him and reporting his every move. Well, media you can no longer silence the people because we have a voice in Trump!
1
I disagree with the premise of this column. I can categorically state that the attacks on the news media by the current Occupier of the Oval Office are not working when it comes to me.
The author fails to take into account the supportive communities the Occupier has chosen at which to give his Fascist-rally like speeches. I'd love to see him give a speech in Central Park in Manhattan.
The columnist also does not discuss, in a sensible manner, that these speeches are theatrical creations – there's a low camera angle at the start as the Occupier walks alone down a long red carpet wearing a dark black overcoat with specially selected people standing on his sides and behind him. During the speech, the camera angles are tight. If live shots were pulled back, you'd see a lot of empty space around the hall or airplane hanger.
The Occupier's rallies are all about optics and an opportunity for him to check off items on the list of his bromides and to add material from about whatever has leaped into his mind on any given day.
The proof is that the Occupier has not expanded his base. He's preaching to his choir, those looking for some red meat and a sense of belonging.
His Presidency began to falter with his words after Charlottesville. The truth is that it's now in free-fall because of Pittsburgh.
There is no movement agains journalists in the United States. He's not convincing any newcomers to join the cause. He is desperately trying to hang on to the support he has.
The media has always lead with the FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt and with great annoyance from my perspective. The recent killings in Pittsburgh and pipe bombs are two great examples - the sky is falling, run for your lives. Along comes Trump, the king of FUD, and what does the media do? They broadcast his FUD with the gusto, turning up Trump's volume to eleven. Too bad the media decided to use social for journalism and along comes the "king" and they wonder what happen...
1
Can we not silence Trump by never reporting his tweets or other nasty comments. If he stops having a platform to spew his bullying and nastiness, maybe we can concentrate on real issues.
3
Can't all the "mainstream" media just agree to ignore him entirely for 2 weeks or 2 months or 2 years? Just compete with each other to have "Trump-free" news. He is driving everybody crazy. Why not drive him crazy by not covering him?
4
Oh, the poor little news industry. So unused to attacks - much better generating attacks than defending. Perhaps there should be crowd funding for the poor little things.
4
This man is clearly a sociopath and perhaps worse. He has no empathy at all and is completely self consumed. He is a pathological liar (the NYSE did not open the day after 9/11 -- and the head of it was Dick Grasso, who he claimed to be good friends with, but didn't know his name -- and the Yanks didn't play ball the next day either), but the whole concept of trading on 9/11 to justify going to a partisan rally was completely demented to begin with. His non-stop attacks only serve to reinforce that he is completely unsuited to be leader of all of us, which is what he became when he won the election whether he or we like that. I've given up trying to figure out a way to make him stop -- he is too self absorbed, too much of a demagogue, too much of a narcissist. I don't really see any answers, but I now believe that turning Congress may be the only realistic first step before we get him out of office no later than 2020. And I hope he doesn't get away with his fear mongering, self serving insanity and cause lasting harm to our values and our country. This petty, name calling bully could not be elected student council president of any school in the country, nor could he pass a background check for a cabinet position, so perhaps we need to consider some sort of minimum standards to be able to run for the highest office in the land, the way we do for the people who work for that person? I keep trying to ignore him, but I feel like that is irresponsible too. How do we best cope?
1
Trump will either have to step over the legal free speech line that contrary to popular belief allows yelling fire in a crowded theater. His speech would have to call for "imminent lawless action". Then, even that speech by a president might not be protected. Ultimately his enablers in Congress must be held accountable until the presidential election. They are as much at fault for allowing Trump to set a moral tone that raises the temperature of hate in the country despite any cost and consequence.
The media actually was built to withstand Trumpist attacks...back when outlets had their individuality and real, on the ground investigative journalism was still a popular thing. The media has changed, and chained themselves to billionaires, tribalism, and making dollars. They've tied their own hands by cutting international budgets, and employing entertainers over journalists. That and the 24-hour news cycle, along with constant barrage of junk from Facebook, Twitter, and the internet-at-large, might be the undoing of truth in the 21st century.
1
The most important point in this article may be the last sentence. How will the media report Trump's lies once he is out of office? (Assuming he doesn't succeed in holding out in the oval office after his successor is elected by announcing the election results were “fake news.”) The answer is, “The media won't report them.” You may read his fantasies of omnipotence for a week or two; then they will drop into oblivion. If only the media had the courage to do that now, or just opted to report his fantasies in the last paragraph of an article, e.g., "The current president, Donald Trump, offered a comment on the caravan approaching our southern border, but seemed confused as this caravan originated in Honduras in the western hemisphere, not the Middle East." The apoplectic outrage of blue America would slowly dissipate, and in time, his followers would miss the reactions, and they’d lose interest as well.
Even when the media knows the tactic that Trump is using, and how it works with his close followers,they continue to address it with the same grotesquely ineffective approach. What is that ineffective approach? Despite how bad the things Trump says often are, the media frequently exaggerates & misleads about what he says. That allows his supporters to dismiss mostly accurate reports about him because they want to. For example, if you read anything about who was to blame for the recent bombs, media story headlines mostly say "Trump blames the media". Generally, the full context is buried several paragraphs in or not mentioned. But that's not what Trump said. He basically said, "the media also has to accept responsibility". Technically, it's true he was blaming the media, but it was far from exclusive blame, and in my opinion, the media does share some of the indirect blame by the nature of its reporting. Now whether or not this kind of indirect fault rests more with the media or Trump is subject to debate (in my opinion more of it rests with Trump, but not a 90%/10% split, for example). But that debate is not really worth having, the fact is the media's less than fully truthful coverage makes it very vulnerable to successful manipulation by someone as masterful as Trump at this "art". I don't have a great deal of faith that the media will adjust its' anytime soon & make the truth harder to deny for his supporters. Let's hope they can all, adjust sooner rather than later.
3
@TrueNorth60 I watched his remarks after the bomber was found in which he expilicity stated, we must unify & come together. However, after, I saw a video of Dana Bash of CNN saying, Trump did not say anything about “unification.” There was even a CNN banner underneath her staying the same thing. It was almost like, they are banking on most people not actually hearing him speak for themselves. Thus, they feel they can get away with lying. That was a LIE, pure & simple.
1
The emphasis here is on what effect Trump's profuse lying has had on his hard-core supporters, and I don't think that's really much of an issue: anybody who'd have supported a Trump in the first place either (a) is evil or (b) has *already* left the reality bus. They can't get any worse, and there was no real hope of ever saving them anyway. Let 'em believe what they want; our task is to crush them at the polls.
@William Starr
That's part of the problem right there . Calling those you politically disagree with evil / crazy and believing it.. was never the route to go. Especially when you need to convince some of them that your way is the better way. Your task at the polls is not to crush them. They are not your enemies. They are fellow Americans trying to vote for a better America. Just like you.
6
Most of us form our political opinions from the Press. If all one listens to is Fox News, Limbaugh etc. they will be Trumpists and riled up most of the time and likely are Republicans. And look where that has gotten us.
The Press has a huge responsibility, one way or another, for how we vote. The question is - what can be done about Fox et al and their responsibility in devastating this country with their propaganda?
1
Perhaps a day -- or week-long -- moratorium by a united media front during which not one mention of Trump be given. Silence may be golden in this case.
4
The media has no one to blame but itself. I use three examples.
1. The media has been pounding the drum on Russian collusion from day one - which means that Trump was not fairly elected as president, and should not be president. The amount of press coverage on this issue (extreme) compared to the amount of evidence (none) means that the press is improperly and unfairly trying to make him illegitimate.
2. Foreign policy. Obama and Clinton have the head of a sovereign state assassinated (Libya) yet the press covers this very little. Libya warranted enormous (negative) attention, in my opinion. Trump can do no right on the foreign policy front. His policy on North Korea seems OK, and his toughness to Russia seems appropriate. Fixing trade to the benefit of US workers seems admirable. Most of the coverage here is negative.
3. Immigration. Sure, the left has moved the goalposts on immigration - apparently you must favor open borders or one is a racist. But the policies are not that different than Obama's or of prior presidents. What is different is the 100 year high of people in the country from foreign countries, and the dramatic change taking place of who lives in the US. When this newspaper makes it a front page story of a few hundred children being temporarily separated from their parents, it puts the emphasis on a detail instead of the big picture. So that Trump is always bad.
The attacks are unbalanced and unfair. Trump should fight back.
13
I agree with Mr. Pinker that the media has been gamed repeatedly by Trump since he announced his candidacy. I also believe the news media (especially electronic outlets) have been complicit in his rise and made a Faustian bargain for increased ratings, clicks and $$ that following his "reality show"-style media approach generates. By continuing to chase down every anti-media tweet (ie: CNN 3 am) the president makes and engaging "expert" panels to debate it the press have in effect become the authors of the very attacks they complain about. In the meantime coverage of real policy issues suffers and the train rolls on while the media complains about the monster it helped to create.
4
The news media let this out of the bottle when they gushed over him as a ratings booster and curiosity saying crazy, entertaining stuff. I remember CNN aired his campaign rallies unfiltered, giving him a megaphone in 2016. News media gave Trump billions of dollars of free air time, often failing to call out his lies. The CBS chairman openly admitted that they liked having him on as a ratings boost. Matt Lauer harped on HRC about her emails, a 'scandal' the public had already heard endlessly of and then, during the same event, asked Trump if he was ready to be president.
More people in the news media are doing their jobs now and asking tough questions. But it's late in the game after gushing over the closest thing we've had to a dictator in the White House, who would love to shut down the "fake news" (news media that doesn't flatter him) and maybe some day he will succeed.
6
Where then do we turn? There is no fifth estate.
Certainly we can dampen the ongoing lies by voting. I have and I hope a lot more people have joined in.
3
America is getting a first hand tutorial in how Dictators take hold. I always wondered how other countries let it happen. I never thought I'd see it for myself right her in America in my lifetime.
4
You have a chance to change the direction the country is taking next Tuesday. Calling Trump a dictator just confirms what his supporters believe is unconscious bias by the NYtimes readers.
1
I watched the film, The Post, a second time this week. One of the journalists in the Nixon era said about his work, "We just tell it like it is." I have heard many people say that about Trump, and of course he does NOT tell it like it is. "We tell it like it is" would be another good slogan for the Post.
Ultimately, Trump will be gone, probably removed by an election or perhaps impeachment, and his supporters will have to face up to the FACTS that they were a minority and that he was not right about so many things. Many will fall back on emotional reasoning and continue to believe what has been totally discredited.
2
Maybe. Maybe not. In fact if the early voting theories hold Dems could lose in a big way. Then what?
@Dennis Maher " and his supporters will have to face up to the FACTS"
No, they won't. These are the "facts don't matter" people; they will continue to believe only what they want to believe right up until they're in their graves, and probably for some time thereafter.
1
While you concentrate on the man instead of his policies you will never persuade the American people that they voted for the wrong candidate in 2016. Concentrate instead on the effects of his policies on both the health and prosperity of Americans. Twitter is only important because the media makes it so. This article demonstrates exactly that point. Start doing some real reporting about real issues and leave President Trump to talk to his hand.
6
The logic is impeccable: Those who believe Donald Trump--91 percent of the Republicans--believe Donald Trump. Ergo, Trump's attacks on the media are working. Have Independents or Democrats been absorbed by the GOP?
3
Respected print news outlets like the NYT and Washington Post do publish in-depth articles about Trump Administration policies that affect us all, and should continue to do so. However, the vast majority of people who believe Trump's attacks on the news media never read them. If Trump tweets about the articles, the reporters may tweet in response, but the disparity in numbers of viewers is overwhelming.
It is the broadcast media that must find a way to counteract Trump's constant portrayal of himself as a poor, put-upon victim. Maybe they could keep repeating that criticism comes with the presidency of the United States, and all presidents have been criticized. And then go on to say that if Trump is so unhappy with that circumstance, he should find another occupation, to make way for someone strong enough to tolerate criticism. Inability to tolerate criticism is a sign of weakness of character.
4
@ch
I am afraid your wrong. The problem is they ARE reading them because that's all they are bombarded with relentlessly. It's viewed as a partisan attack by the media that has chosen sides. I am not a American and I see it non stop.. a nation away... everyday since he first decided to run for the Republicans. I thought it would die down after he won but it's gotten far worse.
4
I’ve learned more about how our government and the media works – the intricacies and the pitfalls and the deception – over the last 18 months than I did in the last 18 years. And I’ve been listening to the media in that same amount of time.
2
His tweets should be ignored. I think that responding to them is giving him too much exposure. Perhaps what we should know is how often he tweets every day. That would be interesting in terms of how much time he's wasting pushing himself out into the spotlight. Furthermore, I think that every reputable news outlet should start to ask him or his press secretary to explain what he means by his inflammatory statements and pin him down.
What I'd like to know is how many of his campaign promises he has kept. I'd like to know who has benefitted most from his and the GOPs actions since he took office. I'm not talking about tweets either. I'm thinking of the "tax overhaul", the rollback of regulations that protect the land as a whole, the weakening of the ACA, and that spectacular infrastructure project that still hasn't happened.
If nothing else is true, Trump is an inveterate gossip, about himself. Every time he takes the stage he's the main topic and he controls the narrative. Isn't there anyone out there with the skill and interest in asking him the difficult questions so we can judge for ourselves if he's doing the job he was elected to do: govern the country and work for all of us?
5
@hen3ry
our " beautiful , beautiful infrastructure "
salesman-in-chief
1
This article omits one crucial fact: it is that news organizations and their reporters have only recently started calling out his lies, i.e., doing their jobs. But, starting from the beginning of Trump's presidential campaign, most of the news people just reported whatever Trump said, and failed to point out the blatant lies. Now, they're trying to make up for lost time.
1
News media here’s a crazy idea. Stop covering the guy (trump). Cover policy, procedures, and laws. Cover news not hype.
The more you guys give him a platform the worse it will get. By the way, don’t use the “He’s President” so we have to cover him excuse. No you don’t. He has broken the Presidency you guys should break precedent if you guys really care about the Country.
Unless, and this could be more insidious; he’s good for your bottom line with subscriptions and ads.
Instead of wringing your hands all the time stop covering him.
Jorge Barbontin
6
Until we see the log in our own eyes we should not point out the speck in the others. Until the media is honest about its ideological commitments it will be on the losing side of changing the political climate.
Clearly the battle against this president is not just about him but about the policies he supports. The tactic of discrediting him or those he supports such as Supreme Court nominees, in order to halt their policital agenda has failed spectacularly. So why not admit the real issues and fight to convince the public that your policies are superior to those of the president.
I think voters are more concerned about policies than personaitlities and when we realize that and can convince the public of the greater good brought about by our preferred policies we might have a fighting chance.
4
Why all the “reasoning” from those on the ideological left
8 days from the most important election of our lifetime?
Too little too late.
1
The man has no policies.
@phil Well put. The news media feels it can simply finesse language in a manner to manipulate better than Trump's seemingly sophomoric tweets. The sanctimonious news media seems to be insulted by his poor use of language and cannot understand how his bucolic strategy garners such longwinded support. Well, ya ain't gonna learn dat in J-school, kids.
1
Stop covering him, period. Cover more state and local politics that could have national implications down the road. Cover more arts and human interest stories. Cover more sports. Just don't cover him anymore. He has created a destructive relationship with anyone or anything who doesn't support him b/c he's a narcissist. It's really this simple. Why keep it going?
3
Engaging his taunting , unfounded and non policy remarks makes the press a megaphone to ridiculous lies. The press should ignore or at least put on a page in the middle rather than give his every thought a headline. As an example when he went off on a pitcher for the Dodgers, it got headline play many places. It is not news it is one guys opinion and should be treated as such. More serious stuff should be similarly vetted and ignored.
1
Hopefully the midterm election will show that the electorate has had more than enough of Trump’s lies.
1
You’ve hit it on the head. Incredibly Trump has played the media like the 28 year olds writing their news have fallen for.
Total patsies pushing the same narrative which works directly against their interests.
There is another reason that the main stream media are somewhat addicted to regurgitating Trump's tweets. And for analogy, here, in London I live quite close to the Sky News HQ (being purchased by Comcast).
Nearby, as well, is Kew Gardens - a famous and peaceful oasis of greenery close to the heart of London. There's also a beautiful and vast Victorian glass house with tropical plants and a national archive. Perhaps you'll not be that surprised to learn that Kew plays a thankfully very small part in agenda-setting world news.
We are, then, immensely cynical each time Sky seems to find something news-worthy there to report - from funding cuts to poisonous caterpillars. Ten minutes down the road and Sky are there to keep us up to date - and perhaps even have tea in the very convenient cafe.
The point of all this is that Trump's tweets are the equivalent of that big news from Kew - easy. There's no need to trek half way across the nation or stand in a hurricane, they just have to read the Twitter feed on the way into the office and there it is - just so tempting.
7
His attacks on the media are "working" with those already predisposed to believe him above all others and to believe the hard-right media machine above all else. Readership is also up at the NYT...
As to putting too much into covering the bomber, that's exactly what the right-wing believes. They WANT the world to believe that he was 'just a kook' and that his actions and those of the Pittsburg shooter have absolutely nothing to do with the POTUS and the hate-filled, name calling, violence encouraging soil he lays down day after day after day.
Like a fireship set adrift into the enemy fleet, the Trump presidency is working. It was never supposed to last very long, but while it burns the gains from the tax cuts are being stashed in overseas accounts (never to be seen again), the courts are being packed with conservatives, and federal land rights are being auctioned off. The midterms must sink this monstrosity of a presidency before any more damage is done.
4
In a relatively recent issue of Psychology Today published toward the beginning of last year, I read an article entitled, "11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting.” It provides a virtual playbook of Donald Trump’s approach towards the American Media and to a large extent the American people. It defines, “Gaslighting” a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim (the media) question their reality. Trump is a master of these tactics who clearly has the American Media under his spell. For this reason, I’ve pretty much given up on the media. I don’t fault the media for its bias against Donald Trump. He’s narcissistic buffoon, bias is only a result of conditioning. What I fault is their willingness to chase the squirrels that Trump lets out during his speeches or on his twitter feed everyday without out truly examining the deep and dangerous impact his policies will have on the world for decades to come.
1
Being small minded, I resent that Trump is having the time of his life: he lives in the press and the public eye, basks in a level of fame no other human has ever come close to achieving, he has power to control the executive branch of the world's only superpower, billions of people on earth are affected by him and his whims, and he has made more money by capitalizing on his government job. There can be no greater reward for his decades of repugnant behavior, failed businesses, and seamy self preening in public. If you want to know what's wrong with America today, what's not great, it's that such injustice can persist...And that there are people who like him. To me, it feels like America has been invaded by an enemy, and it happened when Trump drew all these aliens out of their hate closets.
7
@Chris I agree with everything you said except the part about "it feels like America has been invaded by an enemy." There's been no invasion; the cancer was here all along.
@Chris Being small minded, I resented that HC was having the time of her life, etc. If you want to know what’s wrong with America today... and why there are people who voted for Trump, you just have to review the decades of repugnant behavior on the part of the Clintons, and the support they nevertheless received from the DNC, the MSM, and even His Holiness BHO. To me it also feels like America has been invaded by an enemy, and it happened when we allowed our partisanship and love of money to push aside our guiding principles of decency and fair play.
2
Trump's attacks on the media work ONLY because the media takes his lame bait every time. The media needs to wise up. The pipe-bomb coverage proved what the media surely knew but continues to be too greedy, cynical and insecure to act on: turn off the mikes and lights on Trump, and the malignant narcissist will very quickly self-destruct. It is the nature of his profound mental defect. Report the news, but do not cover Trump. Never repeat his lies. Waste no time calling him out. Ignore Trump. There is no fake Trump news if there is NO Trump news, yes?
2
Even innuendos can poison the well; so, sure, if it comes from the mouth of the leader of the free world, it must be true, as the logic goes.
Election has consequences. As the former FLOTUS, Michelle Obama, said, the got the leader we voted for. For those who sat at home because their ideal, real or imaginary, candidates were not on the ballot, that is the consequences. America the land of the poison well
You know, the problem here isn't really just Trump. The greater problem is that institutions, including the Times, continuously give page space or airtime to both sides of virtually any issue, which is counterproductive when, as is often the case in most left-right debate in this day and age, one side is not arguing in good faith. It leads the reader or viewer to believe that there is likely a kernel of truth somewhere between the two stances, which is almost never the case. I would never suggest that the media brings Trump's attacks upon themselves, that would be absurd. But I would suggest that, in a good faith effort to demonstrate fairness, the media has helped to create the kind of media environment in which they can come under attack from a demagogue like him.
The Times et al have the power to make it stop. But they would have to make the apparently tough decision to stop framing the arguments of the lunatic right as being anywhere near as worthy of consideration as their opponents'. Stop giving them a platform.
6
Having just read an archive piece on Nixon's Imperial Presidency. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/03/04/archives/nixon-s-presidency-expansion...
Maybe a reporter should update the story and compare how Trump expands his power compared to Nixon.
Thanks
2
Newspapers and websites could have distinct sections or tabs - like the sports or arts section - to distinguish unverifiable presidential statements and tweets from actual news reporting on credible information and actual events. In effect, a National Enquirer section reserved for the President of the USA and his spokespeople.
It is time to use the power of the press to mute the dictator.
10
I have said this from the start. STOP the constant bombardment of non-news stupid stuff he tweets. Stop the 24-hr discussions & report some real news from around the country and the world. He has you right where he wants you...responding and trying to be rational with an irrational person. The country is divided enough...stop giving him coverage
8
Yes. It’s the media who savors and chews up and regurgitates every insane rant Trump spews. Of course you must report on the things he says (sigh) and tweets. But he doesn’t DO anything. Stop arguing semiotics. Stop analyzing the inane things he says. Stop wondering in print what it all means. You never get it right anyway. And no more Gotcha. He’s a liar. Why isn’t everyone talking about the crisis in Yemen? For God’s sake the Taliban is taking Afghanistan. We still have troops there. Is the opioid crisis over? I suppose at some point they’ll all just die. They are not going to just get clean by themselves. What does he DO besides campaign and play golf? You might as well cover my father-in-law. In fact, I wish you would. He is an immigrant, retired from a lifetime in retail management and he’s a decent man who makes promises and keeps them. Always unsung. Please. It’s my fault too. I can’t look away. I need your help.
10
The best investigative stories are not being read or believed by a vast number of Americans who trust Trump more that traditional news media.
To counter this, some news gathering organizations, individually, have launched their own defensive campaigns which are typically weak and ephemeral.
There can be little question, at this point in the Trump presidency, that the news industry needs to defend itself and the First Amendment with a more concerted, cooperative and widespread outreach project and campaign.
First, mount a mass media campaign to explain to the public why the First Amendment and freedom of the press are essential in a thriving democracy. Themes include: government accessibility and accountability; real news v fake news; teaching of critical thinking; freedom from intimidation; and other related issues. The campaign should use their own traditional outlets (television, newspapers, radio, billboards, bus boards [etc.], direct mail) and social media with consistent logo, style and messages to break out of the partisan news silos most news consumers prefer with non-traditional placements such as sports pages.
Secondly, identify reporters and news organizations that adhere to a code of ethics and professional standards and openly display such designations.
Thirdly, devise an industry-wide “fact-check” system focused on politicians and the news media itself.
Fourthly, generate accurate news stories that are fair to everyone yet fearful of no one.
5
For what it's worth, I don't need the media to convince me that I don't like Donald Trump, I am perfectly capable of coming to that conclusion all on my own. The only thing the media provided was a camera to capture what he was saying, I was able to form my opinion from there.
4
Trumps attacks on the media are working because the media reprints his attacks. His attacks are working because you are validating his attacks. His attacks are working because the media, because the NY Times, are allowing them to work.
Now why does the NY Times and others allow this? Because it sells.
7
CNN, NYT and NPR have abandoned even the pretense of neutrality; the younger journalists in particular are trying hard to frame the narrative and questions in ways that are damaging to Trump and the GOP, in a way doing their employers an incalculable disservice. Stories that put Republicans in bad light are gleefully explored. Every Cornerstore Patty is put up for public shaming. The opposite cases (say, the ubiquitous harrasment of white students in majority minority schools) - rarely.
I totally get the righteous anger and indignation that suffuse "mainstream" journalists as well as their desire to help shift things back to where they believe they should be. But you can;t blame Trump for calling it what everyone sees.
18
@Kai "But you can;t blame Trump for calling it what everyone sees."
No. Only "I'm going to believe whatever makes me feel good to believe" people like you see it.
Professor Zarefsky is exactly right.
But burying narrative here about the remedy to fake Trump far down in the story, after many paragraphs of objectively reporting Trump's fakery—as objectively happening claims (as if having as much credibility as evidentiary claims)—plays to Trump's command of the led.
Everybody reads the led about what Trump says. Few may read the analysis of why the led is fake.
Exemplary journalism must persist with putting fact-checking narrative near the top of stories, not just citing or referring to fact-check sites.
Trump's play for dissociative attention must be kept in reader attention.
The performative frame has to be thematized more often. Everything for Trump is sales pitch to a suckered audience (i.e., for the Trumpist reader, not suckering the journalist!). Readers must be encouraged through example to always read for suspect theater, re: fake Trump.
Though everything in public life is theater—even the most esteemed narrative—Trump turns that into a pomposity about others’ pomposity, thus deflecting relentlessly. He seeks to undermine giving attention to his frame by relentlessly deflecting away from what he needs to keep implicit: his desperate fakery, his egoistic addiction to blaming others.
2
It's well past the time the media does a little introspection on their own conduct. I believe Trump gives them an excuse no to do so. They can always say "but Trump said...". This issue doesn't really involve Trump. Pretending the public had a high regard for "journalists" prior to the election is just delusional. Nobody that criticizes CNN, for example, formed that opinion because of Trump. They formed that opinion because of CNN and did so well before Trump thought of running.
11
Hillary deleted 31,000 emails and the media yawned.
Had Trump deleted ONE email the media would be harping on it endlessly.
That’s what I consider ‘fake’.
12
@Tuco
Point taken...the press should ignore rank hypocrisy.
Who benefits from this, Tuco?
@Bucketomeat Not speaking for Tuco but hmm.. i'll take a stab at a answer.
Trump benefits to a degree, and so does the media via add revenue.. anyone else? Not really.. But it's a mixed bag for both. Trump apparently is deeply troubled by the negativity of the media and the media is (in turn..) deeply troubled by the loss of trust in them. Funny how that works huh? Ah well.
1
The mainstream media really showed its colors when Trump asked the deadbeat NATO members to pay their fair shair. And the media attracked Trump instead of siding with the US!
No one news story (print or electronic) of the mainstrean media asking the European leaders why their countries won't meet their spending targets.
12
You clearly do not know how NATO works.
1
Germany has no military because their authoritarian leaders tried to take over the world twice and tried to wipe out people of one religion from the face of the earth. The world has had peace for the most part for over 60 years. Yes this peace does have a price. The USA did not choose the role it ended up with in the post world war order. We entered both world wars reluctantly. We took on that role because it was the right thing to do to protect the American way of life for our families and laid the groundwork for economic expansion that the world had never seen before. Yes NATO has been expensive, but the return on investment made the USA the envy of the world. To forget the lessons of the depression and 2 world wars will only set future generations up for trouble. The European nations and Japan are not freeloaders. Throwing away NATO is short sighted and threatens our security.
7
@ejoss3 We didn’t throw NATO away. And it is long past time other countries honored their commitment to dedicate 2% of their GDP to defense. That was what they agreed to. I thought liberals were always whining about our high military spending?
1
Reporters must keep their heads down, do the job, and not let themselves get twisted into knots of self-doubt and self-examination. I think the news media has done an excellent job and each day I’m thankful for the First Amendment and The Times. This is a long game and I see evidence the media is prevailing. Case in point: It’s pretty much accepted by a broad swath of Americans that Trump is a liar and dangerously unsuited for the presidency. Many may have suspected, but it’s the day-to-day grind of filing stories that nailed it down. Now, the midterms are in play.
Some argue the media shouldn’t cover his tweets or his rallies. I disagree totally. I want to know what he’s tweeting. I want to know what the rallies are like. These are facts. This is reality. I leave it to others to live in the land of alternate facts and reality. The stronger position is knowing as much as possible.
I have my moments of despair like many. But if pushed, I believe in democracy. I believe in the vital role of a free press in a democracy. I believe people, given facts, are capable of reasonable judgement. Not everyone. It’s never been everyone. But enough so humans have managed to survive and advance. Reporters are under increasing threat, and some are giving their lives, to bring us those facts. Through all the uphill battles, though, I see this is a shining moment for journalism, and because of the light it sheds, I believe we shall continue to advance.
6
@Alan Well written Alan & I could not agree more...
1
@Alan
I agree completely . Thank you for your post
I agree completely . Thank you for your post
1
Zarefsky, who was my professor at Northwestern University, is right (as always): reporters need to focus on real crises and not be hoodwinked by the tweeter. Trump's tweets are not worth the attention of news reporters.
4
Yes, yes, yes, but . . .
in the words of Les Moonves, disgraced former head of CBS, "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
NYT subscriptions are up substantially since the Donald strolled down the escalator in Trump Tower.
They've covered him incessantly and rarely labelled his outright falsehoods as "lies" despite the exhortations of many regular commenters.
How's the stock price, NYT editors?
3
It seems too many people here want to throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to the media. The baby being real journalism, the bath water being infotainment.
The acquisition of information is often a tedious affair that demands effort and a critical mind from the consumer. To restore the integrity of journalism reduce the amount infotainment (i.e. highly-glossed-hyper-kinetic-drama-infused-profit-above-all-else-attention-grabbing news outlets like CNN/FoxNews and most local news stations).
3
I imagine that something like this could work if all the free press agrees on doing it: stop covering in the front page what he says unless it is a verifiable truth. Register everything he says and fact check it without editorial comment but leave it for the mid pages, no headlines, no photos, no his name. Cover only what he does, and the effects of his policies. Don’t us his name any more and refer him as “the head of the federal government“
3
@Amilcar Alzaga It's been tried as many publications came out against Trump a few months ago running similar pieces.. However, that had a bit of a adverse effect because then they were accused of openly colluding with each other to push the narrative and it added more fuel to the flames.
1
I am waiting, month after month, in a two-year long state of suspended disbelief, for the distortions, the "disinformation campaign" of the Trumpians to be called out - openly and righteously - and at all times - by the mainstream media. It isn't. Here is a line from this article where the writer tries, without success, to grapple with this massive problem: "Now and then journalists will resort to the L-word, “lie,” as The New York Times has done on occasion."
The media should study the work of European journalists - those from Germany specifically - and be guided by their techniques for managing fascist propaganda in their country. Though in recent years the hard-right is more prevalent in Germany than at any time in the last seventy years, Germany, as a direct result of the horror and deep shame its citizens came to feel after World War II and the fall of Hitler, have always had a special sensitivity to the extreme danger of fascist extremism, and pandering to such personalities who indulge in this is not permitted and strictly avoided.
Please stop giving this fascist wanna-be regime so much slack, and stop trying to turn Donald Trump into a comfortable Daddy figure deserving of your admiration. Stop fawning over every slight gesture or word he utters that sounds not quite as bad as the thing he did or said yesterday. Just stop, stop! This democracy is sliding away at every turn. Older journalists need to be re-educated, if necessary. The old ways are not functional now.
3
Donald Trump seems to have accepted that he will never achieve the respect of those people in society he saw as the movers and shakers and has turned to malleable, vulnerable and disappointed people who he clearly secretly despises, in order to punish those who have ‘dissed’ him. The very wealthy are on board for the simple reason that more is better. There does not seem to be a clear message about what a vote for Trump actually entails. America is a beautiful place that is basically up for sale now. From here in the UK, it is desperately sad and very frightening.
3
you say that 91% of strong supporters are successfully duped by this president's tweets, but - what percentage of the country are strong supporters? his approval ratings hover at 30-40% - so, say 90% of 35% is .315 - not a majority of Americans by a long shot. so how is his strategy "working" ?? a better way to measure this might be voting trends. look at the special elections that have been held since he became president (by razor thin margins in a few states by the electoral college, having lost the popular vote by almost 3 Million) - many special elections were close in areas that were not expected to be close, and some were won by Democrats. And look at polling less than a week before the midterms. There are Many of us who are not falling for this strategy - dare I say: a Majority.
1
For better or worse, and I am on the side of the worse believers, the reason its not "working" is that no one you need to convince listens to MSNBC, CNN and spare few the NY Times. And conversely, few of the Times readers or CNN supporters watch FOX news. The 'truth' can only be spread when people can hear it and understand it and equally importantly live in an open society where disagreement is tolerated if not welcomed. Those days are clearly and regrettably over. The peer pressure that is so prevalent in our teenage school children is now busting at the seams in our adult siloed media that has integrated into every facet of our private, social and work lives.
1
Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute says that the coverage of Trump the media "...constantly portray Trump and everything he and his administration says as lies". Well yes, they're portrayed as lies because they are lies. How else to report it when virtually everything Trump and his administration say are lies?
Imagine if a Democrat behaved this way.
7
The media, many of whom I revere, enabled Mr. Trump‘s path to the presidency, though some much more than others with shows like the Apprentice and his endless coverage and call-ins on cable TV.
And now confronted with the what they helped create, most of the media are alarmed, like a majority of Americans, by his bizarre temperament and behavior. At this stage though, they can only watch in shock along with the rest of us and then report and opine.
Ultimately, enough Americans will need to decide that they've seen enough and vote for this to change.
3
I just watched CNN's news reader Chuck Todd say he "feels' like the recent pipe bomb episode is a Russians operation to stoke chaos. WHAT? This is why people ignore the drivel coming out of todays news media. It's a joke. Lazy, self-serving and ridiculous. No wonder it's such easy picking for a crown like Trump to attack it. Who wants to defend that kind of "journalism".
8
This view is too fatalistic. News organisations can combat these attacks without compromising their values by doing stories that use logic — not just facts — to observe thematic contradictions and inconsistencies of those who would dismantle institutions of journalism. But it’s not enough to do this once. To be effective, analysis of thematic contradiction must. E unrelenting.
Many of us have known for many years that the news media has one job, and that is to pass on fear. That is their stock in trade. If one stops reading and listening to the media, one would have a much less anxious life. In this regard, President Trump is correct in calling the media "fake news." More often than not, the "news" consists of over-dramatized, overly subjective material that helps no one.
8
This article is disturbing. Mr Rutenberg says that reason the press is being asked to reduce its focus on President Trump's flood of falsehoods is for the goal of "public relations" -- that is, for the goal of protecting the press against rightwing claims that the press is incessantly attacking the President. Quite the contrary: The purpose would instead be the legitimate one of the press playing the role it simply can't avoid playing--namely, deciding judiciously what counts as significant news. The press can't avoid deciding which stories to print, in the limited space or time it has. If the press is simply reactive to whatever incessant, nonsensical, deceitful barbarism the President floods us with, then the press is simply serving as the transmission belt for demagoguery. I'm sure Mr. Rutenberg doesn't believe that that's the role of a free press. It's tragic that so much of the media has been sucked into Trump's propaganda machine. (Just like before the 2016 election when even the best TV networks showed the entirely of so many Trump speeches.) Meanwhile, those networks haven't devoted a single one-hour show -- not a single hour! -- to supremely urgent substantive issues like civilization-threatening climate change, or Trump's evisceration of worker rights, or the continuing fragility of our financial institutions, or the horrors in Honduras and Guatemala that drive Central American migration, or....
1
The most radical -- and unprofitable thing -- the national media could do is organize among themselves and schedule a "Trump Free" week when nothing Trump says is reported. That might get his attention.
2
it is easy to blame the news media but that's a cop-out when the public is responsible. there are many outlets from which people get their news and people tend to believe what they want to believe despite the facts.
2
You want to know how to beat Trump? Ignore him. Don't cover the rallies, the tweets, any of it. Just report the day-to-day, boring activities of the government without giving Trump any extra coverage. Don't call out the lies. Don't call out anything. Stop making him the story.
Attention is his oxygen & 6 months of Trump lite coverage would drive him absolutely bonkers. Always remember: if you're talking about Trump, he wins.
7
Are the attacks on the media working? Only to people who want to be convinced by the lies that pour out of the mouth of Trump and the Republican leadership. Rational and people understand exactly what is going on. Journalists need to keep doing what they are doing. Call out every lie. Present facts as explicitly as possible. That's all that can done. Oh, by the way, start calling out lies as lies and stop the false equivalence. Democracy depends on it.
2
Trump identifies with perpetrators, and not victims.
He is in the White House spewing hatred on Twitter.
It is indeed a “Mad World”— a 1983 song by Tears for Fears that should be played at the start of any political rally today.
5
The white Evangelical men and women who adore Trump will believe any lie, cheer any insult, revel in his destruction of our country’s international reputation, applaud his dog whistle racist remarks, leer approvingly at his misogynist comments and affairs, and nod their heads at his rejection of science and destruction of our planet.
All they want is their white Christian heritage to be recognized as the core value of our country. No price is too much to pay for that.
3
Trump's lies, whether they're little fibby, fraudulent things or whoppers, 'History' will never forget they were spoken as being truthful and hang this immoral, anti-social behavior of lying around Trump's neck like a noose, and mind you, into eternity.
And along with condemning Trump's lacking a social conscience as evidenced by his pervasive lying will come the condemnation of his acolytes, those sycophants who went along with Trump's ubiquitous lying, thus, handing them too a legacy equally as damning as that of Trump's..
1
Well, for starters, how about not embedding his tweets in the news articles. You are spreading them, not refuting them. OK to report what was in the tweet and to relate that to the straight news. Don't let DT write your articles and opinions.
4
I cannot help but recall America's origins. To explain the thinking behind the complex, three-branch government being proposed for a newly independent America, Madison wrote that "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
No one is controlling Trump now. Both the Supreme Court and Congress either ignore or actively support his habitual use of lies and hate speech. To motivate his supporters just prior to the election in 2016, Trump issued an ad in which he denounced the group of evil financiers destroying America as a parade of images of prominent Jewish Americans flashed by. Even though Trump admits that his immigration restrictions are intended to serve as a Muslim ban, the Supreme Court declares that they cannot second guess the President. As voter suppression efforts across the country proliferate, the Supreme Court finds that they are legal. With 745 of all victims of domestic terrorism murdered by right-wing extremists, Trump demonizes families with children walking to America.
1
The article headline says Trumps attacks are working. But the only evidence for this in the article is a poll showing strong Trump supporters tend to believe him (90+ %) vs media (11%). Well, duh.
The headline implies some change over time (ie believe him more now than previously)--- but no evidence is provided for this. Some expert opinion is provided. Well, my opinion is this is all pretty meaningless. As Francis Bacon said 100's of years ago (still true) "For what a man would rather were true he more readily believes."
Let's have some proper evidence or move on.
2
Democratic candidates in this election need to be more coherent in their messaging. While each no doubt has specific points of interest to his/her constituency, they should also repeat in unison that Trump is a key subject of the election and focus on his incompetence, corruption, and flat-out lying.
1
Tump's lies, barbaric bullying and fake news shtick only works because the ~ 26% (63 million) of all eligible voters who voted for him (out of 240 million that could have registered and voted) are either incapable of discerning civil norms and the truth, or just refuse to.
Yes the media should keep track of his endless lies, but just include a summary list on the front page with links to the details every day.
And focus on how almost nothing he says or does works as advertised ...
(Coal is coming back big time...uh, it actually isn't;
ignoring science will destroy the planet from excessive warming and poisons...it's happening before our eyes;
cheaper better health care for everyone...where is it?;
tax cuts where 80% of the benefits got to the rich, peanuts for average people...what a typical fraud;
cutting social security to pay for exploding debt from the tax cuts...on cue for repubs, etc).
He's a fraud and failure, just focus on the facts, and to those with basic awareness the truth will be self evident. The rest are hopeless.
1
If the premise of this article is correct – the premise that Donald Trump’s daily attacks on conventional reporters, columnists and broadcast commentators, together with Trump’s stream of provably outrageous lies are working – our nation and its democratic traditions are in dire straits
The premise, however, may not be correct, since it is based upon polling done by calling homes and asking a series of questions on the presumption that the person responding is answering truthfully.
That presumption of truthfulness is fair to make in normal situations, but the America of Donald Trump is very abnormal.
What’s different which would cause a poll interviewee to lie? Fear, plain and simple.
It may be fear that other people – perhaps friends and family in earshot of the phone conversation expect responses favorable to the Trump narrative.
It may be a general fear that somehow, someway any response favoring Democrats will be uncovered.
Journalists need to keep doing their jobs. The only change might be to ask tougher questions, but always in a polite, professional manner.
Democratic candidates need to keep doing their jobs, pointing out the gap between Republican claims about tax cuts or affordable health care and the actual Republican record.
The Trump foreign policy of insulting our allies and wooing Russia is also fair game.
In the privacy of a voting booth, many people – especially women – counted on by Donald Trump and Republican candidates are likely to surprise.
2
When reading these hundreds of comments you see how desperate thinking people are to find a way to oust our incompetent, unfit president.
By constantly spewing lies on Twitter and at his rallies, he is causing us to think there is no way to stop him. If he were the head of a corporation, he would have been ousted long ago because he is a pathological liar.
How can we trust a pathological liar who happens to be president? And how can people of other nations trust the US to find away to do away with this despicable man?
Of course the Republicans have sold their souls and rallied behind this man to gain power through tax cuts and deregulation to benefit the plutocrats at the expense of the working class.
Most of Trump's supporters are supporting him even against their own economic interests. He is a propagandist who tells his base he has their best interests at heart, of course using more lies.
Ron Reagan once asked, "are you better off today than you were before?"
The ultimate truth is that Trump betrayed the people who are voting for him when he promised to bring their jobs back.. the same jobs that were outsourced by the corporatists in search of higher profits. So, how many jobs came back? The number is in single digits. And workers' wages can't even keep up with inflation.
Here's a new sign for his rallies: Promises not kept. This has to be repeated over and over for it to sink in. The truth is the truth.
2
The article seems intent on supporting tRump's narrative by omitting important information. For instance, the article states that, "By one measure, a CBS News poll over the summer, 91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media." However no statistics are given for the rest of the news-consuming population. What was this statistic before tRump's election and what is it now?
The former stats would be more important if tRump's supporters made up the majority of the electorate particularly if the stats for the remaining population were relatively stable.
tRump's supporters assume their stated mistrust of mainstream news media not as a carefully-considered conclusion but as a deliberate strategy to confound and distract the media and nonsupporters. The article's author appears to believe they can be swayed with factual reason. This will never happen.
The tRump electorate should not be pandered to or validated. The mainstream fact-based media should remain focused on its historic consumers, which are those individuals who maintain a belief in Democracy over Autocracy, Inclusion over Prejudice, Truth over Fiction.
Facts DO matter.
1
The echo chamber loves tweets. Trump loves the echo chamber. A marriage of convenience. Gobbles would be proud. The big lie works because the believers want to believe. Terrible anger at impotence when other people's rights are protected yet they themselves are called the criminals. Who knew that cradle to grave intolerance would ever become a target for correction?
The thing about belief is that it ignores facts. Republicanism is a Religion. Trump is a solid reflection of radical Muslims. Truth does not matter to either party. Power is the only goal. Keeping power is likely to rip our nation into a bunch of separate states. I am sad. I gave 20 years of my life to protect this mess.
4
I'm amazed at how little responsibility the media bears for their own actions and reporting. That's a big reason why we're here.
While Trump does undermine many norms, the media hasn't always been the most truthful either. Comey's indictment of NYT, its slanted views and even its own admittance by a columnist to being all supportive of Hillary, doesn't help to disarm Trump but fuel him and supporters. Fox and Breitbart are also negligent, even more so than NYT.
The problem lies in how news is reported. In the old days, people got print or TV. But then came the Internet. More people can report. While phone cameras and surveillance have allowed truth to come out when otherwise would be hidden, Internet makes news media more competitive, driving profits down.
If all the news media told the truth, they would all sound the same. That's why NYT, Fox, CNN, BBC, Alex Jones, they aren't looking to expand audience as much as enrage, incite, and galvanize their current readership to drive clicks and revenue.
The Internet has made media more polarizing and biased. More yellow journalism and sensationalism. NYT is guilty among many others, all to varying extents. There's no code of conduct or regulation on telling the truth, that's freedom but freedom means we have to be responsible with it. That requires education, which less seem to have whenever I look at comments section.
3
Did I just hear the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military in the world tell a group of senior citizens that if they want to stay alive, they ought to get a hired gun?!!! I don't know if the President is responsible for fanning bigotry, but for sure, this man is guilty of dereliction of duty!
4
Watching Trump’s campaign rallies I see a lot of young, nicely dressed people enjoying themselves. Then he drags up his trigger words, well honed since the primaries, and their faces distort into ignorance and hate; they become bitter old people. What happened?
This portion of society has been ‘forgotten’ by an economy created by both democrats and republicans. Somewhere in the 70’s or 80’s we became complacent. Lobbyists made sure we didn’t create new industry to replace existing. Oil, pharma, weapons - New industry was not encouraged, ’Vision’ limited to the next quarterly report. Education funding decreased; people wanted to learn something to ‘get a job’. Courses like history, social studies, civics, which encouraged ‘insight’ for engineers, dentists, or farmers, became a luxury.
White, conservative, heterosexual, ‘christian’ people suffered because they had been the ‘default’ reality; they got the breaks and the benefit of the doubt. It changed slowly; some embraced the new members of society. Some were unaware, some resentful.
Barack Obama was a wake up call. The tea party … ‘you lie’ … cowards spat on John Lewis … ‘armed and dangerous’ … ‘one term president’ … The republcans had no choice; they needed those votes.
Trump showed up. His ‘surging’ economy is a continuation of Obama’s. His tax cuts will cost future generations, as will abandoning environmental regulations.
But he said the right things to an aggrieved group of people, so who cares ?
2
The journalism industry needs a white knight to provide the sufficient capital and infrastructure to combat these attacks. I’m not ordinarily in favor of M&A activity to reduce competitive alternatives, but in this case, the media is handily being divided and conquered. Also, the media can’t mount a sufficient counterattack when it is so fractured. I fear that we, the people, find ourselves ever closer to an us/them tipping point. Surely, attacks from the highest levels of government on constitutional freedoms were anticipated, but with control of 3 branches, the Founders surely never anticipated a ruling Party.
2
If Trump is succeeding in brainwashing the public it is not in spite of the media. The media pundits are too afraid to call his brand of brainwashing the equal of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and to explain the parallels with that dark part of history.
It seems to me that there is a fear of making that comparison because it would be "too over the top."
3
Just because the "average reporter gets up in the morning" and feels compelled to challenge and report on Trump's lies, doesn't mean the Times has to print those stories. In any case, since when have reporters not be assigned to the articles they file? Editors?
1
It is working because we are one of the dumbest nations on the planet who does not even value education enough to properly fund it.
4
Trump has taken a page directly from Netanyahu's playbook. Attack the press, consolidate censorship, sue individual reporters and tighten constraints. Netanyahu is under investigation for attempting to retaliate against a paper critical of him.
1
It may well be that the news organisations were not built to withstand daily tirades of abuse and citizen responses like pipe bombs, but neither was the Presidency built to withstand a Donald Trump. There are precious few checks and balances for mental derangement and verbal non sequiturs. Having to fact-check the verbal bilge from the White House sewage barge each day is so demeaning for these brave men and women who simply joined journalism to get to the truth. They never thought they would be defending their profession or having to genuflect to the psychopathic Golf-father-in-chief.
4
Advice to the hyper-partisan Mr. Rutenberg: "Remove the beam from thine own eye, then shalt thou see clearly to remove the mote from thy brother's."
This piece contains the kind of inaccuracies and distortions in which he accuses the President of engaging.
One of many examples: Of the 2004 efforts by the Swift Boat Vets to disseminate facts underlying Candidate Kerry's Vietnam record, Rutenberg states: "That attempt drew scrutiny from major media organizations, and eventually led to broad condemnation, even from the candidate it was intended to benefit, President George W. Bush."
This is clumsy historical revisionism.
The (successful) efforts of the Vets to portray Kerry's Vietnam record in its true light certainly "drew scrutiny from the major media organizations" (and from partisans like Rutenberg). What should have drawn their scrutiny were the fictions surrounding Kerry's record itself (as well as his Navy personnel file).
Those who pontificate about "democracy dying in darkness" were AWOL on that front, so the task was left to the Vets.
Kerry stood mute through it all, as a child caught in the act who knows the teacher has the goods on him.
Contrary to Rutenberg's assertion, Bush II, sheepish about his own non existent Vietnam service, did not broadly (or narrowly) condemn either the Swift Boat Vets or Kerry. Rather, "W" contented himself with speaking favorably of all Vietnam Vets, never reaching the particulars of Kerry's ...ah... "legendary" record.
4
If attacks on the news media is working, then the news media needs to unshackle from their desks, go forth and talk to registered voters who have had two years to decide if Trump is worth the aggravation.
What's left of the middle class needs to have a voice in the discussion.
To the media:stop repeating every tweet and comments from Trump
6
It would be OK to ignore this guy's rhetoric and refuse to report on it except that his fan club is sending pipe bombs to former Presidents, running over peaceful protesters, and shooting up synagogues.
Principled American patriots need to stand up and repudiate this behavior and we need to shed light on it in order to fix it.
The mistake that the media makes is reporting Team Trump's statements as though they are logical arguments based in a factual universe, rather than treating them as extremist sermons delivered by a wayward preacher who is dangerously radicalizing a vulnerable, unstable community.
3
If the media would stop talking about trump maybe he would stop tweeting.
What he hates most is being ignored.
In the meantime he should be in prison for his numerous crimes.
3
Too often, newscasters are explaining (defending) trump's comments under the guise of fairness. There is no need to do this. Simply set up his quotes by using "although" "in spite of" or "nevertheless" and what he says will be put in the proper context by readers/listeners/viewers who are able to draw their own conclusions.
For example:
Trump said less rudeness was needed; nevertheless, he went on to joke about his 'nice' demeanor and then to mimic "presidential" demeanor.
In spite of his own calls for violence against protestors at his rallies, trump asked for more civility.
Although he has frequently called for violent action against opponents, trump said we all have the right to be heard.
2
What can you say, we have either an idiot or a moron for president. Perhaps both!
1
To ignore a tweet is what Trump hopes for as he cements his lies with his base. Not calling them out gives them authority. We, as a nation, can never ignore the lies of a President.
1
The responsible press treats Trump as though he'll either be personally ashamed or lose political support if he's called out for specific lies and racist remarks. Often, journalists suggest that he doesn't know how dangerous his rhetoric is. That's all off-base, and they've been making the same mistake since the campaign.
All the evidence suggests that Trump would be happy to have journalists intimidated by violence, would be thrilled to have gangs personally loyal to him beat up political opponents. He's happy to have racial scapegoats. There's nothing to show that many of his supporters in Congress and in the right-wing media oppose him on this. If you want to see how all this works, there are lots of countries to serve as examples.
Instead of amplifying every racist lie Trump tells, journalists should relentlessly focus on unveiling the truth of what's going on with immigration, voter suppression, job gains and losses, and other political issues. Don't cover the content of most of his speeches or tweets.
This might not save the country, but it's the right way to do the job.
1
"Grandmother" is almost right. Don't even cover his lies.
Do not cover any of his campaign rallies - he is not the "president" when he's "campaigning." Do not cover any of his tweets - none. Do not replay anything he says when he is walking to and from the helicopter or Air Force One. Don't even show him walking! Don't ask him any questions when he has foreign guests at the Oval Office. Don't give him any TV time at all. Report what he is doing but don't show him talking. This will drive him crazy. He is an ego driven narcissist who thinks the presidency is a reality show and he wants to be on TV 24/7. Don't do it.
8
The media helped to create Trump by being unable to resist the shiny object that he represented when he started to campaign. Aside from all of the free press he got while campaigning, you still cover every stupid misspelled tweet he transmits and you show excerpts of his incessant campaign rallies giving him a nationwide platform for his violence-inciting rhetoric. You should stop reporting on his twitter feed and stop showing the cheering crowds at his rallies on television. Press coverage is oxygen that keeps the flame of Trumpism burning. Suffocate it.
9
How about this: Stop covering the President and his lies - when oxygen is taken away from the fire, it dies.
2
Do Trumps tweets qualify under Twitter's supposed new guidlelines? All lies and fake, think that should be enough, to delete his account, even if coming from POTUS. Twitter must delete his account.
Enough already, contact Twitter and let them know. If no response, cancel your account, that will certainly get their attention. You can live without Twitter for a couple of weeks, it won't kill you. Imagine your life before Twitter, was it so bad? Read (most important), send an email or god forbid talk to someone on the outdated telephone, there is believe it or not, one in you pocket!
The NYT should lead on this, quit posting his tweets. Just report what he said in his many lies and don't pubish images of his actual tweets. You (NYT) are just feeding him, is so very sad. It's not MAGTA, it is STAND UP AMERICA!
1
The core problem here is one that no one seems to want to utter outside of some kind of weak joke: the President is not a man at all; he is a five year old boy. Most 5 year old boys lie when they are under pressure or caught. Because this particular one was born wealthy and enabled throughout his life (the original snowflake, I'm certain), he has used his assets to manipulate and scheme all of his days.
He is binary in the absolute. If you are not cheering for him, you hate him.
More reporters need to scoff at him as he scoffs at them. And they need to do so constantly, time is running short.
Imagine if he continues to have a fully compliant congress in the coming two years. Democracy will die. Read some history, there are far too many echoes in today's headlines of years past. The stories of yore did not end well
2
We cannot wait. This is an emergency. It's as if someone just declared the end of reason. We need a powerful, cogent response to Trumps distortions. Democracy is at stake. Let's see it begin to happen immediately. Which businesses or foundations will step up to the plate and sponsor the strongest possible set of answers to this mightly challenge?
2
Don’t hold your breath for McConnell or Ryan, they’re spineless, sycophantic payroll politicians along with many more in the majority.
The premise of this piece — is it working? — uses odd Trump supporter data to backup the “yes” answer. Yes, it is working among Trump supporters. But take heed — it is NOT working among sane, thinking Americans. So journalists must keep up the good work and not let him get under their skin.
Professor Pinker should get away from Harvard Yard and talk to some people out in the everyday world. Sad to say, DJT DOES represent a lot of people and it IS a reflection of a hateful and poisoned environment.
1
The mainsteam media itself is responsible for the distrust and comptempt so many people have for it. Just few examples...
Calling illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants."
Calling government sanctioned racial, gender, and ethnic discrimination "affirmative action."
Calling US dependents such as Europe, Japan, S. Korea, and Israel "allies." Since WWI it has been a one way flow of money and lives to Europe.
Reporting about "gun violence." A gun has never been convicted much less indicted for crime.
Story after story about "police violence" such as Eric Gardner who is responsible for his own death by resisting arrest. When police are gunned down the stories are buried
The mainstream media really showed its colors when Trump asked the deadbeat NATO members to pay their fair shair. And the media attracked Trump instead of siding with the US!
9
@Reader In Wash, DC
The rest is simple minded nonsense. But take the objection to" gun violence" as a regular description of a human armed with a killing, military weapon shooting down innocent civilians. That's right. They weren't knifed to death. They weren't strangled. They weren't bludgeoned. They were gunned down. By guns. In the hands of American born and bred citizens living under the 2nd amendment.
1
Media sensationalism, sensitivity and no sense require little thinking on the part of those of us with a love for Trump. As David Brooks pointed out 'The Exhausted Majority' is too busy struggling to make ends meet, and our Accidental President is a novelty of contradictions: a Don-in-the-Box, entertaining, filled with daily surprises.
He's a bit of the right stuff, our man Don the Great Entertainer, and there is no need to read Tabloid News when you can watch him in action on T.V.
The president makes the babies among us smile with conviction. Children are more prescient, and while they may enjoy a cartoon president, they are staying closer to their family these days.
Not all of us are interested in facts and figures at the best of times, but remain drawn to the Brain Candy Department. At last hearing, the New York Times is a 'Liberal' publication for the Elite and intellects in our midst, and this American voter is planning to take a peep at The Baltimore Sun, while hoping the link strengthens between The Chicago Tribune, The Hill and the NY Times.
The reading of Frankenstein is most timely in the times we are living; a popular movie which we can all enjoy, while on an aside, we try to understand that we have a president who believes in his own fibs, tweeting lonely, in the dead of the night.
I read the Times less now, because of Trump, not more. He's a boring ignorant man. The Times isn't far behind.
2
Re: Your headline. They don't with this former reporter. Or my husband (also a former journalist). My daughters. My son-in-law. My friends. Or the majority of my siblings.
2
It isn't his ...so called attacks...Ive been reading the news daily for well over 45 years and have NEVER seen such Unwarranted attacks on a President ...and it has been every day getting close to 2 years now and for the first time in my life I Do Not Trust Big Media and who are owned by what 6 entities as Bernie Sanders said in his campaign ....those owners ARE the Enemy of the PEOPLE!
10
The media fed the mania by covering Trump’s every tweet from the time he started running.
With profit-driven media like ours, Hitler wouldn’t have needed Goebbels.
2
Why can't the NY times and other legit media simply report what he and his administration are doing without amplifying trumps lies. For example:
"On Tuesday in [insert Red State name], the president continued to ratchet up the fear levels of his supporters in an effort to get out the vote. He continues to boldly lie and distort events to his advantage. [insert link to the presidents speech]. In the meantime, his administration has not put forward any plan to deal with immigration problems the country faces despite majorities in both houses of congress, thereby maintaining immigration as a wedge to divide the country. In other news, the administration continues to squander our shrinking opportunity to combat the devastating climate change impacts. On the economic front, despite a 'booming' economy, financial insecurity continues to be a problem for the vast majority of Americans while the administration still has no plan to shore up social security or improve health care costs. Additionally, due to the enormous tax break for the one percent, the deficit has grown tremendously, further pushing the burden of our current tax policy onto our children."
How hard is that?
4
The problem is, both sides can take the blame. Let's look back at the articles on Trump - since 2016. Have the press even given him a fair chance? No! Have they glorified Obama? Yes - to the point where Obama can do no wrong.
The reason his rhetoric is resonating with most middle America is because all the people read about is 99% negative. Even when the press try to celebrate some success, they inject some negatives.
Why not report news as it is without putting the liberal twist? Try it - Trump may surprise you.
7
@Candace Lee
Goody, goody...national lands are now open to oil and gas people; no more burdensome regs on coal mining; climate changes is backed by a bunch of Democrat scientsits; more fumes in the air now that the auto industry is free; about 15 million Americans will not have health insurance; Putin is an ok guy; the head of Saudi Arabia is a prince of a fellow; and on and on. Goody, goody...
Report the news, ignore Trump. Report the news, ignore Trump.
5
It has come down to a choice of good versus evil, decent versus a mad bomber, people honoring God versus an anti-semite assassin. In each of these conflicts, we have a president failing our nation, worrying about his hair.
2
Republicans are made up of a group of folks that simply want to hear the type of talk that they'd prefer to hear, regardless of whether it's truth or fiction. With 24/7 conservative talk radio and the silly Fox News, a channel where the viewer can hear from an anchor that "Santa Claus is white", piping bad, wrong and anger-laced fiction at an audience that likes that kind of talk merely emboldens and empowers. Trump trampling on all news not conservative as "Fake News" and insinuating that the only news worthy of the label is the documented "Fake News", is simply what his people want to hear.
1
I agree with the writer that DT seems to have placed the media in a double bind - they can't ignore his statements except at their own risk.
What risk you may ask? The media's bottom line. The silly and incoherent comments that DT makes every day sells. It sells ads and access to other media. This is the carnival barker character of DT that the media has made a case of since 2015. His tweets are whip cream spread, well, on you know what.
The media needs to focus, as other commentators to this article have stated, on DT's actions and actual accomplishments. His Twitter feed is totally irrelevant to what is important to running and operating the US government.
So, just as Deep Throat told Wood-Stein 40+ years ago, "follow the money, just follow the money."
One suggestion: the media should not report DT's comments on what the media says about his previous Tweets, etc. That is, behave as if he said nothing. By reporting on his tantrums, the media is simply enabling him. Let Fox News respond to his tweets. They are really adept at that sort of "journalism."
3
Stick by your guns. The question isn’t whether news is favorable, it’s whether it is factual. Make Trump own what he does.
6
Trump, the commander of hate and lies, should be called out in a simple manner that even he could comprehend. The media might consider joining forces and create an independent organization whose only task would be to post verbatim his hate speech and lies on a mutually agreed upon site accessible to all, and keep a running tally. There could even be an app that displays the cumulative, everchanging number. Don't waste your time reacting to or opining about his daily tirades. His language is simple and needs no interpretation. Just post it, tally it and get it off the front page.
2
I would recommend not covering his actual words, but paraphrasing. Instead of "President Trump criticized the NYT for 'liberial bias and they are totally in the pocket of Hillary Clinton and the global Zionist conspiracy,'" you could say he challenged the veracity of the story and leave it at that. This limits his platform to lie (and the damage), while also covering the issue adequately.
3
We are told to be worried about a few thousand people walking thousands of miles to escape tyranny. While we are searching for reasons why our neighbors attack houses of worship.It has become acceptable to be intolerant.Our president makes his bones daily by being a Bigot and Rabble Rouser. For a few judges and a tax cut The Right has forfeited the character of our country.Trump is unleashing the Fringe and once the genie is out of the bottle can we ever hope he will go back in? The Saudis actually murdered a journalist while we let Trump diminish our media. Our media has to fight back because no one else is willing to take on Trump. Terroist are not only other than White People.
3
I'm with others who suggest that journalists need to quit reporting on the substance of Trump's tweets as if the tweets are newsworthy and report instead on his lies and actions.
If Trump is going to attack journalism AND facts, then we need to solidify the foundation of facts and journalism with pushback.
The front page of every newspaper should report in bold CORRECTIONS of the president's lies daily. This is news; and this should be corrected. Don't repeat lies, correct lies.
6
Perhaps a strategy for the MSM is to only report truthful comments by the President and completely ignore everything else. If he only got airtime on Fox he could lambast everyone with little effect. As another commenter suggested, the reporting should be highlighting the corruption and mismanagement by the GOP.
1
Reporting only his “truthful comments” wouldn’t take up much space. Or any space.
For 240 years the people of The United States of America have been electing a President, Chief Executive and Commander and Chief to serve and lead our great nation. Up until 2016 our presidents have conducted themselves in a manner befitting the noble office they have occupied and in a manner our people have come to expect from it's leaders.
Yes, we've had some presidents who have committed an indiscretion or two while serving. One we know for certain did the deed in the Oval Office. But he didn't call his paramour " Horse Face " when speaking to the press. I could go on about this endlessly about this topic but I can't.
I'm sorry, but I adamantly reject the conduct of this president. If the corporate media decided right now to black out the almost daily diatribes and tirades of this man, I for one would be very thankful.
Unfortunately, this will never happen. So I'm left with turning off the sound every time I hear this person bellowing about the latest object of his scorn. Am I really supposed to accept this conduct as the new normal for presidents? I really wonder sometimes what our recent past presidents might be saying to themselves in private when they see and hear Donald Trump's behavior.
3
It would be much easier to believe everything one reads in the press, or hears or views in the media, if the content of what is reported were not rife with spin and PR. So often we are presented with items that have been placed before us for a fee—someone paid to have that report be given exposure.
The press cannot have it both ways. If it seeks credibility, it must put PR and spin in their own little box, separate from the real news reporting. And this should include everything in a given medium: travel writers, health feature writers, wine and restaurant reviewers, etc.—all of them must remain above any suspicion that they are shilling for a buck. The present reality is far from that.
4
Trump is simply a very bad man supported by very many bad people. This situation highlights the challenges of a liberal democracy; awful people are free to spread their vile while individuals speaking the truth are overwhelmed by their mass. Nothing Trump says or doesn’t would be of consequence but for his willing executioners.
3
So your excuse is that the media wasn't built for that? And why is that? You built this, as you ARE the news media. So perhaps you should look more into the mirror and why you actually built it this way. And that Trump is new is no excuse, because the right wing has been working on this for at least 30 years, and the main stream media has done nothing than chase the bone, rather than reporting the news and, you know, actual reality. Remember the non-story of some emails, that was a non-story from the start but became the ONLY story of the 2016 election? Like the fact that no, the problem does NOT lie with both sides. But I guess that is all too much to ask, because, well, you're just not made for it. And the fact that this is apparently not in your hand, says more about you than it says about Trump. In that, I can only quote him: sad.
5
This article makes no sense. Trumps ignorant fan-base will believe what they need to believe but they are not all of us. Millions of Americans are reasonably intelligent and have the ability to think critically. The Deplorables do not. When Trump said he could shoot a man on 5th Avenue and get away with was no joke!
2
Of all of trump's despicable traits, undermining the press has to be among the worst. There's a reason press freedom is in the first amendment. They are the eyes and ears of the public at large, there to keep watch on those in power lest they abuse their privege.
By discrediting them, his trumpness plays a cynical game, precisely as he said to Lesley Stahl. To the degree he succeeds this nation is the poorer for it.
My intense wish is that the press at large hit upon the right formula to counter his ceaseless lies, present the facts in a concise and unremarkable way that resonates with the public, and expose his dangerous foolishness for all to see.
2
The MSM is taking itself way too seriously. The job of the media is to report news, not to pick a political side and not to report with such an abashedly partisan bias for that side, Of curse the MSM has freedom of speech, as everyone has, including Trump, but what they are reporting is not really news but opinion. They should at least be honest and classify the reporting as opinion and not pass it off as news when it is not.
9
would love to know your stance on Fox News
2
If you repeat a lie - which sadly the media does in its reporting of his tweets etc - essentially you are doing Trumps bidding then and reinforcing his lies.
Dont fan the flames.
4
Trump is a lying extreme narcissist. Attacking the media is what people like him do. It is the obvious answer to the criticism he justly receives hourly.
But Trump is the face of the Republican Party and after greasing him into the Oval Office they accept and support his lies.
White Christian fundamentalists and racists across the land accept Trump's lies as Truth. As they have said, he is one of them.
In these deeply troubled times when our democracy is at death's door, the media must redouble their efforts to let the American people know that right wing extremists financed by the rich owners of the GOP have been working steadily and systematically to destroy our government from within. Our two-party system has been corrupted to the core.
The Big Lies of Trump Tweets, his Fox/Breitbart propaganda megaphone and the Republican leaders like McConnell must be exposed hourly for the liars they all are. "Fair and balanced" is irrelevant.
A media that seeks truth and publishes it openly on the Front Page is the last bastion of our way of life. We have never needed the "Woodwards and Bernsteins" more than we do right now.
2
One of the President's jobs is to build up a reservoir of trust with the country that he can draw on in a major crisis.
Think, for instance, about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy addressed the nation on the subject of a nuclear exchange with the then Soviet Union. I remember the language..."a full retaliatory response."
Kennedy had the country's trust and, equally important, the Soviets knew he was serious. Trump hasn't established that trust...not by a long shot.
In my opinion, as someone who had some involvement in the Impeach Nixon movement, Trump's constant lying and failure to establish trust with the American people, by itself, constitutes an
impeachable offense...without a showing of obstruction or collusion. It certainly does under former President Gerry Ford's
definition.
When in Congress, Ford said, "an Impeachable Offense is whatever the House of Representatives says it is." Of course,
Impeachment is just part of the solution. Trial in the Senate and
Conviction by two thirds vote is necessary for Removal.
When Nixon resigned his Gallup Job Approval rating was 22%.
Gallup will come out with a new Weekly Job Approval on Monday.
My guess is the number will show a serious drop from the prior week...how could it not?
Unfortunately it will still be too high for a realistic expectation of Removal. That's now. Six months might be a different story.
The journalism industry has changed since I was at a college newspaper, today it is careerist taking marching orders from corporatists, both all about the $$. So physician heal thyself.
This paper completely rolls over for professional liars like Rachel Maddow (who I used to love) never criticises the Pentagon budget, on & on it's a raging joke. So you open yourself for accurate claims of fake news, and there you go. You make this bed, you lie in it.
6
Rachel Maddox isn’t a professional liar. She reports on the topics of the day/week and the impact of decisions made by the Administration. If those decisions affect the citizens of the country, she will report and provide opinion - that is not lying, that is a counter-balance to the appalling behaviour rife across the Administration.
It seems that you too feel that the MSM are the enemy of the people when in reality the country needs both sides of an argument to understand what is going on.
2
Rachel Maddow is the liar?
Personally, I would love to see the press fight back by declining to cover anything Trump for a week or two. If his supporters get upset, who cares. Meanwhile, I guessing many millions of Americans would love the quiet.
5
91% of Trump supporters trust him to deliver accurate information...
OMG.
And with that kind of slavish dedication Trump can spew anything he wants with full knowledge that hordes of drones will pick up the narrative and run with it.
2
Dare and contradict Trump — or point out his countless lies — and he rants and raves. People who commit unconscionable acts fear the truth more than anything else. They dismiss facts, espouse hyperbole and take comfort in their “alternate news” bubble.
Now, only the midterms can truly set us free. Vote.
1
The media should stop showing every single rally he goes to. They should be selective in their coverage, and when they do respond to egregious tweets, it should simply read, "This is a lie. The actual is xxxxx." Leave it at that. When he tries to divert, ignore him. Cover his actions, not his words.
In fact, if the world of journalism focused on the secondary players, such as Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Jeff Flake, or the moron in the House who put up that anti-Semitic tweet, they would get more genuine news and hold their feet to the fire. It will quickly become very ucomfortable.
4
The last sentence of this piece chills me to the bone. I just hope I am not alive to see it. And I am only 61.
3
@Lee, wary traveller
The last sentence is nonsense. Term limitations prevent Trump serving a third term. The last sentence illustrates how the liberal media misinforms and excites its readers over a false premise.
2
It is not nonsense, many people I know think that Trump will change the constitution if he is able to do so to allow him to follow President Xi in China. Trump actually commented on that change in the China constitution - he likes the idea of no term limits. Currently with voter suppression and other dodgy tricks, the Republicans can prevent millions of citizens from voting or they use electronic voting systems to load up their candidates votes with no way of auditing the counts.
He could also do a third term by simply winning the 2028 election. If the Democrats won in 2024 with the House controlled by the Republicans, it is a possibility that Trump would bounce back as a figurehead.
@Stephen W
I see you are from Sydney. Australia?
You don't know our constitution. He can't serve more than two terms, for him that would be a maximum of 8 years, no matter if he skipped a term and ran again. It's not like the Russian Constitution. It's not so easy to change the Constitution in the USA, not like in China, or elsewhere.
1
Freedom of speech without all truth, will end up in disaster for all of society, one way or another. When you are able, with either money, status in society, etc. to get out of one's bad personal, legal or criminal behavior, that will erode the stability of any society. When we begin to have those who have escaped any consequences of their behavior, or bad choices in society, that affect many others, and then these people are elected as leaders of the country, there is no longer anything that the media can do, as the masses have turned away from believing in any truth, and they will hate, and turn on each other, thus, that is how civil wars start. All speech, all tweets, all posts, are not worthy of any media time, and that is where the media went wrong. All people are not worthy of being allowed to speak, and speak hate, and lies, as it ends up badly for society, and this is what has happened in this country over a number of years. As when untruths are not rewarded, acting out violently is the next choice for too many. Evil people are those who can get others to act out for them, and that is where we are currently at.
2
As others have mentioned, the best strategy is not to repeat his propaganda and tweets.
If he takes an action, report on it and follow its consequences, intended or otherwise.
All major media outlets should boycott daily WH the press pool briefings, as these are farcical at best.
All reporting coming through Fox and Sinclair should be dissected, and complicit reporters and anchors held to account by their professional organizations.
And finally, subscriptions to NYT should be provided free of charge to anyone living in a red state zip - VOA for the heartland.
5
With a shamelessly corrupt president, congress, a right-wing judiciary, the free press is all we have left. Once Trump destroys that - welcome facism.
5
The media needs to stop "feeding the beast" - reporting on everything Trump says or Tweets. Unless it's a national disaster or other true emergency, IGNORE him. Boycott the White House briefings - what is the point of them other than to serve as another platform for his lies? After all, since Trump has dismissed the media as "fake news" he can't very well complain that they aren't covering him.
But if the media does decide to report on some non-critical announcement of the Liar In Chief, they absolutely need to use the L-word, and call him out in no uncertain terms when he lies. Sure, his Trumpets will still believe him and not the media, but so what, they're a minority. When the Emperor is standing naked in front of you, don't refer to him as "under dressed" - call his nakedness out for all to see!
And get rid of this notion that the media is a "victim". They've allowed this to happen because their true focus is making a profit, not telling the truth. They have it in their power to change the "rules of engagement" if they want. The question is: do they have the guts?
1
No one said this was going to be easy. The right has billionaires and a very powerful media ecosystem. We have the majority and the arc of history in our favor.
Peaceful protest, the vote, and small donations are the way forward.
Vote (and get your friends and family to the ballot box)!
5
Adding to previous post.
Somehow, the media must adjust / pivot how they cover this guy. Daniel Dale, Washington reporter for the Toronto Star, is a great example on how to do this.
He just straight up calls out the lies. In real time, during rallies, and in follow-up long form articles.
I have noted a few others following suit in past month or two. It's a start.
Headlines have to start reading NOT: "Trump says XYY," and four paras in, is the fact-based reality. Because, sadly, most people only read: "Trump says XYZ."
Headline should say: "Lying Again about XYZ," here this is the truth / reality about XYZ.
Or even better: "Apparently Uninformed President Lies Yet Again About XYZ "
(substitute "Clueless" "Dimwitted," other adjectives as best apply re: the topic and number of times a particular lie has been served up or repeated).
Have to nail him upfront, and hard, on the constant litany of outright lies.
As his stated goal is to 'discredit and demean' fact-based and well-researched news articles and the journalists who report same, then the way articles and TV reports are presented has to change to at least level the playing field somewhat.
Or, we're all going down the 'memory hole.' We're half-way there already, in less than 3 years. Which is truly terrifying.
5
@jazz one
Yup, I wholeheartedly agree. No more tip toeing around this very dangerous man. Call him out front and center, in real time. Especially during his every so frequent Nürnberg rallies across the U.S.
2
Trump's attacks are not on "the Medial". He attacks the Free Press, and it's about time the press started calling it what it is.
7
Let me share a little heuristic I’ve developed for figuring out if your ideas are nuts and dangerous or not.
If you find yourself saying or writing things that are structured exactly like the wacko stuff Trumpists say and write, and you realize you’ve just swapped out a few names and nouns to get what you said or wrote, you’re in trouble. Especially if you pretty much ladle on the same adjectives.
See, you shouldn’t be talking and writing as though you were playing MadLibs with dweebs, using the same formats and sticking a few new words in the blanks at the same places. It argues you’re making the same claims and arguments, at a deep level. Especially if you find you’ve got the same enemies.
derrida was right: “Coherence in contradidtion expresses the force of a desire.” And looks to me like we have too many from both sides—mostly in the Right, but sime not—who desire, well, power. To inflict pain. To be winning.
1
This is too pessimistic a slant on Trump's power to undermine a free press. Yes, his supporters believe him. But more than half of Americans polled dislike Trump. And the margin of strong favorable to strong unfavorable ratings are clear and unambiguous: most Americans really do not like this man.
Let's hope this translates into at least one branch of Congress flipping on November 6th. And hopefully, Trump will be denied a second term, let alone that third one the author anticipates.
3
All discussion, this is my opinion of course, should work under the notion that Trump was elected by 63 million people who felt somehow betrayed and alienated. He didn't put himself in office. He may have be a terrible leader and we knew he would be, but voters chose him. That seems to be something to remember when we look at this sham of a presidency.
4
@Frank Wick
Years ago a friend of mine gave me a kitchen magnet. At the time, I had no idea why. It reads:
'Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers'. I got it November 8, 2016!
1
That 63 million you describe is not the majority of the people voting, nor are they avid consumers of news for the most part. Often no time or too tired. The people who put Trump in office are the electoral college which has overturned the will of the majority in too many elections. Both parties have benefited from that disgrace, so, don't just blame the Republicans. It hasn't always given us a BAD president - this time it can be blamed for truly harming our democracy. But in the choice of candidates, either way was a losing condition. Hillary broke security laws which acts would have landed anyone else in prison before the ink had dried on the charges, no questions asked.
Those who voted for Trump do feel disenfranchised but so do so many who voted against him. Wake up - that's the condition of the United States population. Trump may be pouring salt in our wounds but American life has not been good for a very long time.
1
Another thought: the Washington Post could compile a list of true statements made by the president as a companion to the very long list of lies! Some positive attention so he didn’t always feel so aggrieved
1
Where are our thoughtful citizens? I know they're here, and in the comments below, but they need to speak up strongly!
3
Trump spews out lies, deception and hate. And he is the definition of narcissism. It's all nauseating.
3
How about a completely different approach to covering this individual? Instead of reporting and dissecting every single unhinged tweet and spoken word performance... why not dignify only the (rare) moments when he speaks the truth with articles and commentary? This guy loves being the center of attention. He feels persecuted by criticism, but he needs the media.
Not covering his antics will drive him crazy, and also deprive him of a major source of fuel for his rants at his rallies. No more negative attention. There’s too much nonsense to cover, and the crazies are already riled up. And there are lots of loonies out there, as shown by the numerous and persistent reports on the right of “false flag” events.
2
@ss Fox will be there to cover him. Does he need (want?) anything more?
Most chilling last sentence ever.
"You can't prove anything" said Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Trump. And five minutes later said"You can prove anything"
A student objected "You just contradicted yourself" and the prof answered "Yes I did"..class dismissed"
3
It may be an impossible strategy but if tried, it could work: don't report on him, not his tweets, not his incendiary declarations, any of that stuff. Don't show pictures, videos. Just publish his decisions, e.g. "President Trump signed this executive order, pushed this bill etc". No comments, no editorials. That will make him crazy because denying him attention may be the most effective thing to counter him. Worth trying?
Sure Fox News etc will continue, but who cares that's his camp anyway and they don't interest him.
7
Can someone please tell Trump that a free American press is a requirement of our Constitution?
He doesnt seem to have a clue that his weird business dealings along with slander and fraud are what is Fake. Congress should be confronting his attitude.
4
Trump has said many times that he doesn't mind fair criticism. It is the lies and misleading representations that he objects to. The media refuses to admit that they do lie and mislead their readers.
I have an example. The revoking of John Brennan's security clearance. The media portrayed that as an abuse of presidential authority and an attack on Brennan's first amendment rights, a punishment for attacking Trump, depriving him of gainful post government employment because of that lost clearance.
If the public informing media bothered to read the actual regulations they would have discovered that it was John Brennan, and many others, who were abusing their authority and security clearances, not Trump. Trump was enforcing current regulations and those who abuse them are objecting. The media took the side of the abusers. As CIA director and one who held a clearance he was required to conduct himself in a circumspect manner. It's the law, not an option. Read the regulations. He was not. His increasingly strident, public and widely publicized hostile comments against the president presented a legitimate security risk. Trump was obligated by law to revoke his clearance. Read them, slowly and critically.
Using one's clearance as a ticket to a better paying job is illegal. it's specifically forbidden. Read the regulations, liars.
4
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus: Brennan did not abuse his security clearance. That is a blatant lie. Trump abused his powers punishing Brennan for exercizing his First Amendment rights. It’s Trump abusing his own security clearance using an unprotected cell phone that the Chinese and Russians can listen in on whenever he uses it. It’s Trump exploiting the presidency for his own gain, violating the emoluments clause. John Brennan required to behave himself in a circumspect manner, when his country has a proven criminal and fraud as president? Brennan is a true patriot for speaking up and saying it like it is, loud and clear! Get over it.
6
I would like to use a stronger phrase but all I will say is, malarkey. Read advertisements for most jobs supporting defense and intelligence communities. More than 90% require the applicant to have a clearance or be able to obtain one soon after selection. Additionally, although the president has the ultimate responsibility (something this president is not so good at), people at much lower levels run the day-to-day show. Presidential action or interference is practically unheard of - until now.
4
@Angelsea
You haven't read the actual regulations. Start with Executive order 12968. It's still in effect and was signed by Bill Clinton in 1995.
The CIA director is a cabinet level position. He or she reports directly to the president. The President is the CIA director's direct supervisor.
Read it. Get informed. You'll know more than the NYT.
1
11 innocent people are dead in Pittsburg because of Trumps lies and attacks on the news. The worst attack on Jews in the history of since the founding of the United States, happened because of his his lies and his attack on the media. There is a direct line between his firing up his base with false facts about a caravan of asylum seekers and the murder of congregants during sabbath services in Pittsburgh. I would be arrested for yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre if it led to deaths. This is no difference. Trump must be called out and taken to task and held responsible. This is no longer about politics or sides. This is about public safety. His lies are literally killing people.
6
Trump swore to uphold the Constitution. Article 1 of the Bill of Rights guarantees a free press. By his constant comments on the press, inciting violence against reporters, and calling the press the enemy of the people, Trump has failed to live by the oath he swore.
Perhaps I am naive (I'm not, really) but I would say this failure to uphold the Constitution is grounds for impeachment.
9
@Bruce A Nice try, yet another fake "reason" for impeachment.
Don't worry about the media, they relish the fight and would be broke without Trump.
1
By “fake,” you mean you don’t like the truth, quite obvious to any rationally thinking person.
@G The truth is Trump can 'say' whatever he wants about the media - that is freedom of speech, like it or not.
And, all the while, he's granting more media access than Obama ever did.
1
Journalists should ignore everything Trump says, since he is a serial daily liar and his words are unreliable. News reporting should be limited to official positions taken by the Trump administration or to executive branch decisions or cabinet level developments. Filter Trump-the-person out of the reporting 100% and the media, plus the public, will no longer be involved with separating the grains of truth from the bushels of falsehoods. Of course, this strategy will sacrifice those profits produced by Trump the person. However, journalists could resume their profession instead of chasing down Trump’s latest howler.
6
"By one measure, a CBS News poll over the summer, 91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media."
These people will kill America.
5
No, they won’t. They haven’t got the brains, and they haven’t got the guts.
Please vote.
4
Glorification of athletic heroes in HS over academic achievements flows into valuing reality TV shows and stars over critically thinking investigative journalism, leading to this president. If all of us had learnt to value knowledge and think critically in our early years, voters would have challenged this hoax of a president before he was elected. We get what we pay for, sadly, but all of us pay the price.
10
It works because there is a media bias problem, most of the liberal kids I'm friends with agree that MSNBC and CNN are garbage fires of liberal bias. The problem isn't with whether or not an event happened the problem is always with interpreting the significance of an event, which will always be more subjective. Then what happens is journalists subjective interpretations of events or framing of events is presented as fact. I'm making this up so not referring to anything that actually happened, but say Trump got into a public spat with an allied world leader as he is wont to do. The event itself is a fact, it happened and is verifiable. Whether that spat represents Trump intentionally dismantling the liberal world order is not a fact, but the two often seem to get confused. For instance me saying that CNN and MSNBC purposely blur this line is not a fact either. Trump is just taking advantage of an environment that already existed. Read through this story again and pull apart what is fact and what is insinuation, in the end you have to trust that the author did due diligence (is there missing context, were other hypotheses explored, does this contribute to a partisan narrative and if so is it supported by the evidence). I don't like Trump, but I do like that he's making increasingly clear that perhaps news agencies have their own agendas and maybe its time we push back.
12
Bravo! I totally agree with you. For two years now, facts and opinions have been mixed in the media.
It is interesting when the NYT tries to fact-check some statements made by politicians, but the writing often turns into an opinion piece. The mindless defense of Professor Ford’s claims against Justice Kavanaugh was for instance a great example of poor journalism.
And what to think of professor Krugman’s writings? Any factual evidence there?
8
@Will
Your hypothesis: "..the problem is always with interpreting the significance of an event, which will always be more subjective.."
Your conclusion: "I don't like Trump" vs. "I do like that he's making increasingly clear that perhaps news agencies have their own agendas and maybe its time we push back".
My interpretation: You don't say why you don't like Trump which would actually be significant. You omitted evidence for your finding of Trump clarity. And "..time we push back" against our free press? It's called a letter to the editor.
My conclusion: Trump tries to bully, to deflect, and to denounce the press PERHAPS because:
they catch him in bald-faced lies and
they won't stop asking questions until they get a substantive answer.
1
In the United States, a free press and news media are essential to keep the public informed of major events. A free press holds the President and members of Congress accountable for their words and actions.
Authoritarian leaders prefer outlets that disseminate stories that are favorable to the leader (a.k.a, propaganda). We must have a free press so that Presidents are accountable for their words and actions.
If you want Congress to restore "check and balances", be sure to vote in the midterm elections on November 6, 2018!
5
A lot of readers are referring to the "main-stream media" as factually correct holy grail. I have been reading and listening to it most of my adult life. Sorry to say that this very same media needs to look within its soul - a lot of what they report is in fact politically slanted and in many cases shallow, if not accurate. But I guess that sort of news is fast and cheap and in this age of low circulation and declining profits, that works for them. Nonetheless, it is up to us to ultimately be smart enough to recognize the "game", whichever side it favors, and strip out the bias to retain from whatever comes our way what is really important. For now, I would wish that media does come across as honest but a depth of news analysis that enriches, not stupefies.
8
Until the media quits its assault and starts reporting Truth instead of left wing ideology.it will continue to lose readers and views and continue to be declared FAKE news. There was a time several years ago when you could pick up The New York Times and bet your last time that its stories were completely accurate, unbiases and fair. No more and it is true with the AP as well as the majority of news outlets. It is sad and is why many are saying they are the enemy of the people for distorting everything.
6
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad...and untrue.
3
Hilariously, you’re simply repeating the same attacks on the media in general and the Times in particular that have been being bellowed around since the founding of the John Birch Society.
Seriously, you think guys like Cronkheit and Schorr and the Times were once upon a fairytale beloved by all? For what, their coverage of the Pentagon Papers?
3
The world would be a much better place without Twitter.
7
@JLPDX, what I find really annoying about Twitter, even though I never look at it, is how it always ends up on my online front page edition of the New York Times. Someone’s just not letting me avoid it and the stupid things that’s said on it. This has to be the work of some hacker.
2
He's loathsome. Utterly and truly loathsome, to his core.
I am sooooo tired of his weird and wicked mouth, always, always open and yapping.
And to see all those phones and cameras pointed at him, always -- is that helpful? Is it needed any longer?
We all know who this guy is by now.
What if he gave a rally, and no one but Fox showed up? And no one else reported on it?
Maybe he'd shrink a little? This constant coverage, I sometimes think is just feeding the beast.
I look forward to the day the red light of the camera is NOT on him. I hoped it would have been extinguished Nov. 9, 2016. 80,000 lousy votes across three states! (one of them mine, I hate to say).
Until such time as there is a change, both via the midterms I pray, and again in 2020, the painful wait to shut. this. guy. up. goes on. And on.
7
Don’t miss the mention in the last sentence of Trump’s third term. Don’t dismiss it as absurd or illegal. Trump is setting the stage for refusing to leave office.
3
@Barry Palevitz Tedious paranoia is caused by consuming too much fake news.
2
@mmpack "Tedious paranoia is caused by consuming too much fake news." You haven't been paying attention, then. Trump has said as much himself. "Maybe we should try that here" he said, when musing enviously over China's President Xi having himself declared president for life. Or is that fake news too?
No way. This is how gaslighting works. You start letting go of the little things to focus on the big ones and before you know it his little lies are all "truths" and you're the bad guy because why didn't you address it before? The press needs to do more factchecking and not less. The era of Trump will end, and when we look back on it, who will be proud of letting 5,000 lies go unchecked in favor of rebutting the Top 5?
5
I SEE the weariness on the reporters' faces. Reporting yet another Trump lie. I FEEL their frustration. I say to them, Don't give up. Don't give into Trump lies. Report and MOVE ON. I am behind you--I just can't stand to listen anymore.
6
Sure, the readers of the N.Y. Times know this very well.
To defeat Trumps drumbeat of defamation of the media, this avatar of excellence must not simply be more dedicated to accuracy than he, ut must also be religiously committed to the very highest level of integrity.
One egregious example was the exclusive story of Rod Rosenstein considering the 25th amendment for deposing this president. He denied it, yet if the Times had taken the effort to have actually examined this Amendment, that only places a president on inactive status that he could reclaim during his tenure, it would have been clear that neither Rosenstein or White House officials ever had such an absurd.
conversation.
And to add to this trend, without any explanation, when such a position is more important than ever, the Times discontinued the Public Editor/ Ombudsman position.
Having higher integrity than the Trump White House or Fox News just isn't enough during these times.
4
I would love to see the media completely ignore his tweets, outlandish comments and off-the-cuff statements and instead focus on the true state of the nation and the world. Television media only gives him a platform every time they put him on television. Each time you publish his inanities, his lies, you are giving him voice. Yes report on his policies, but otherwise, ignore him. How about in depth articles about everyone running for Congress, including their voting records and interviews with the incumbents' opponents. The Times does a great job, but you could do a better job by ignoring the media hound as much as possible. He's going to talk to his base anyway, and they may never wake up. Silence him by ignoring him.
2
The news media does need to prioritize. Focus on the results of his policies. Don’t even bother to label him as a liar. The facts and experts are enough to create a dialogue in an article that people can read and understand without the label that he is being incredibly inaccurate and outright lying at times. The only risk being run is that it may cause a lack of enthusiasm against the president, however, most voters can also see through the fact that recent democratic candidates running an “anti” campaign is not enough to vote for the minority party. Democrats need to give the people something to vote for, not something to vote against.
2
Speaking about "strange things", how about that caravan?
Honduras has suffered from chronic violence and poverty for years. But why the big exodus now? Not much has changed in recent months I believe. A friend of ours who lives in Honduras is very suspicious of the timing.
Seems awfully convenient doesn't it? With Republicans clearly willing to do anything to win elections, I would not be surprised that they have had a hand in it.
2
I have two degrees in communication. trump is simply pointing out what I have seen for the past decade. It’s not attacking the media. It is simply turning the spotlight around. See how you folks like it. And he is correct when he states the media needs a major overhaul .
8
@Pilot
How many degrees do you need to simply spotlight that Trump is a prolific and compulsive liar?
8
@Pilot Do you think that Trump wants the spotlight on anything other than himself? I doubt it. The journalists have been trained to report on the President. They are doing that. Even the FOX news journalists report on the lies Trump spews. Many people do not know the difference between journalists and opinion writers, which is sad.
1
I'd propose that every news agency that Trump attacks attaches a banner to each photograph they use of him with the quote “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you”. It might help inform those who don't ever intend to read the article...
1
He said yesterday that he didn't cancel his pep rally because his friend had the new York stock exchange opened the day after 9/11. Now, this boob lived in new york city at the time. He doesn't recall that NYSE was down for a week? He not only doesn't know history and world affairs, he doesn't even know stuff he lived through. Not anybody's definition of an intelligent individual....
8
@Bob It wasn't that Trump didn't remember if the NYSE was open or not the day after 911. He just didn't care if what he said was accurate or not. Trump just made it up to support what he was doing.
Perhaps at the beginning of the next president’s term, Charles Blow’s first column won’t have to call him or her “stupid” in every other sentence and vowing to watch every move they make like a predatory stalker never to be left out of his unrelenting and unforgiving stare. Not exactly a high water mark in journalistic integrity either. Things just don’t appear out of nowhere, much as we’d like to believe.
11
@John Doe Right - biggest inauguration ever - great start ...
1
The press needs to stop reporting everything and anything which comes from Trump's mouth or Twitter. He is deliberately spreading lies to get attention and create a diversion. Unfortunately these lies have an affect on the unhinged as we have seen this week. Assume that everything he says is a lie, and just ignore the man.
4
Yes, apparently it is futile to engage with Trump on any level. Appeals to reason and concerns for the future of our country fall on deaf ears. Yet the recurring episodes of senseless slaughter w are becoming too much to bear. When elderly people are pitilessly gunned down at their place of worship, children are cruelly killed at their schools, and terrorist acts threaten leaders, it is time for action. But Trump does nothing buy perfunctorily state that he's praying for the victims and their families, and he quickly resumes his ugly business of stirring up hatreds in our country. Maybe it's time for Americans who care to declare a National Day of Mourning each time one of these attacks occurs and to abstain from normal commercial activities that day to a protest the inordinate influence the arms industry has over our legislators. Maybe those who refuse to take action will begin to take seriously what they have ignored for so long
6
“Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions, Democrats will not! Vote Republican.” -President's Tweet, 24 October
How many Americans will die due to:
Trump administration's undermining the ACA?
Congress' next Repeal attempt, if citizens respond to that lie for votes?
-the Candidate lied about "better and cheaper"
-the People rightly protested at town halls
-John McCain gave Repeal without Replace a thumbs down
The President will TOTALLY lie to the People, especially to those with pre-existing conditions.
The President will TOTALLY invoke fear and incite anger, especially to those who chant their loyalty.
Crazy is sitting in the White House.
People know what needs done.
5
In a directly related article appearing on the front page of this morning's paper, I quote you, President Trump has "a divisive style of politics."
With all due respect...no. That's not accurate. President Trump is divisive. Period.
Earlier this week I posted this comment...
"While I fully appreciate and agree with this paper's editorial about Trump's pre-election demagoguery, what I need - what this nation and the world needs - is for this paper, and any remaining news media outlets with any sense of impartiality or journalist integrity, to specifically and consistently outline, with each story, with each lie and manipulation…
...the possible outcomes, consequences, and potential dangers of the relentless lying, deception and manipulation of information coming out of the President’s mouth and of his administration’s policies…every single day."
The following day...the "outcome" was mail bombs. Three days later...the murder of eleven people in a Pittsburg synagogue.
The American media must begin to soberly, sincerely, and repeatedly communicate the cost of our "normalizing" this President's behavior.
5
In response to many posts here to limit coverage of cadet bone spurs vitriol, I ask how can the media NOT cover him when he blatantly lies about them, democrats, the "murderers and middle easterners heading North in the caravan" etc? These are outright lies. He compares peaceful protest to mobs never recognizing the craziness at his rallies. He says there were people to blame on both sides when white nationalists chanted "Jews will not replace us". He had the audacity to comment on the Kavanaugh hearings as if we are clueless to his misogyny of women and his history of abuse. I could go on and on. The media is the tool to investigate and call out government and the president when the values and rights of Americans are being maligned. If you really want to see an angry mob, watch for the backlash in the event the Democrats take the House on election day. The bully in chief will be the first to say that the results are wrong, democrats cheated and we will hear more than copious amounts of verbal diarrhea that continues to poison our country. If fox news can continue to have a platform of lies and conspiracy theories, then the MSM and other reliable sources of news should continue its daily assault on this travesty of a presidency!!
8
So telling the truth, and expressing your opinion works? Who knew. I sometimes wish the president would express himself more clearly, but when you actually listen to what he is saying it is almost always the truth.
5
This President is a liar a possible traitor and could care less about that. The attacks on the media are not working I still believe stories printed by the NY Times more than lies tweeted by this President. Attacks failed
5
Ronald Reagan - "the Great Communicator" - laid the groundwork for Trump and the right wing propaganda machine by uttering one of the most irresponsible lines in presidential history during his 1981 innauguration:
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem."
In a single brush, Reagan demonized government from within, and from that point forward made the metastasizing cancer of demonizing government a requisite part of every Republican campaign that followed. It became the bread and butter of career demagogues like Newt Gingrich and fellow Republicans who signed pledges of fealty to right wingers like Grover Norquist.
The biggest threat to our nation today is the Republican Party itself. It is a malignant tumor that needs to be removed on November 6.
9
Trump's lies are almost always transparent. Readers are seldom deceived. And yet the media frequently takes us into the most obscure minutiae to prove why a small inauguration crowd is not the largest ever.
I find many of the efforts to explain what is obvious to be pedantic. "Climate change is real, child separation is cruel, and your tax returns haven't been disclosed, and here's a 30 column story explaining the problem."
When a lies is a lie and it isn't even close, the effort to prove the point tends to undermine what needs no explanation.
4
Before WWII, the Nazis were very popular among a certain segment of Americans -- including the 20,000 Americans (that's right: 20,000) who attended a Madison Square rally in 1939 of the pro-Nazi "German-American Bund." Here is a link to film of that rally:
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curry-nazi-rally...
I urge all readers to watch it. And I defy anybody to make any meaningful distinctions between this 1939 rally of pro-Nazi Americans and a Trump rally today. You will hear the same attacks on "the press" (then: "Jewish-controlled press"; now: "globalist press"). You will hear the same chilling claims by a wanna be dictator that only he can restore American to its former greatness. And, finally, you will see the same celebration, the same wild cheering, as a protestor is body slammed to the ground.
13
Look. The number one reason people voted for Trump was because he said he would bring back American jobs.
That is not happening.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-hogs-insight/hog-indu...
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tariffs-trade-war-layoffs-business...
As the cost of Trump's poor trade policies become obvious, his supporters will realize, sadly, that Trump is a fraud.
The media should focus on trade, not on tweets.
7
The public distrust of the media is well-founded.
Until the 1920’s or so, American newspapers and magazines were highly partisan. For about 40 years after the advent of radio, media attempted to be bipartisan. In the 1960’s or so, the primary mainstream media became much more liberal and focused on presenting facts, but within a point of view.
Beginning with cable television and then with the internet, the monopoly on bandwidth was broken and conservatives gained partisan media voices. So our current partisan media landscape is really just a return to its roots.
Most broadcast networks, some cable networks, and most leading publications act as the public relations arm of the Democratic Party. As one of my very good liberal friends explained, “Of course the media has a liberal bias. Thank goodness!”. Heck, as a Trump supporter, I subscribe to the NYT to better understand liberals’ perspectives.
Some cable networks (Fox, Sinclair), some publications, and most of talk radio have a conservative Republican slant. Since we don’t have cable television or listen to radio, my consumption of this is pretty limited.
I have huge respect for MSNBC. They don’t pretend to be balanced, they embrace partisanship. Same with Fox News, its “fair and balanced” slogan notwithstanding.
The rest of the media should just follow the MSNBC/Fox model and embrace their bias. Such honesty would actual rebuild the public’s trust.
6
@John, I find Fox’s graphics a little snappier and they don’t seem to flub the clips as much as MSNBC. It’s like watching two gladiators fighting to the death and only noticing what color their sandals are.
Could be cool if all the media could agree on not reporting on trump at all. collectively ignoring him would be the biggest blast in his face
5
Stop worrying about how your journalism profession is being insulted by the morally bankrupt, GOP deranged demagogue and biggest liar President Trump and the destructive right-wing media.
Next Trump will be insulting teachers and doctors. He has already disparaged and insulted judges, many women, all immigrants, certainly liberals and Democrats, along with the young Canadian Prime Minister and our allies, while complimenting and expressing envy of the world's biggest dictators and the tight control they have over "their people."
Stop dancing to Trump's ugly tune and put Trump into perspective. He has the support of 35-40% of Americans. Sounds like a lot, except that it has been estimated about 35-40% of people in many countries favor authoritarianism and fascism over democratic governance.
There still are more of us than them in this country, so write for us, keep the flickering flames of democracy alive, fight for the truth as journalists have always had to do and too many times paid a heavy price (44 journalists have been killed this year, including in the United States, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists; see
https://cpj.org/data/killed/2018/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5....
As citizens we too must take responsibility and to do our part: applaud & support the truth-tellers, reject the self-serving manipulative liars, and speak out and vote in every election.
8
The sad fact of Trump’s raging success manipulating the mass media has everything to do with the profound lack of integrity in mass media. Despite the good work of a comparative handful of outlets and smart, conscientious reporters, Journalism in this country is not a robust, sober, or impartial institution. It’s mostly commercial.
Trump is simply exploiting a sick system. The Netflix documentary “Trump, An American Dream,” pointed out a moment when it was clear he realized this: when the Taj Mahal casino failed, he noticed he could tell reporters it succeeded, and they would report what he said. They had to file their stories after the press conference—no time to request public records or interview other parties. And how many people read the well-researched articles that come out months after the fact? The meme is already in play. Trump succeeded, again.
It just seems to me that for every well-researched news piece there are thousands of slapdash ones that parrot the knee-jerk party line, whether they appear on Fox News or MSNBC. If the invention of CNN kicked this kind of feckless, copycat coverage into high gear, the Internet launched it into space. Trump is riding that rocket like the cowboy in Dr. Strangelove.
11
What is scary, is that Trump is oblivious to his shenanigans and does not realize the damage he has done to our 'presidency', just like Nixon complained..."there goes the Presidency" just before he was indicted..
Trump first and foremost, NOTHING else counts, just like the Greek god Narcissus admiring himself in a 'mirror'...and we are the losers...
2
I keep wondering what would happen if, for one day, a major newspaper simple put everything Mr. Trump said and tweeted on page 8 instead of the front page.
It would be fascinating to find out how Mr. Trump would react, because, IMO, he lives on air for his body and lives on publicity for his reason for living.
4
@Sajwert, I can’t imagine what Rachel and Lawrence would do with themselves without Trump’s tweets. Even they couldn’t stand having nothing to say aside from spending a whole hour complimenting each other’s show.
1
Let his twit comments live where they live - on Twitter. Twitter doesn't repost NYT articles, so why amplify his inciting, lying, ignorant comments by publishing them? It makes them sound more important than they are. They are aimed at his supporters and sycophants only. And, why offer, or agree to "interview" him on national media? The media takes the bait and he chuckles in glee. Always a phony and hypocrite - cut off his oxygen and let him babble to his echo chamber.
4
The loudest voice the truth can have--vote.
3
I have to agree that the news media should tone down this 24/7 obsession with Mr Trump. Perhaps the best way to deal with him is to marginalize him. Take away the attention he desperately seeks and needs. This is not to mean we should ignore the false narratives and lies. Dispassionately publish them and counter with facts and then move on. On television, the pundits are obsessive and we hear little about the issues. They need to get outside the Beltway and learn about and report on America. It is a big country and the American people are better than Trump. Focus on us. Focus on our representatives. Focus on the issues. Give us the report on Trump and let us draw our own conclusions.
5
I agree with what many are saying here. The news media should follow the money, report on the policies and all aspects of this administration. Ruthlessly correct the record because Trump and many in his cabinet lie constantly.
Ignore the baseless tweets.
Ignore the Trump followers. They are lost. Literally lost, angry, resentful and plugged into fake sources of "news." Their identity is so wrapped up with supporting this man, they simply cannot see.
The level of reflection and introspection needed to see the depth of their self-deusion is simply beyond most of them.
Incredibly sad for our country, but true.
11
@Michael Perhaps you are kind to people you know. But the angry arrogance in your post is why you and others on the left were shellshocked by the 2016 election. 62 million Americans voted for trump for a bunch of different reasons. Many of them were not as smart or well educated as you—but many were. And many voted for him simply because he was likely to put Justices on the Supreme Court who would slow down the Left’s race toward anarchy. We don’t care for parts of his character either. But we vote for results—which is no doubt why Massachusetts liberals continue to vote for a political fraud like Ms Warren.
2
2 decades of buyouts, where 30%, then another 30%, then 50% of that in staff, reporters are cut from news media. local news have no staff at all in many cities. Attacking the press is classic fascism. Twitter reigns supreme. This guy is a daddy's boy, silver spoon in mouth, gets up at 11, 200+ days of golf so far in his presidency> His daddy even signed for Trump tower. A phony.
6
On a lot of online forums, you are instructed to not "feed the troll". That policy is there for a reason: engaging in communication with a troll is pointless, he will take whatever he is given and spin it in a provocative way for the sole purpose of stirring up antagonism and controversy. The fact that the troll in chief is the president of this country makes things more complicated of course, but there is a lesson in that still. The news media should do its job, tone down the negative editorials and anything resembling hysterical propaganda, and stick to the facts on his policy and actions as close as possible, instead of engaging with him on his conversational terms and scrutinizing his every word or empty tweet mumblings. They have proven worthless over time anyway and are recognized as such by the majority. It will pay off in the long run.
5
Stop covering him.
6
I suggest that the media totally ignore anything he says and stick entirely to covering the policies and issues. This would likely drive him even nuttier, but a significant diminution of Trump coverage would help us all. He has nothing worthwhile saying, and I rather doubt that even among his strongest supporters would his bullying, rude, crude behavior be tolerated a the kitchen table. So, why don't we just shut him down and talk only about healthcare, the tax bill fiasco, the false promises of tariff wars, etc.
15
My friends and I are doing textbanking for the election. Some replies we're getting from registered voters are mindboggling. One person rejected our request and listed a bunch of falsehoods about the Democrats we had never heard before. These were things that could be refuted if the person bothered to do a little research from mainstream news sources. But it appeared that she got her info from social media, and I suspect closed systems that never see the light of day. It's subterranean messaging--supported openly by Trump, spread on social media by his right-wing enablers, and funded by corporate dark money. Sunshine on what they're saying is the answer. We have to bring these falsehoods to greater public attention so they can be shown for what they are. But how to do that in the digital age?
2
His legacy. The histories of the 21 century will have a field day with him and with American's cavalier attitude for towards Democracy and our Republic.
2
I would simply remind all of those Times readers who label Trump as a demagogue and a dictator to consider the fate of all those who were arrested during the Kavanaugh hearings and those who have physically confronted and ridiculed his press secretary. In short, they have been living as freely as they did before they engaged in their often uncivil and nasty acts of disobedience. No doubt they are eating at nice restaurants and engaging in other acts of civil or more likely uncivil disobedience. Read a bit of history and it’s clear that were Trump a real dictator, they would be in a very different place. The left has lost its sanity and looks very silly to moderates and conservatives and other rational thinkers.
7
NYT, the headline of this article is an opinion, isn't it? You are actually helping Trump. What needs to be done is focusing on the right news. E.g. a few weeks ago, the CNN headline was "Trump says it's a scary time for young men in America" with regard to MeToo. I don't care a whit about this. The real headline that day was the news on the tax frauds perpetrated by the Trump organization. Is the mainstream media being suicidal? Please stop. The country relies on you to be responsible for truth. Democracy fails otherwise.
14
I've been very disappointed with how little effort the NYT and other liberal media put into deep coverage of policy issues. Healthcare, immigration, jobs, the economy - those issues are all deprecated in favor of spicy confrontation, scandal, and the like that can generate instant outrage. But just because they are more immediately stimulating does not mean they are more important.
John Oliver did a really entertaining piece on crumbling US infrastructure in 2015 - making fun of how boring old maintenance couldn't generate congressional interest. The liberal press is falling into a similar trap - boring policy coverage is being ignored in favor of immediate and personal controversy.
17
@Craig H.
I disagree. NYTimes* does it all pretty darn well. Eric Lipton and his deep dives into environmental policy reporting is just one example.
One does have to get off the 'home' page, dig around other topics, and be somewhat proactive ... but there is a lot of content.
Just sayin'.
*Oh, and don't forget WashPo. Some crack reporters at top of their craft at both papers.
There is no such thing as fake news, only truth and lies. To determine which accurately is to seek information from more than one medium before thinking for oneself about conclusions to be drawn. Otherwise, one is poorly informed. This can be difficult given that many if not most news outlets be they technical or print, left or right, peddle the news rather than report it then give their opinions to you as fact. One must be able to see through this morass to separate the truth from lies. Only then does one begin to be informed regardless of issue.
4
How about having a "Day without Donald," and printing nothing, nothing at all, about Him? It would give your readers a break, at least.
11
@Ronnie NYT readers have earned a daily reminder of their hubris in supporting Hillary and the elitist media that unwittingly aided Trump's election.
1
The real problem is that what the President says about the news media is never considered by that media as fair criticism. Yeah, you have your little enclave of people, but even my democrat friends are laughing at how the New York Times is so biased. CNN, NBC, CBS etc. forget it...these are organizations that are functioning simply as media outlets for the progressive movement. And so is this paper.
7
Track the lies, hold them in reserve and then lay them down in big batches. Maybe when he drops a big whopper, put out all the false premises it's based on, as a row of dominoes? Or just a weekly list? Make him wait for his provocations to pay off. It should drive him crazy and, if we're really lucky, get him to stop pushing buttons so much. Reading this, and especially the Scaramucci quote, that's just what he's doing.
2
How I long for the days when we could go for a week, two wks., without hearing from or seeing our president saying/doing something disturbing/outrageous - a president just going about the difficult business of running a country and trying to live up to the ideals upon which it was founded.
But when it comes to this president, what I would give not to see his face 24/7, hear his voice, be subjected to his relentless bombarding of our senses with his hateful rhetoric, constant lies, loathsome behavior and demands for attention.
To be able to take a vacation from this vile creature, for a short while would be a reprieve from the torment my soul has been subjected to for over two yrs.
He is with all of us every waking moment. He never shuts up. He is always in front of a camera. He is omnipresent. He is making me sick. He is making our whole country sick.
29
@Deb
Amen.
Whoever wrote this article should be ashamed of himself/herself. Trump has not turned the public in his favor. We see through his lies better each day. They are so repetitive, shallow vulgar and stupid. The media is a bulwark against this overblown liar.
4
@Grandma Hah! The media bulwark got him elected through overestimation of their ability to win the war of ideas.
I think Trump’s media attacks are bizarre and reflect very negatively on this president. In a dark and very disturbing way he’s able to use his attacks to discredit the media are working for him.
The mail bombs and the latest horrible shootings are being used by the president to say absurd nonsense that gives him chaotic cover for the many ongoing unresolved various issues involving this president. The Russian involvement in the 2016 elections is just one issue that is being pushed to the back burner.
I think Trump’s mediia attacks are still believed by too many people but the number of people who believe him is going down.
2
We are long past pondering how best the media can respond to Trump’s attacks. The damage is done.
We are just a few days away from finding out whether this country can hold onto its constitutional form of government for another two years or become something unrecognizable as America.
There are now more important questions to ask. Inasmuch as Trump is now demanding personal loyalty from law enforcement, will it resist and keep its integrity or will it become a tool for Trump’s personal whims? How far will the military go in indulging Trump and the Republican Party? What role will states play in protecting their residents with respect to health care, the environment, social security, and maintaining the independence of their law enforcement agencies? There are many more.
The partisan divide is not a division over political philosophy. The idea that this is a problem of partisanship and lack of civility misses the depth of the rift. It is a basic disagreement over who the government exists to serve and whether it is acceptable for a minority to govern a majority against their will.
These are the basic issues that prompted the colonists to revolt against a capricious, mentally ill king. But America only gets one revolution and we have had ours.
Yes, vote, but start figuring out what life in a Trump/minority controlled country will look like and how to survive in it.
The media is reporting on the trees while the forest is disappearing.
4
My god, if this doesn't count as a reason to close Trump's twitter account than I don't know what ever will. Or make the media think twice about covering his every preposterous propagandist rally-- he has a symbiotic hold on media that they profit from--- but at the country's expense. Strafing the public airwaves and media with his incendiary provocations and his call to violence to his supporters who believe his conspiracy and fringe dark thinking has consequences. Silicon valley media leaders must hold to account, or be held to account.
8
I agree with many commenters here, to stop giving Trump so much coverage except for really important issues. Also his lies should be called out. Maybe the media is trying to maintain some respect for the office of President, by not pointing out every lie, but the media only serves him and their own fear of truth by doing so.If the many streams of media available to us fail to point out the lies from truth, they are not doing their jobs.
2
I honestly believe strongly that the ignorance factor is higher among Trump "base" and for sure those front row sitting Trump rally attenders.
10
"...poll over the summer, 91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information"
This is essentially a tautology.
2
Bring back a stronger version of the fairness doctrine!
5
Trump is hurting himself by attacking the media. His lying will hurt him when the economy heads south and the trade war with China causes a major recession in the USA. Hopefully the Democrats will take over the House of Representatives and we will see the cheating Trump tax returns.
4
This article is very defeatist, handing a white flag to the attacker. The one mode not tried is to ignore, ignore and ignore, thus to only limited report his continuous oral debris and to not share images depicting him over and over and over and over. Only report when genuinely consequential.
4
@Bert Menco the MSM cannot ignore Trump because they are all out to get him and frame him negatively - as a proxy arm of the Democrats- he says or does and while they are out at it they make lots of clicks. Most oeople are in the middle which explain why his apptoval ratings are rising.
2
Trump is repulsive to me for two sets of reasons.
First, he is a terrible president who has substantially weakened this country. He is racking up huge government deficits despite the economy booming. He has sold us out to foreign powers who despise us (e.g. Putin, North Korea). He claims to love America but has spent his time attacking and demonizing half of the population. We are all REAL Americans. It diminishes the country to have a leader who loathes so many of the citizens. Also, he is corrupt and is surrounded by criminals.
Second, I find him personally disgusting. He embodies everything I loathe. His racism. His stupidity. His boasting. His dishonesty. His orange tan. His hair. His having sex with multiple porn stars with a 1-year old baby at home. His total lack of self control. His blithe ignorance. His disdain for people who are not rich. His constant need for attention. His total lack of compassion. His total lack of principals. His lusting after his daughter. His dishonest and stupid sons. His nepotism.
When we criticize Trump, both of these objections are often combined. That’s become a problem because there are many people who disagree with my personal view of Trump. In fact, they LOVE all these aspects of him because they admire him and/or because they know he infuriates “liberal coastal elites”. My take on this is that if we focused on the first set of criticisms it might be far more effective.
18
The worst part of Trump is that media barrage. It's like being forced to watch Apprentice Season XXI ! It's torture.
7
What is it called when a story begins with a provocative headline implying one thing only to find a complete contradiction 700 words into the story?
3
I hold the mainstream media responsible for the rise of the person in the White House (I don't respect him in the slightest--and I'm not about to type his name.)
When he was just a reality show host, or a New York businessman, the media treated him with kid gloves, or at most, thought of him as harmless, but fun to write about.
Well, the racist/misogynistic/lying demagogue is now in the White House, and he has the key codes to America's nuclear weapons.
Think about that.
4
Imagine that a con-man, thorough a chain of events, or simply by outsiders' intervention, suddenly finds himself the president of the USA. And, while being completely incompetent, he thoroughly enjoys power of his new position; that is, being "the most powerful man on Earth."
How do you think he will be behaving, if: 1) he cannot go to sleep at night worrying about being impeached? or, 2) he is scared stiff from losing the next election, which would allow a flood-gate of legal actions opening against him?
I do not know about you, Mr. Rutenberg, but I am not surprised for a moment by the way Mr. Trump behaves. In my book, he is actually acting exactly the way he is supposed to!
5
I don’t know. Your phased out reporting news to now report NYT editors opinions mixed with a fact here and there. For the most part 90% of articles start with your opinion then after you finally read the end of the article and find what more opinionated dissertation on Trump. I’m tired.
4
I've watched the liberal news media lie and lie and lie for about 3 decades now. Trump is its karmic payback.
6
What about if the news media just stopped reporting every tweet, and every last word of his continuous verbal diarrhea day in and day out and just stuck to "normal presidential news". Although Trump may treat his presidency as a reality show, keeping his "viewers" on edge so they tune in next week, the news does not have to respond in kind. Trump is like a needy toddler who wants attention, be it positive or negative. The advice to parents is to ignore the child until he or she stops. Good advice for the media, too.
3
They should be a law restricting the media agencies to only report the content of the instance but no any personal opinion. All news should be reported in a fashion that no more than 5 lines
3
Trump and the Republicans must lie, as they know that the policies they espouse are not popular with the majority of Americans. In response, Democrats should counter with footage of Republicans' statements that refute their current phony stances, for example on healthcare. Dems - AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA - should be constantly showing Mitch McConnell saying he next intends to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That's what people care most about. Expose their lies. It clearly is not fake when there is footage of they themselves speaking.
6
I subscribe to the print edition of the NYT and have been reading it for many years.
I know from personal experience that the articles are slanted and often leave out important pieces of information which would be detrimental to your point of view.
BTW: I am more liberal than you are.
12
Trump is like a car wreck on the side of the road. If everyone ignored it, traffic wouldn't slow. But rubbernecking is instinct.
Mass media is imperfect. They need ratings to survive. That means a big audience. Public media needs audience support. Plenty of data tells them audiences want to look at the car wreck.
Even if 60% of us focus on the road ahead, a hefty minority makes everyone to crawl. I admire Steven Pinker, but would-be assassins are massively newsworthy.
Society has it's safety valves - comedians. Every evening the day's lies are hilariously punctured by Colbert, Kimmel, and others. People like to bring up playground metaphors for Trump, because he's a bully. Well, nothing deflates a bully better than satire and joking at their expense.
Gallows humor. It's not just for convicts.
4
Trump is beginning to conjure up mass murderers and terrorists out of internet vapors. Now is not the time to retreat.
2
Trump sells fantasies, that's all he knows and / or cares to communicate. He should hear these words: "You're fired" as soon as we can manage it. His substance is entirely composed of lies, either that he tells himself, or that he tells his followers.
The UN laughed at him claiming that no president had ever before accomplished as much as he has. Delusional? or Just trying sell a ludicrous fantasy?
In practical terms, then, journalists should ignore Mr. Trump’s tactic of using false narratives to divert their attention away from real crises, he said. But how long will it take the news media come up with a more effective way to counter the litany of baseless claims washing through the news cycle?
At this rate, a solution may come sometime in Mr. Trump’s third term.
___________
Perhaps you, a journalist can come up with a way of reporting which shows up Trump's continous lies and mis-facts and is not called false news and convey it to yor collegues.
I am appalled that such a high number of people believe what he says. However I am inclined to believe the written word more than the spoken word, such as news programs, particularly that of Fox, and the rally system, or, G-d forbid, a tweet. Although there are many excellent radio news programs.
The fact that people are mostly informed by tv, and trump, and don't read newspapers much, says a lot about the education level in the US.
I am happy that you think Trump will be having a third term. Of course to do this he will have to install his fascist system and erase the amendment blocking the president to two terms. But all his dictator friends have endless terms. And the trend now in governments is towards sovereignty.
This situation has always reminded me of schoolyard tactics. There's always a kid who lies and blusters and even cries to get attention and bully other kids.
My daughter in 4th grade came home the other day upset from one such kid who frequently tortures her with such tactics, this time claiming that dinosaurs were still alive. "He said he saw a megalodon! How could he even say he saw one when they live in the ocean!" my daughter cried, frustrated to tears she had no way to disprove this claim. I told her to ask their tescher, and when my kid did, "Don't be silly" was all the teacher had to say.
I wish it were that easy to disprove our President's lies, but the take home here is that the teacher knew that giving this other kid time and attention by explaining in detail how dinosaurs were extinct wasn't the point. This other kid probably was even hoping my kid would go running to an adult, and would look silly herself asking about obvious mistruths. In previous episodes he's then told my kid "I was only kidding, you didn't really believe me, did you?" I've since changed my advice to telling her to shrug and say 'whatever', and move the conversation on to another topic.
2
Instead of covering the stories Trump creates with his outrageous lies and accusation, the media should cover the stories he doesn't want covered, like his personal corruption and false narrative as a successful business man.
5
He doesn't seem to be able to be objective in his policy making either. Trump has put tariffs on one of USA's consistent allies, NZ and exempted Australia. You could accept this if his policies were consistent but they're not.
Our government has tried to get this tariff overturned and he said no, so they're sending in a male politician to try and negotiate a change of policy. Our nation is fearful that Trump is picking winners and losers based solely on his emotions and not logic. Though NZ will survive any Trump policies like we did when we went nuclear free and USA government got huffy. NZ economy took off and we haven't looked back during the cold war with USA.
1
Why can't the media focus on hard news and hard facts?
That includes fact checking this POTUS, but without the snarky-ness. NO ONE can out snark Trump.
He's NOT going to stop. He LOVES to bait the press.
He's not the first President to go after the media.
Woodrow Wilson was a fascist. He had reporters arrested. He had his political opponent Eugene Debs thrown in jail for making an anti-war speech. Wilson did everything he could to shut down the First Amendment. He set civil rights backwards creating segregation in government.
I detest DJ Trump. As a man and as a leader.
There's PLENTY of newsworthy items by the actions of the Trump Administration that need our attention. And you do report that admirably: Environment, budget, healthcare, racial discrimination, judicial.
Please protect your journalists, but stop helping Trump make them the story.
5
He is also eroding the credibility of the government- especially the fbi, the cia, the epa, cranking up the rhetoric that the gop has been pushing for years- the biased liberal media (now fake news), Grover Norquist’s reducing the size of government pledge, now sabotaging agencies from within . The relentless and systematic assault on any checks and balances to one party rule is seriously damaging our democracy, I hope we can stop this and do damage control. Voting has never been so crucial in my life time
5
The New York Times remains, by any measure, one of the most powerful and influential institutions in the country, and perhaps the world. Playing the victim may be politically correct nowadays, but when the Times does it, it's just plain silly.
That said, overall, the public's opinion of the mainstream news media has declined. But it's fake news to blame this on Donald Trump; rather, it's deserved. The fact is, much reporting today is highly biased, at least in the eyes of many, myself included. The political commentary that should be confined to opinion pages bleeds into news coverage, to the point where it's impossible to distinguish the two.
Most reporters try to get their facts right, though here too they sometimes fail. But, crucially, there's more to good news reporting than simply avoiding frank falsehoods. The news you choose to cover, the stories you ignore or bury, the placement you give articles, and, importantly, the headlines matter very much. Too much of the time objective writing is replaced by biased "analysis," reflecting the generally left leaning philosophy of most reporters and editors today.
So, yes, we should bemoan the loss of respect the public has for today's news coverage. As they Washington Post puts it, somewhat ironically, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." But, Mr. Rutenberg, don't take the easy way out and blame on our President's overwrought rhetoric. And, I'm not defending Trump. But, the real problem lies much closer to home.
11
you must live on the same It's a Small World ride in Disneyland that Trump lives on
All the media can do is to report falsehoods as such, and take the view of a decent person appalled at Trump and Trumpian Republicans. Much reportage is now doing so. Still, a good article.
1
So, which is it? Are Trump's attacks on the news media valid? Is the news media objective, or left-leaning anti-Trump? I don't really don't know the truth, because I don't know who to believe anymore.
I made a similar comment in an earlier NYT article, and a respondent suggested we need to verify the truth we see and hear. That's good advice. Regrettably the more I do so, the more skeptical I become of what I read as news.
5
Didn’t we already have this conversation? I recall it happening right about the time Trump was elected. There seemed to be this big “Ah-ha!” moment when we realized that we had been taken by Trump.
We had been used! Trump got tons of free publicity, controlled the news cycles, and diverted us from the real issues. Journalists, for their part, said they had learned from what happened. It appears not.
5
I don’t blame a messenger or in this, case The messenger, on the challenges with the current media. While I often disagree with President Trumps disrespectful tone, and messages, there is a problem with the media in general.
A majority of stories are not written from a reporters point of view, they are written from a columnists perspective. It used to be in news organization, there were reporters and clearly acknowledged conservative & liberal columnists.
Now it’s very difficult to determine, is this a news story? Or simply, a columnist interpreting the events of the day from a liberal or conservative perspective?
The other reality is, news is a big business. where news is driven by clicks, likes & shares and that directly leads into revenue. This creates very complex & often conflicting agendas.
Let’s face it, media has never had more clicks, likes, shares & revenue, since Donald Trump decided to run for office.
He understands more than any other former President, how the business of media works, He learned it very well, as an apprentice, while at NBC.
Let’s not pretend the media is a public service, its simply not. The media is like Visa, Facebook, GM & P&G.
Its a for profit enterprise.
While I may not respect Donald Trump, that said, he’s no apprentice.
He knows, that you know, that he knows.
It’s simply business..
6
My thoughts exactly! People are acting as if Trump attacking the media is equivalent to him attacking the Justice Department. He is doing both, of course, but the media is not an institution, it’s a sprawling, unregulated, unvetted INDUSTRY, like you say. Journalists with integrity are swamped by the feeding frenzy.
2
The news media "wasn't built" to "withstand" the torrent of lies, provocation, incitement, and complete stupidity issuing forth from the mouth of the president? What?! It's like you guys have tried NOTHING and you're all out of ideas.
Try telling the truth. Stop worrying about profitability for a moment, and worry about the TRUTH. Trump is a dangerous and unfit president.
In short, do your job.
"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force.
Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Neither protests or the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one's prejudgment simply need not be believed -- in such moments the stupid person even becomes more critical -- and when facts are irrefutable they are pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.
For that reason, greater caution is call for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous." –– Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906 - 1945
2
I don’t trust neither. Media is a propaganda just like how it is anywhere. They always criticize other countries’ media as the propaganda machine. Now they are eating their own fruit
4
Dear Media,
If it's an Executive Order, signed, dated, and unsuccessfully challenged in court, then it's news. Otherwise it's a tweet - nothing more. Policy is not a tweet. Policy would be presentation of facts leading to actions.
The saga of the wall is the perfect example. Despite it's overwhelming coverage in the "news", it's dead; finished. Learn to ignore dead things found along Trump Road. Giving his pronouncements weight makes you the victim and his pomposity does nothing, but ... wins. If you must have a mob family drama, resume the Sopranos. Don't give Trump any more attention - report only what is done or contemplated by his crooked minions. That's news we can use. /signed in another century by Mussolini/
2
Somebody is attending Trump rallies and reading his disgusting tweets. Pretending they aren't happening won't make them go away. And it won't help you to counter his hate and lies if you are blind and deaf to them.
@hal if he bothers them so much then blacklist all reporting on his tweets until after the midterms. Just ignore and stop covering his mob rallies. That is how he got elected. Its serious Karma that the people he manipulated into giving him 2 billion in free PR are his #1 target of venom. You gave us Trump you and the 50 million roughly 20% of the population who voted for him has a lot to answer for. He is going to pull a major stunt in the next week just dont report it.
Haven't we seen enough? What will it take to get this man impeached? He demonizes the media and incites his followers to hatred and violence, yet refuses to take any responsibility for doing so. Look at the perpetrators of violence this week. White American men. Not Muslims or Mexicans, but home grown terrorists, urged on in their sick minds by their own President! This country is certainly worse off morally than it ever was.
5
@SLD Radicalized by the President of the United States. Where are the decent Republicans? The handful that are left are leaving.
2
The "Useful Idiot" has managed to dominate two years of news cycles daily. Why? Because he knows how to "play" the media better than anyone before him has. They are, therefore, complicit in this tragedy. Both he and the media are totally undisciplined. This will backfire on both him and the media when, tired of this unceasing onslaught of really bad theater, subscribers will cancel their subscriptions, I'm just about there with the Times.
5
Authoritarian and fascist dictators have had one common thread in their rhetoric. They attack the media when the media tells the truth about their crimes and misdeeds. That is, of course, precisely what Trump is doing.
The shame for our nation is that we have Trump followers who take these attacks at face value. They are uninformed, cultish and caught up in football-rally mode. When their cult leader, Trump, calls "fake news" they uncritically accept this lie--literally the REAL fake news.
Trump attacks CNN after the entire building was threatened. Trump attacks Maxine Waters after she was under threat of death from a bomb. And what do his MAGA-head followers do? They shout and cheer their approval! And Trump encourages them.
Is it any wonder, then, that the fringe crazies think that it is virtuous to kill people and threaten others?
We have a demagogue as president who has no concern for the lives of those who criticise him or oppose him. This is NOT presidential. We are in danger from this man. Please, voters, put the curbs on his excesses on November 6. VOTE!
4
Utter nonsense.
The system is working.
The useless “journalists” are yielding what can be expected in face of a demagogue.
In the 1950s Trump would be impossible. In part because some reporters and editors were competent at their craft.
2
It worked for the NAZI and so why not? The fools are the ones standing around dumbfounded liked who believed those dumb lies? Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. As soon as the generation that lived through WWII dies off the memory dies. All old tricks are new again!
4
“I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” she quoted him as saying.
This was evident from the beginning, and Trump's conscious and deliberate intent is evidence of a sociopathic personality. Look closely at what he is saying. Examine the statement closely: he deliberately means to block the fact-telling media by attacking the public's ability to believe them. Then he can deceive and defraud the public at will. Why would he intend to do that? Where does this end? No one wishes to say that we are on the way to a Nazi Holocaust or anything like that, but the truth is that Trump's strategy that has been tried before. It has all been written down in the past, and the early results in the present are in: A general rise in violence; the endangerment of targeted individuals and groups; and the coalescement of a base of supporters that is impervious to facts and feeds on irrational emotions and claims. Understand, Trump has a media machine to spread his rhetoric and lies. The idea that the truth-oriented media should be silent, should not report Trump's rants, is wrong because it would conceal the fact that the tide of malignant lies is rising, which equates to the rising tide of extremism, hatred and violence we are experiencing. We need to know this to stop it. Everyone has given up on Congress. Every member of it who is spreading or sanctioning misinformation during the election is complicit.
4
Words matter the media must start using them,they need to start asking questions of the presidency not Trump,it's established that Trump will do anything to be the trending story of the day. Members of his party should be asked if it's okay for the president of the US to conduct himself the way he does,you will notice in their answers they always separate Trump the unhinged and the president who is delivering on their policies.Report on the president without mentioning his name,you will find if the question is should the president of the US(not Trump) be allowed to call the media the enemy of the people they will be very few takers, remember the presidency changes hands,this much leeway will never be given to any president,but to Trump sure,it's just how he is..
2
Why does it have to be either/or? The Chief square peg in the Oval Office is a manipulative liar. (I have no compunction using the "L" word.) The media have a responsibility to demonstrate this AND provide sound logic and equally sound arguments that enable us to decide with clarity and consciousness about the issues that matters most, not only today but for the future.
Fox News, like Trump himself, is cunning like a fox. They both cater to a fearful base that feels powerless from the inside out. How tragic.
Today, a French journalist who covers the United States described Trump as the "pyromaniacal fire chief" while discussing the impact his rhetoric has. We must put this wild fire out!
Trump, sadly, is out of his league, if one considers his league greater than his base. We cannot sit still and accept the unacceptable.
I understand that newsrooms, including The New York Times, are understaffed and underfunded. AND the stake are exceedingly high. The future of the United States of America AND humanity as we cherish them are increasingly endangered as lying, cheating, hate, fear, unilateralism, ego and toxicity gain ground worldwide.
The media have a responsibility to help us make more enlightened, loving (I have no compunction using this "L" word either.) decisions. I rely on the open minds and open hearts of honest and objective journalists to help me formulate opinions and make the best, non-partisan decisions.
AND my motto for November 6: Sacré bleu !
2
I know — I know it *seems* like “half the population” are Trump supporters. But I don’t believe that half of this country are unreasonable, single-minded, gullible crackpots. I really don’t. So many fell off his bandwagon when they saw how truly abhorrent he and his administration are. What we have now are some seriously squeaky wheels getting way too much grease and air time. We desperately need some strong leadership to show us the way, away from our egocentric greedy tendencies.
I am heartened when one of the ubiquitous talking blonde heads gets her just desserts.
I will breathe easier when we can rid this country of Citizens United. I will be able to sleep again when we start working together to build climate resilience and stop wasting our precious resources.
I will not be satisfied until we have a president and administration that we can trust, who doesn’t worship the despots and criminals of the world — a president who isn’t in it to make a buck for himself and his money grubbing cronies.
The Kavanaugh debacle will haunt republicans, as well it should.
Where are the tax returns?
Thank you to all the journalists who are committed to this work. It ain’t easy, but we see you and we are grateful.
6
Give people more credit. Most people don't need the President to tell us about fake news and the bias of the media. It's obvious!!
4
@Donald Macdonald It is exactly people such as your that are frightening me. I can only guess what type of person you are. Certainly not one who sees us citizens as living in a community that shares resources, respects the earth we live on and knows that taxes have to be paid by all not only the working person in order to have good school, a healthy infrastructure, healthy citizens, a police and fire department that is truly here for the citizens who pay their salaries through taxes that the working person pays, while many ultra wealthy hire lawyers to help them hide their wealth, yet demand protection. I addition it is the working person who pays the politician salaries yet get so little in return. We are indeed in a very sad state of affairs when we only think of ourselves.
2
Don't report what Trump is saying and focus on what he isn't doing in the 'real world' to make America great again.
2
Mark Twain, said that "actions speak louder than word, but not nearly as often." Trump understand the power of his attacks.
But we are off to the polls, in a few days, and Trump may be trumped, this time, if Democrats take the House.
The tragic events with the bomb mailings and synagogue attack, may bring record numbers of anti-Trump voters to the polls...
Time will tell...
3
@Harry Pearle I fear Americans have lost their sixth sense. They watch reality shows, listen to Fox news reiterating the lies by our president, and encourage him to spew lies over twitter on a daily basis. As so many experts have warned us. We are heading toward Plutocracy.
Congress should bring trump before them to address his outrageous disrespect of the First Amendment. Allowing one more day to pass without forcing trump to answer for his attacks is unacceptable. trump is at least partially responsible for the atmosphere that allowed the hatred of Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers to explode. trump must end his rallies of hate now. trump should not be supported by anyone for any reason.
6
Here's my friendly suggestion for how to deal with this. First, whenever Trump says something inflammatory without evidence, initially report it as "Trump speculated, without citing any evidence, that...". Second, create a column somewhere off page 1 of the Times where Trump's untruths are tabulated after fact checking. Within this column, include precise definitions for the vocabulary of deception ("speculate", "falsehood", "mislead", "lie" etc.), and label each listed untruth accordingly. Finally, in all subsequent articles, refer to an untruthful statement by its category of untruthfulness, using these terms with rigorous consistency. That way, all the follow-up articles could include statements like, "Yesterday, when Trump lied about X", or "On Saturday morning's tweet, when Trump misleadingly claimed that Y", so that minimal ink is wasted on explaining the nature and grounds for categorizing the untruthfulness of his statement, and the focus stays on the consequences of his actions.
Not everything Trump says is false, misleading, or a lie. But when they are, these statements need to be clearly and accurately characterized for what they are, and then repeated whenever appropriate in subsequent reporting.
2
I suggest the media concentrate on what Trump is doing, and ignore his verbiage. One example: continue to report on the administration's failure to reunite all the families separated at the southern border, and disregard all of his comments about the caravan. There are many, many examples where Trump's speeches and tweets have little relation to the effects of his actions. Report his actions, don't bother with his lying.
1
The election of Trump did not end dislike of the main stream left & right media. Why? Because outside of the right-wing and left-wing hystericals, most left & right wing voters believe in: 1) America over political power, and 2) Compromise over outright domination.
Everything can be learned from 1) The findings of the historical Gallop Polls that show on individual issues, Americans are more centrist than their party leaders, and 2) Slim majorities, eg. Obama's 2008 win only represented 52.9% of the voters.
In effect, the leaders of both parties may have a serious mental problem in which when they win with narrow margins, they want to crush the significant minority of Americans. Sad but true.
Even the election of an A-Hxx like Trump didn't change the dynamics cited above.
3
If the journalists and their editors are serious they would take a leave of absence from reporting on Trump for a week and see what happens. There is no law that requires any newspaper or tv program to cover Trump. Don't cover his campaigning. For those who need their daily dose of Trump Fox will oblige. I just don't understand those journalists who make a point about covering Trump rallies while he continues to insult them. This man craves attention. Don't give it to him.
3
According to Harvard, 90% of the coverage of Trump by the MSM is negative. Therefore, what came first, the chicken or the egg? For the MSM to complain that Trump does not take the bias sitting down is like the pot calling the kettle black.
During the Obama adm, the press acted more like an extension of the DNC, the press fawned over Obama and especially Michelle Obama for 8 years. It did not seem very free or independent. At least with Trump, Americans know that the press is free and fair, because the press is free to criticize (hyper-criticize rather) everything Trump does, and Trump only criticizes back, but nothing more. He exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech just as the MSM does.
And even the First Lady is hyper-criticized, even though First Ladies have generally been hands off by the press. The First Lady, a former model, has graced the cover of 0 magazines, while Michelle Obama was on numerous covers, practically every month, during the 8 years of the Obama administration. The bias is undeniable.
7
@Philly:
"Chicken or egg"?
You may want to rethink that; all the media is doing is reporting what Trump says and does.
1
@JC No, they do much more than plain reporting. They mix in huge doses of opinion, rely on unattributed sources and fail to report much that does not fit their political goals.
1
The facile mobility that comes with the practice of spinning daily lies and fantastic memes easily outmaneuvers thorough investigative research and reporting. Real insight doesn't come easily, and millions of people have been trained to dismiss it out of hand.
Instead of accepting the now knee-jerk dog whistle term "main stream media", I would like to see some other phrase in consistent usage to define the NYT, Washington Post, etc. Perhaps something like "established", or "ethical, fact-based media".
1
Nothing seems to persuade a coterie of his supporters that he is a madman. Unfortunately, that coterie includes those with the authority to remove him under Amendment XXV. I foresee a coup by, not against, the executive, in the next six months, followed by martial law and the disintegration of the Republic. Only the cabinet and leaders of Congress can put a stop to this, and they haven't the moral compass to do it.
4
Media outlets gave Trump a voice. Even before Trump they promoted the idea that there are two sides and that they each have equally valid beliefs and approaches. This is to increase viewership and profits. This is seriously all that cable news is. And, most news papers including the Times do similar things.
Most reporters are selected by corporations who require that they be loyal to the corporation. NEWS is a business and not an unbiased rendering of truth.
I think most in the media naively expect the checks and balances of our government to reign Trump in. They have not. I don't think most reporters, being corporate employees, actually understood that the GOP was not only complicit in the destruction of democracy but were planning it all along.
Every empire must end and this one is coming to an end now. It also happens to coincide with massive environmental damage that will accelerate over the next few decades beyond a point of no return. To me, the media is not made up of people who are either intelligent enough or moral enough to care about truth, with perhaps a few exceptions, but not enough to make any difference.
2
@Chris
Chris, the media has to report what the president says --- but 'we the American people' can call him what he is --- Emperor Trump, since we don't have to treat him as any kind of normal president.
Our founding fathers didn't have to like the British Empire nor King George, and people have the power to treat and speak about an Emperor as they feel.
1
"91 percent of 'strong Trump supporters' trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media." And, "strong Trump supporters" were 21% of those polled.
#45 will continue to take us lower. I need to keep my "eye on the ball" and Vote for Common Human Decency.
3
"If the fake media don't want to be bombed, they shouldn't make me look bad by quoting what I say." _Trump's theory of how to end domestic terrorism
1
The problem with the Times is that it's still fighting by Marquess of Queensbury rules in an MMA fight. The Times dithers over whether to call Trump's words "lies" or "errors", the Times doesn't bother to report on the bombs it received except as a general item of news interest, and the publisher hasn't the courage to call out Trump as a narcissist and a sexual predator who should be criminally charged immediately. Trump is a liar, not a prevaricator. Trump didn't spew invective that was misinterpreted by a terrorist lone wolf in Florida. Trump caused bombs to be mailed to your offices. Trump is not providing "ceaseless attacks and baseless claims." Trump provides comfort to domestic terrorists, and he is an immediate and present danger to the republic. The problem is not that Trump lies better than the Times tells the truth. The problem is that the Times is afraid to tell the truth, as plainly as it can be written. Lose your fear. Write plain. Tell the truth.
5
’91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information’. 91 percent of Trump supporters are on a collective level stupid. Individually they might have intellectual capacity and an ability to think logically - but as a group the act totally brainwashed.
14
@Erik don't consider myself brainwashed. The left slanted media would have us believe that guns have a life of their own, I can whimsically alter my gender, I should exhibit empathy for all backgrounds while feeling guilty about mine.
In Wisconsin we had over 6,000 children separated from their families on 2016-yet I did not see reporters descend on Madison (WI state capitol).
With a clear head I prefer Trump as President spearheading a focus on America to his globalist rivals.
3
The press is doing what Pravda did in Soviet Russia: twisting the truth like a pretzel; and the people are either oppressed by lies, or, in the States, sucked in by lies. Who is naive enough to believe a 92 % slant on news.
7
@David Larence NYT readers naive? Slavishly praising 8 years of little accomplishment by Obama and confidently running Hillary is naive?
Please stop the Hate Speech.
This is a time for our nation to come together and Move on.
5
Mr. Donald Trump had in mind Mr. Cesar Sayoc Jr. when he alleged there were good people among the Nazis terrorizing Charlottesville.
Mr. Sayoc Jr. adored the mercury-lased-coal-lover President that not only did he cover his van with Mr. Trump slogans and pictures, but when Mr. Sayoc alleged thieves stole his performance wardrobe for erotic dancing, he reported a lot of it had Mr. Trump labels. A true follower and loyal customer.
How quickly Mr. Sayoc was apprehended is the real reason Mr. Trump hates and disparages the FBI. A functioning FBI makes Trump the law breaker unsafe.
9
Two cowardly attacks within a week, carried out by ardent supporters of the xenophobic, nationalist and racist beliefs that drive our Executive branch. Does it feel like America is becoming "great again?" Quite the opposite.
6
The article's essentially correct, so why isn't the NY Times learning from it? To start with, stop repeating Trump's lies in headlines, which reinforces them, no matter how much fact-checking you do in paragraph 15. Just stop it. Then, don't be afraid of calling his statements "lies". That's what they are. You should also call racism and fascism what they are. Stop the euphemisms. When you *have to* write about his lies (and you don't always have to), tell the truth *first*, then debunk the lie, then repeat the truth again. And, for God's sake, never worry about what Trump supporters think of your coverage. They hate you and there's nothing you can do about it, because you don't run Fox News or live in the White House. The Times has a role to play in saving our country and at the moment, it's stumbling badly. Please, do better!!
19
The press should do a BLACKOUT of all things TRUMP. Trump is amoral whinging cretin and he feeds off press coverage like lice on a body.
One week. No Trump. Press room empty. Nothing on MSNBA ETC. Yes, yes, FOX aka Trump News will continue. Yet, if this is organised by the press, you can then do coverage one week later of the lies, histrionics and how Trumpettes feed off the hate. Show it for what it is. And include the thugs called the GOP. Stopping the madness requires...A STOP.
5
I do think the biggest problem with the whole arc of Trump’s running and winning the election was the amount of attention he was given. As the stunted, underdeveloped being he is, getting attention has always been at the heart of everything he does.
I believe, did we not have the cult of personality and obsession with money and celebrity we do, he would have been forced to to either refine himself some, in order to be heard, or be ignored, as the blathering, attention seeking, small character he is.
Without media attention, Donald Trump is an insecure, toxic and ultimately unsuccessful business man, provocateur, having little to no personal pride, character or facility for managing his affairs or communicating anything meaningful. Without media attention, He would simply be a comically eloquent bully, who likely would have spent some time in prison for his fraudulent financial activity.
That his fool’s gold bravado and plastic veneer got him a spot in magazines and on Television are what helped him reach the dais. At the very least, it would be nice to see media stop selling itself to the lowest bidder, but of course we have to survive as a cohesive nation for that to be pulled off.
1
Besides "naval intelligence," the next biggest oxymoron is "responsible journalism." It's all about the number of clicks nowadays, in which advertisers sneak in their "stuff." The media is responsible for trump so they need to deal with it. Grow a spine for a minute because the populace sees how pathetic most journalists are and we are savvy when it comes to who we listen to.
8
Working with a small audience. Not many people who didnt already despise the alleged Left wing media, have now become full-on despisers. Trumps act isn't truly converting people to his opinion, only cementing his choir in place. To the point of looking foolish in the face of facts that undermine their POV.
I'd say more people are paying more attention. Maybe even seeking a few more sources of information. I only say this because I'm being inundated with magazine subscription offers in the regular mail. And they are a mixed bag; regular Conservative to extreme Left. Its now the bulk of my junk mail, and I haven't had a magazine subscription for a decade.
There was a recent report that its the older generations, mostly Boomers, who are the ones struggling to decipher fake news posts. That the more tech and social media savvy generations, younger people, are much more adept at seeing the fake news. So its not hard to extrapolate that they also know a wagon full of BS when its being pushed as fresh picked apples.
Trump's shtick is not hard to spot when you're even slightly immune to shtick. And I trust that most Americans, at least the conscious and conscientious ones, see the underlying truth to his despicable tactics. As for the rest...not much can be done to penetrate the willfully and belligerently ignorant.
2
Anyone can have a great amount of money if they sell off all the family silver and not live in the real world. What's going to happen when all the family silver has been sold and all the carpet baggers scuttle off to other nations to gut that nation. Future generations will be left to clean up the mess left behind by all the greedy generations that had no consideration of the effects of their policies on future generations.
1
How about a Trump `Lie Counter' in Times Square?
This man is the single greatest threat to democracy in the USA and around the world. There is no `winning' of political debates with him or his voters. Trump is fully aware of his modus operandi and knows that it works for him.
His rallies are his own private reality TV show. I trust they are not taxpayer funded.
3
Want to gain some insight as to why the news media has descended to such bleak levels of disrepute and disapprobation? ... Compare such examples from a half century ago as Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Howard K. Smith with today's shriekers from both sides of the political spectrum. My only criticism of Trump's criticism of the media is that he has picked such an easy target.
4
I think it might help if people started suing Trump for libel -
a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.
synonyms: defamation, defamation of character, character assassination, calumny, misrepresentation, scandalmongering.
If every person he slandered sued him, he might be forced to stop.
7
@Belle Unruh Stormy tried it and it didn't work. sigh
1
@Belle Unruh Not even slowed down.
I always remember what Les Moonves(the disgraced former President of CBS) stated during the primaries when they were following Trump around like a puppy dog ignoring everything else, "it may not be good for the country, but, it sure is good for our bottom line". Knowing the historical business background of Trump and his decades long shenanigans, failed businesses and bankruptcies, if the media had been doing their job right from the outset, much of this now probably could have been nipped in the bud. For the sake of the almighty dollar and like the DNC, totally misread the tea leaves thinking there was no way this guy could get elected, so they did nothing.
What boggles my mind even further is the fact that during these excuses for WH press conferences, Trump has the "co-liar in chief" Sarah Sanders just parroting Trump's lies and contradictions day after day, yet, the media continues to sit through this nonsense as if there was actually some normality to all of this while Trump and his minions play them like a violin.
If they had any principles whatsoever, when the lies continue, they should be getting up en mass and walking out of these daily charades. Of course, then again, the President of CNN, Jeffery Zucker, for the sake of even dropping ratings, day after day has no problem watching his WH reporters being constantly humiliated.
7
In Church today the word hypocrite was included and highlighted in the message-the 'media' should take heed. When market share and entertainment are paramount, facts take a backseat and 'news' morphs into gossip and innuendo.
The mainstream press seems to have an agenda against Trump, perhaps because they were duped into believing their polls and like minded colleagues the Clinton was our next President.
How with clear conscious can NBC refer to Trump as racist and misogynist with (former) anchors Lauer and Kelly?
How can the networks blame Trump rhetoric for violence and vile behavior when their primetime broadcasts are laden with violent sexual content??
The vast majority of u.s. don't live in Manhattan and Washington D.C making seven figure salaries, sending our children at 2 years old to private schools and home to nannies. 99.5% of u.s. are convinced of our gender.
The media ought not only look at glass that shows their own image but through the picture window that is Christian America.
5
@David Not christian america wake up and smell the brimstone. A liar is worshiped? You put your trust in Trump forget God.
1
@k Wilson nowhere in my writing did I proclaim to worship Trump; audacious reply to infer I put more trust in Trump than God. One opinion I was trying to convey was that the media should perhaps examine their conduct before constantly criticizing Trump
1
If the media, especially cable news, would stop talking specifically about Trump, how would he react to that? Just leave his name out of stories about his administration policies. He needs to be ignored.
8
If President Trump were a Democrat, the tone of this piece would be astonishment at the energy level a man in his 70's sustains day in and day out.
7
Rolf, if you were a serious human being, people might consider taking you seriously.
6
Trump wouldn't be a Democrat, Rolf.....
5
@Rolf
LOL Mr. Trump takes drugs, just like the "brave" terrorist who flew the airplanes into suicide missions at 9/11. They were not brave they were stoned.
If you believe rudeness and bluster is "energy" and "strength" then you probably believe many lies shows high IQ. I guess you do not see Mr. Trump as a degenerate mercury-laced-coal-lover who is harming America rather than making it great.
6
Donald Trump has been ridiculed by much of the media since he first announced his intent to run for President. CNN and MSNBC and the Times and others piled on and have not stopped. The irony is that had the MSM acted like journalists of old and not sacrificed their journalistic integrity in order to save the country from Trump, mrs Clinton might have won. But the ridicule heaped on Trump allowed the left—journalists and others, to scoff at the notion that Trump might win and to remain clueless about what many average Americans were thinking. The left is used to conservatives who don’t fight back. So they simply don’t have a clue how to respond to a President who fights back in the same gutter where he is attacked. What they must do is reclaim their journalistic integrity. But that is as unlikely as Mr Trump stopping the late night/early morning tweets.
4
You can start by stop mentioning his name. Refer to him as "The President" and only do so in stories that directly relate to him. His strength and Achilles heal is his narcissism. Trump needs and thrives off his incessant need to see his name everywhere by everyone. Taking away his name takes away his power.
8
The press is responsible for making it work. Trump’s tweets are amplified by the press like in echo chamber. The fact checks are like dwelling on the past, because tweets come on rapid succession. The best way for the press to handle this President is publish what he says after fact checking. Then you can publish something along the lines ‘ Trump lied when he said.....’ Alternatively, publish ‘ Trump lied when he said ....’ before fact checking. After that do the fact checking, by accident if he spoke the truth, then publish a correction as a footnote.
4
@Kodali It is not the press the technique is tried and proven.
These “it’s working” comments are never useful.
They always encourage more of the same.
The stance must be:
It will not work.
Under no circumstances will we allow it.
2
“This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop it immediately,” he said about the synagogue shootings. “Maybe there would have been nobody killed, except for him, frankly. It’s a very, very, very difficult situation, and when you look at it, you can look at it two ways.”
Okay, Donald Trump, what's way #1? And what's way #2?
And Mr. President, we've interviewed ten former Navy Seals here who would like to know how an armed guard could have prevented anyone at all from being killed. Please describe.
If our president chooses not to take such questions, how about reporters backing each other up instead of just grabbing for the microphone? One way would be for the next and the next reporter to ask the same question--at least making it clear what Trump is trying to avoid.
The real battle isn't between the media and Trump: it's between Trump's media and fact-based news.
10
This may be nominally off-topic, but why is the U.S. public paying for the liar-in-chief to headline at these many rallies and spread his vitriolic and frequently incoherent commentary aimed at the good people of the press and the country? It must be costing us $millions each week. If this is to continue, it should be on Mr. Trump's personal dime, and press coverage should be minimal, given the message is always the same, and filled with false content.
11
Military Law declared before or shortly after the mid-terms. Just thnkin'...
Let’s have a week without any reports on any Tweets. There is nothing newsworthy on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or Tumblr or Snap.
10
"By one measure, a CBS News poll over the summer, 91 percent of 'strong Trump supporters' trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media."
Of course "strong Trump supporters" believe him. How else would they be strong Trump supporters? The media criticizes him. proving again and again that he's a liar, and they feel threatened. The truth does not make them free, it scares them.
7
@dutchiris Strong trump supporters don't care about facts or truth. Their attention has been co opted by imaginary fear.
1
The news, especially TV news needs to stop reporting Trump's tweets. They need to stop reporting every non-political outrage he commits. The man needs attention and the press is giving him too much of it.
You have got to stop feeding the beast.
Chris Cuomo has got to stop his on-going "exchanges" with Kellyanne Conway. Even her own husband is critical.
This is how Trump got elected. On any given day during the campaign there several articles about him per each news outlet, much of it irrelevant. It was so much fun in the beginning, but look at what it has lead to.
For all their coverage, Trump is mocking you in for the very thing you did: help get him elected.
5
The media this out-of-touch writer is talking about are not media but anti-Trump political operatives. Big difference.
2
The press should not ignore the lies. Recently 60 Minutes did so, barely pushing back on a reckless array the president delivered. Whether follow-up questions were unasked by Leslie Stahl, or edited out, this was a big mistake to air, giving a trusted platform to his lies, very close to the mid-terms. The show is watched most by the demographic that votes most-- aging baby boomers.
One thing the press can do is stop re-printing and re-showing so many specific tweets, with his convenient inventions and out-of-date face, as pictured. A summary of the inaccuracies would be sufficient, without satisfying his desire for constant attention and prominence. Editorial boards need not give more power to his attempts to destroy facts and history.
9
From Trump's perspective, and that of his followers (about half the population), his lies are not lies but just "making a point" - comparable to young people stressing their love or convictions on important issues. We all did this at school and when being screamed at by other kids all you have to say is "you're missing the point," expand the issue from a new angle, and you won the discussion. That's all that Trump is doing. Newspapers or TVs have to figure out a similar way of communication to counteract; do it quickly, keep is simple, and change focus instantly. For one individual to constantly win the debate shows something totally wrong in our communications.
3
I have to concede that I don't understand why we should be taking journalism advice from the American Enterprise Institute, when they're in part responsible for this problem by willingly standing by while the Republicans have been playing footsie with the far right (and, now, alt-right) in hopes of riding this wave of extremism in search of their tax cuts. Instead, they should be atoning for their role in this crisis.
11
How wonderful it would feel if all media simply ignored anything Trump tweets, says, writes. Focus on the government in D.C. and what is actually occurring there, what Congress and the other branches of government are working on; and the media would go to other reliable sources for their information. Really, at this point, I have no interest whatsoever in what Mr. President has to say.
15
Whatever happens, DO NOT STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING. We have your backs, however we can. Always remember, trump supporters are the minority.
16
Unfortunately trump supporters just want to mimic and limit the voice of the people. The Dems won the popular vote but did not win the obsolete electoral college. As long as we get our news and opinions from only those who agree with us there will never be two sides to consider.
1
@Nick Cullen:
A Republican has won the popular vote only one time in the last 20 years yet we have had at least three terms under a GOP president.
The majority of our Supreme Court was nominated by a minority-elected president and confirmed by a Senate which was elected by only one-third of the electorate.
Being in the majority hasn't worked out so well.
1
@Allen It is called Gerrymandering it works at the state level.
What the media need to do is work on the premise of 'Make America Great Again' and show real photos of run down schools, hospitals, social services, homelessness, and real people etc etc Then show a silhouette of trump there that is empty and absent amongst all the chaos and lack of government spending in social services, infrastructure, environment etc etc. More like running USA into the ground and making wealthy people richer without any consideration for future generations that will have to clean up the mess left behind by businesses. It takes generations of government policies and spending to have clean water, and peaceful serene landscapes that haven't been destroyed by mining etc. It's really easy to have a great economy if you don't have laws and regulations to control businesses and what they're doing to the environment. And if you don't spend on infrastructure and all the other essentials that result in government debt. The rich should not get tax cuts because they're stealing off the government and government debt will just keep going up. The rich need to pay back all those government bails outs they got during the 2008 crash. And there'll be another crash because of the unbridled power and lack of government laws and policies to police businesses. It won't be long before you'll all have to import water from NZ.
17
@CK
What the news channels should do is take all of his declarations of whatever and show proofs of the realities of his histories. I am a witness to his Trump Tower use of immigrants for it's construction for instance.
2
I don't think rational voters are swayed by Trump, and I don't think independents and former Republicans are, either. He plays to his audience, and that's about it. He's not winning new voters, and most likely he's losing them.
17
@muslit . In the way US politics functions he can win government with a minority of votes. Trump can easily win in 2020 if he can abuse enough voters to stay away from the polling booths.
The US political system is broken/busted and open to abuse. It needs fixing but will never get fixed anymore than the gun laws that make your country front page news around the world on a weekly basis.
2
I almost never listen to Trump. The only reason why I'm aware of his attacks on the media is that it is constantly and widely reported on CNN, MSNBC and NYT.
But here's what I've noticed.
1. The obsessional negative coverage of Trump is to a point where the lay person can recognize its excess.
2. There is a clearly recognizable trend within the media to down play his successes and go for the jugular on his mistakes. Much, much more than for previous leaders.
When he went to Europe a while back, there was widespread criticism of his behavior towards Germany and Angela Merkel. How dare he treat our ally that way? Trump again shows his unpresidential side. Etc. and so on.
What was unsaid and unanalyzed, was that his comments were within the context of Germany/EU asking US for help against Russia, at the same time that they're rewarding huge energy contracts to Putin. Trump was outraged at this. This important nugget of context was barely mentioned in the reports and if they were, almost as an after thought. Here's the thing: He had a valid point, and I was curious about it. Maybe Germany has a great reason, but I wanted to know more. Yet nothing.
There are examples like this abound. I did not vote for Trump and am against his policies on many things, but he is in fact doing some things right. But according to the media he's a buffoon who's doing nothing but bumbling around and needs to be impeached ASAP.
That's not fake news per say, but it is misleading.
117
@Cari408 You sound like Johnnie Cochran defending O.J. against all the bad press.
Sometimes the negativity is warranted, which I should hope even a lay person can recognize.
52
@Cari408
Cari the story and anyalisis of the Trump objection of the Nord Stream 2 project has been presented in depth in the NYT, PBS, Foreign Poloicy, Stratfor, WP, Gardian and many others. The stories are not hard to find.
25
@Cari408 First I do no remember the exact Trump calling for Europe to help pay the bills. I do recall him claiming America had not do that before and were going to starting with him. That was a lie. Reporting facts that make Trump look bad is not anti Trump, lying is the problem.
Trumps began claiming the deals he made with Saudi Arabia would bring 40,000 jobs. After several reversions that os jnow 1,000,000. Reporting that fact is anti lie. A large part of the dal he claims was actually done by Obama.
He takes the good he does and makes it a lie. Blame the messenger here he makes the message A HUGE LIE. Over and Over.
27
With his lying and bullying speech,Trump has devised a terrible win/win strategy for himself and against the interests of democracy. We are darned if we call him out, and darned if we don't. I can't see how letting much of his lying and violence-inciting speech go, in favor of the "big things" will help protect our institutions and our society. For one thing, he pushes the limits to get attention, so smaller issues are likely to become bigger issues. For another thing, who gets to decide which lies and norm violations journalists should report? With a Congress and political pary that refuses to check his excesses, we are trapped and unprotected. The result is harm to the country.
178
Corporate media institutions are unprepared for this vanguard of the dark ages. They operate under a different set of working hypotheses and rules of discourse than those which have been exploited by trump + his media co-conspirators (aka f-x "news", sinclair, talk radio) to gain a stranglehold on millions of ignorant minds by creating strong opinions not based upon factual (or any) reasoning.
The standard rules of he said-she said
by (non) experts (one "left" other "right") in presenting a "balanced" analysis is an ineffective way to
transmit actual content. They are the result of shortened attention spans and time constraints that result in short pithy features, not analysis. The end result leaves listeners in a muddle, resolved by the listener's own (confirmation) biases.
Critically, families and the education system have not produced high school graduates who want to think critically about complicated subjects. Combine that with the glibness in MSM stories and you have the ingredients
needed for disinformation and propaganda to dominate
how opinions are formed and fixed.
There is no short fix for this mess. It results from
deeply embedded trends in the society. Respect for
expertise/learning, definitions of what it means
to know (and not know) something, have never played a large role in how many youth are educated.
So too many are easily manipulated by nonsense to which
they adhere to express a group, not individual, identity.
105
We were taught in Army Basic Training to salute the uniform of the officer rather than the person.
Trump is wearing that Presidential uniform even though he is a habitual criminal with the rationality of Captain Queeg of the Cain Mutiny.
11
@AllanH
But you're no longer in the army. I wonder
how many of your fellow trainees are still
in salute reflex mode, and how many
are, as a result, going to vote in one of trump's
silent uncomplaining enablers.
I've always been of the opinion that tweets should play little part in the news, especially our lying president's tweets. They aren't policy or action and have almost zero consequence on the running of the government, yet news outlets spend an exponential amount of time picking them apart for news stories. Trump puts essentially no thought into writing them, and they should be treated as such. If people want to see what he's tweeting, they can go on Twitter and see them. As for the journalists, they should be reporting on his actions and policy. That's what matters here. That's what's going to affect out country in the long run.
567
@CPD This would be true except for the fact that he fires high level members of his staff by tweet. He also uses twitter as a direct conversation to his mindless followers, and in his missives he sends out dog whistles as calls to action.
So his tweets need to be reported on, unfortunately.
22
@CPD What makes you think the country as a whole wouldn't learn of Trump's tweets without comment by the mainstream press? Let's not blame the press. Let's blame a deliberate attempt, now showing its success, to keep people in this country uneducated and ill-informed. That is happening outside of news print and news broadcasts. We are a country in moral decline, not in small part due to the policies of elite Republicans who benefit from it. True, the press does sometimes exploit these tweets for sensational value. But don't overlook the obvious: It is the president who is making these statements. Therein lies the problem, the treachery and overall threat. We need to know every time he belches his primitive hate. You overlook that a majority of this country did not vote for this. They can parse it for what it is. They might be disenfranchised from our democracy for now. But they will return.
16
That is why, in addition to NYT, I read WSJ. You ask journalist to filter their content, which they should, but in today’s world, it has become necessary for the reader too.
3
It may be working with his supporters, but it's not working with the rest of us. The fact that his lies are coming increasingly fast and furious suggest he's worried about the effectiveness of his approach, but that he doesn't know how else to control the discussion. He has no other option but to continue lying, which is how lying works. It won't be long before the microphone is taken up by someone else. We can only hope that the next person is real, honest, trustworthy, and ready to work for the people....in short, everything Trump is not.
463
@Greg Wessel " The obsessional negative coverage of Trump is to a point where the lay person can recognize its excess."
No. You can't recognize anything about it because it doesn't exist.
Nice try at playing the sincerely concerned unbiased observer though.
1
@Greg Wessel that is precisely the problem, the media is preaching to the choir and not changing any minds..
2
@TrueNorth60 That's partly because the parishioners are not all listening the same preacher/media source. Our challenge is to find ways to remove the walls between us that some bad actors keep shoring up.
Reporting the news has become something of a very different order with Donald Trump in the White House for what have become obvious reasons. Absent any allegiance to facts or truth, the 24 hour news cycle has become a forum for what I believe is a psychopathic presidency. Mr Trump was a "Roy Cohen" businessman and is now an equally amoral, vindictive, Caligula-type president. There is no need to repeat every lie- why would any authentic journalist choose to do that?
7
Why are these actions against the media working? The man lies 24/7, nothing he says is true, nothing.
How can you believe anything he says.....
The media needs to decide why they cover him 24/7, the lying POTUS needs to be ignored.....
Incredible the damage Trump does and gets away with it boot
15
His attacks on the media are working, because news organizations like CNN have become so opinionated. Just last week, I saw a segment where Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon were echoing their opinions about Megyn Kelly being ignorant about race relations in our country. Of course, Megyn wasn’t there to defend herself against these “journalists.” It was like they had their own little echo chamber. It was hilarious the expression of disgust on Chris Cuomo’s face followed by the protracted silence of their resident expert on all things black and gay, Don Lemon. While these guys are certainly entitled to their opinions, the idea that what comes out of their mouths passes off as news these days is what gives Donald Trump the ammunition he need to attack them and the news organization that employs them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9YsvUrEpRs
11
@Voice of Reason
It was Megyn Kelly's own words in defense herself that got her canned, not Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo.
Her ratings were faltering and her insensitive remarks gave NBC the perfect excuse to cancel her program.
She was truly dreadful and need to go.
6
@cl - Thanks for the straw man argument.
The author here is wrong. Trump’s stardom has faded and his filthy mouth is not presidential and all Americans prefer a president who can speak better than gutter language and who might be even be intelligent too.
35
Trump attacks the media and the media cowers. The more he beats up on them the more they follow him around like puppies yearning to be played with.Trump loves the attention and the media feeds his need. The head of CNN called out Trump the other day and one would have thought he told the emperor he had no cloths. Can anybody old enough believe Trump would have called Walter Cronkite fake news? Now the media tallies up Trump's daily lies instead of calling him out oin them
13
@Steven McCain
I see no cowering at all. Maybe you need to read more from various sources.
This article astutely observes that #45 is well aware of the effectiveness of his strategy of diminishing the media as a strategy for undermining REAL news about his mendaciousness, bigotry and predatory behavior. What the article does not do is place this tactic in historical perspective. If one looks at the way in which Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler used the same tactics, it is eye-opening. Methinks #45 is well aware of this playbook.
15
I want to quote Hitler's various comments about the press, however each time I submit them they are never published. It is easy to Google Hitler quotes and scroll down until you find those relating to the press. They are amazingly similar to Trump's words and approach to the press. Everything about Trump is similar to Hitler in my view and the view of millions of people around the world. When his supporters finally admit it will it be too late for America? I am begging you to please vote.
31
@Wyman Elrod: a number of commenters
have at least reminded us of how close we
are to fascism or very similar machinations.
some countries in europe are moving there, too.
and look at duderte [PHL] or bolsonaro [BRA] ...
the fact that djt's tactics & strategies are working
e.g. where the press is concerned, is shocking enough:
"I do it to discredit you all and demean you all,
so when you write negative stories about me,
no one will believe you."
but what are we waiting for to OUTSMART him?
large numbers of people prefer to see the world as
black & white, good & bad, up & down, rich & poor.
yet, the world has long ceased being that simple.
if we fail to convince people that there's beauty in variety
because ultimately, everyone benefits, we'll be doomed!
PLEASE STOP repeating djt-speak at every occasion.
weave THE OTHER tapestry, the fabric of a society
where everything is possible [except mutual destruction].
list all the beautiful things that could be done
if tax evaders and money launderers stopped
lying, cheating, stealing and calling taxpayers "stupid!".
germany got swindled out of 55 billion euros recently.
presumably, the US loses out on much higher amounts.
DON'T
let the perpetraitors[!] get away with that any longer!
2
Trump is the problem. His lies and obfuscations are frightening because people believe them.
But the media assist trump in the propagation of the falsehoods and other bad acts. If the media ignored trump, his lies and obfuscations would be less powerful.
He craves attention. Please don’t give it to him.
Report on what is actually being done by the trump administration. For example, instead of crazy tweets, I’d like to read about what the EPA is up to and the danger it may be posing to my child’s health.
15
@Icy, drilling off Alaska hot overlooked too, as well as rampant court-packing below the SCOTUS level. Where's the coverage of those issues instead of counting Trump's countless lies or handicapping state and local elections like a horse race with meaningless polls?
2
trumps attack on the new media is working to make his base hate the new media. it is also working to make everyone else believe trump is a world class lier.
12
"By one measure, a CBS News poll over the summer, 91 percent of 'strong Trump supporters' trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media."
This statement seems to be the only "measure" by which this author justifies his claim that Trump's news media attacks are "working."
I would like to see Mr. Rutenberg's explanation for the fact that Trump's overall approval rating has remained at or below the low 40s for his entire term. I don't see his approval numbers gradually rising with each tsunami of lies and media castigation.
Trump's attacks on the media play to his 40 percent. The rest of us are voting blue on November 6.
17
Looking at the fluctuations in polls, trump’s popularity suffers only when the focus is on his policies and actions, not his rhetoric, lies, and other offenses to humanity. The health ‘reform’ push, tax cuts, meeting with other heads of state and particularly Putin, separating immigrant families all revealed his incompetence in full view ... no press commentary was needed.
The lesson? Simply hold his actions and policies to account. As tough as it is, ignore the rest as noise...It just plays to him and his base.
16
It's not working on me or anyone I know. "The truth will out" - it always does. There are enough heroes manning the media (I don't include Fox) to keep us informed in spite of the constant daily denigration from the White House.
Trump's opinion on anything = ZERO
17
How many American people don't know that "DIVIDE AND CONQUER" is the key factor of EMPIRE? --- always has been, and still is under Emperor Trump.
Can modern Americans be so un-"Woke" that they can't see their country turning in to an Empire?
As I've commented here on the "Times" many times:
My advice to all Americans about voting in 2018 if they are smart, but more about 2020 if they're not, is to ask themselves this simple but seminal question:
Do you want to vote in favor of a country that "acts like an Empire?" --- or a country that "acts like a democracy?"
If the American people can't be "Woke" to the deadly fact that our democratic Republic is turning into an Empire under so obvious an Emperor as Caesar Trumpius, and are no more 'Woke' than Roman citizen/'subjects' or German citizen/'subjects' were --- then as Redford's film was titled --- "All Is Lost".
3
Our media in NZ is very good at exposing bribery and corruption amongst politicians and that's what the USA media should be doing. How much of this is going on in USA politics and how many of the USA politicians are pushing up the government debt by wasting government money on what they call 'personal expenses' spending. Expose all these politicians for the hypocrites they are and the bribery and corruption that is causing the government deficit to balloon out of control.
7
Need we remind ourselves that Trump disqualified himself as a responsible, morally centered , public minded citizen and as a major party candidate when he went after President Obama's citizenship? The major GOP congressional leaders ignored that horrendous affront-- there's was the crime of omission. Trump was playing to the "wing nuts" from the first day of his candidacy, and the news media needed to ignore him as the long shot nut case that he presented himself to be. Most people who were following the arch of his candidacy, should point that out, because now it's too late. He's deeply affecting not only our political culture, but even more importantly, just what we countenance as the new normal from the leader of the free world.
3
George Orwell, was a genius.
5
Reputable news organizations should run a countertweet columns. Each President tweet should be fact-checked and a rejoinder posted. Followers of both the President and the news organization would view a running list of tweet/countertweet.
If this seems an overreaction, consider that Trump has weakened one of the foundational pillars of the democracy he sits atop of: perception of truth. Countertweets might even spark counter-countertweets, and then the nation might even begin to focus on what are, actually, the facts of a situation, rather than what people opine about them.
4
When have you ever heard Trump say, Don't hurry, don't worry, and don't forget to smell the flowers.
When have you ever seen Trump take a reality check of the effects of his polices and visited a poor area or gone on a walkabout kissing babies and looking inside a new hospital built with government taxes or visited a school that the government has given more funds to? So many more examples that readers can add to here.
10
OK. When have you ever sing Kumbaya.
That should have been: When have you ever heard him sing Kumbaya.
ALL media is delusion...Dharma/Meditation teachers taught me so multiple decades ago...Experience has proven this to be true.
How curious that Trump comes along now to reinforce this simple teaching.
Namaste
2
This article promotes the belief that the press is "losing" in the war of facts with Trump. I think this is incorrect and dangerous. The press is doing exactly what it should in a democracy. Hold politicians and government officials responsible for what they say. It is much more challenging in the era of Trump but the press has risen to the challenge and has proven its worth as a protector of democracy. Yes, there are committed followers of Trump that no matter what he says will follow him no matter how many lies the press exposes. That doesn't mean however the press is "losing". Also I hold the belief that once faced with enough of these exposed falsehoods Trump followers will begin to question their blind allegiance to Trump. Finally the press should never look the other way and give any politician a pass on what they say. To do so would only motivate politicians to be more dishonest and reduce the power of truth that is the bedrock of a democracy.
22
"Mr. Trump was making the not-so-veiled suggestion that the news media was exaggerating the story because of some political motivation."
Like he's not exaggerating the caravan story for political purposes? The national emergency, an national security issue is Trump, not the caravan.
12
It's not clear just how many of those polled fervent Trump supporters actually believe his outrageous lies & rhetoric. Are many of Trump's base merely playing along with this ruse because they see television reality show host Donald Trump turning the long accepted protocol and norms of a now dysfunctional and highly partisan Federal government on its head? Carefully creating conflict and chaos is what energizes reality television but that is a manipulation of television producers & editors. Trump's chaos inducing behavior and vulgar demeanor in the White House underscore his total lack of experience and qualifications as a politician, diplomat and world leader but play to his skills as a television reality host working in the tightly controlled environment of a heavily edited television show. Lucky for Trump and Republicans that they inherirted a veritable gift from the Obama administration of a growing economy. It is highly probable that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have maintained the trajectory of our continued economic expansion, with or without Trump's overly generous tax cuts to those who needed it the least.
The ill will Trump is fomenting among minorities in this country and among our once staunchest allies thanks to onerous trade tariffs and his combative rhetoric will undoubtedly carry a heavy price for America and ultimately Trump and Republicans at some point in the not so distant future. It will be the point when reality meets reality television
5
@Jeff proof you are deranged: " It is highly probable that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have maintained the trajectory of our continued economic expansion..."
What expansion?
@usedkarguy
Deranged? Thanks for the compliment. Who said Trump has destroyed civility in this country? Yes, the US economy has thankfully expanded following the Great Bush Recession. It most likely would have expanded even faster had Republican not tried to deny or derail Obama's attempts to jump start it. Wasn't it Mitch McConnell who publicly vowed to ensure Barack Obama was a one term President right after his inauguration and America was on the precipice of the 2nd Great Depression?
Rather than discuss the problem, we should fix the problem.
Observations:
1. Trump takes the game of golf far more seriously than he does the act of being president. Trump cheats in every round of golf he plays.
2. The normal mechanisms to check the power of a president (Electoral College, Congress, Supreme Court) are utterly compromised.
3. The power of the USGA an its World-Wide allies to control the rules and game of golf is absolute.
Plan:
The USGA should immediately declare Trump a threat to the game of Golf because of his violation of one or more of the 34 rules of gold in every one of his golfing outings. They should implement a remedy consisting of:
1. Forbidding the game of Golf to be played on any property owned, partially owned, or occupied by, or played on by Trump.
2. Detaining Trump should he step foot on any property where the game of golf is played, and holding him incommunicado on the property until such time as it is certain he will never befoul the game of golf again.
There, problem solved.
7
Does anyone remember Sgt. Joe Friday? "Just the facts, please?" Could we get back to that?
I am so frustrated with trump, trump, trump as if he were engaging in rational discourse. I don't think I'm the only one...
If true news newspapers and true news media broadcasters would concentrate reporting on what the Cabinet, US Congress and State Congresses are doing, instead of concentrating on one person's hyperbole as if it were a discussion of legislative governance, we'd all be a lot better off. Done every day, changing the focus of reporting might dim out emotional screaming and spotlight facts.
The tweets? Put them in a single column and pull out any statement that is a real legislative issue - ignore or identify the rest as rhetoric.
Rally speeches? Pull out any suggested legislation, quote it, and ignore everything else.
Personal attacks? Don't even name the person being attacked, just state 'personal attacks were made against x number of persons who disagree with the current president'.
Very young children, and older children who are immature, will alter behavior using the tactic of responding to out of control emotional displays with a lack of emotion.
18
@Myrasgrandotter
Who's paying for these rally speeches anyway? They are purely political, not governmental business.
1
@Myrasgrandotter Oh yes you have laid out the answer. I am afraid however the news media will not heed your commonsense, as there is no money to be made. Greed is a common denominator on both sides.
1
@Doug
It's my understanding that the costs are divided between the government and the campaign.
Here's information from Govt. Accountability Off. and Federal Election Commission: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/verify-do-taxpayers-pay-when-pr...
This is from a news station in D.C.
Everyone knows he lies constantly and he doesn’t plan to stop. The only thing you can do is write the truth. Writers seem to obsess to much about what he says. Yes, it’s maddening, but he doesn’t know how to do the job and is not interesting in learning. Explaining that his behaviour is abnormal seems more important for the younger people seeking news.
7
Why in the world is a President of the USA awake at 3:45a.m. tweeting disrespect for the First Amendment?
17
I seem to recall a speech somewhere that went along the lines..
"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Hmmm, I wonder who said that, it was good.
3
The news media must continue to report the facts and the truth. While many Americans will find it difficult to see through the current fog of President Trump's lies, history will likely judge him correctly.
7
The fact is that the media is making money off of this war and has no intention of doing anything that will upset their apple cart. There are just black hats.
1
All Trump ever wanted was for everyone in the world to be mentally fixated upon him at all times.....and you fell for it hook, line and sinker....good work.
Additionally, I am not sure who threw the first punch in the fight between him and the media but it is apparent that neither he nor them are adult enough to call a truce. Nice.
2
The media is not throwing punches it is reporting facts and debunking alternative facts. trump has decided that any fact that he does not like is an attack on him
Trump is no different from Osama bin laden. Encouraging others to create terror for his ends.
4
Keep doing your job reporters Americans thank you.
23
Our country was founded on truth and everyone knows Trump is an unflinching LIAR. You just can't believe anything he says. He's just a poor little rich kid looking for attention or having spoiled child tantrums. It's called the Trump Circus. Even his father Fred told him to stick around and not to add Manhattan to further his career, and it wasn't that he thought his son wouldn't be successful, it was because he knew that his son was mentally ill.
He lies and says anything to get his way without human conscience. It's all about attention, so most educated people just ignore him and wish someone would put a sock in his used-car dealer mouth until the next election. We know his base is the uneducated, best of the worst, and even criminal in our country he gathered together just to get the numbers to pry himself into office. It's been said that even Australia banned his casinos early-on because of his links to the mafia underground. He just used the ultra-religious, who are very sadly blinded by their own strict devotion, to push him forward. It's too bad they can't see the forest for the trees.
Seems like there's always a Republican with dirty hands. His buddy Bannon could be out there as his field marshal, working behind the scenes, stoking the criminal fires with secret payoffs. After all, that it seems to be the Russian way. Interesting how there's no Wikileaks about the Trumps and their administration...
We all look forward to post-election, when the masks come off!
7
Democrats and the media have to better push pick on the gaslighting. Trump calls Democrats a mob as his followers send bombs, spray bullets and racial epitaphs. He calls respected newspapers fake news as he lies through his teeth. We need a drumbeat of "I know you are, but what am I?"
It's not "partisan smears." Let's call it what it is: Republican smears, led by Donald Trump, of Democrats, people of color, LBGTQs, the press, feminists, etc. The press can help by being accurate and dropping the ridiculous bothsiderism.
7
The news is complicated, Trump is a simpleton. Trump is a cartoon.
It's much easier watching a cartoon than the news. A lot less boring, too.
And when the cartoon gives you permission to ignore the news, why that's just the kind of reinforcement the uninformed like to hear.
These are not facts the media are reporting, they're just trying to make you feel bad about yourself.
I, Trump, make you feel good.
End of story.
3
Who could have guessed that "electing" a lifelong, sociopathic Conman would have turned out so poorly ???? Well, many, many people. HE literally cannot help himself, it's His NATURE. His Collaborators are the true villains. VOTE them OUT. It's the only way to save ourselves.
Seriously.
32
Trump's attack on the media is really an attack on fact-checking. He rails against news outlets that check their sources and facts, but loves Facebook and Breitbart "news" that do not.
Indeed, his rhetoric is devoid of any fact-checking.
Of course, a war on fact-checking is straight out of Putin's playbook.
4
When the protections that existed to protect the public were eliminated by Congress and it became possible to purchase a network and a newspaper in the same town, broadcast media gained power it shouldn't have had, and the fourth estate was weakened. The financial reasons why some things didn't get published or got buried on page 29 increased. When the NYT decided it would run ads in the middle of news articles (to get your attention), we were faced with the fact that "info-tainment" had finally become mainstream. The failing NYT? Maybe so.
There is NOTHING as strong as the propaganda machine that is FOX. Trump uses FOX to his own nefarious ends. Trump is shrewd but dull. He can sell snake oil but he can't understand dense intelligence documents. Easy to manipulate through flattery, delighted to verbalize his own made-up thoughts on whatever, he is unfit for his office. The people around him who can get their way by making him feel important are happy to have him as their stooge.
Everyone should see "The Post," the movie about the publication of the Pentagon Papers and remember what it was like when the press was really free and substantial. Making money didn't win. Would that happen now? Unlikely. Virtually everything in our day-to-day lives is about who has, makes and uses the most money. Democracy suffers when the press is no longer truly free. I pay to read this paper and I have to pay extra for features that are not standard. Free press? Ha ha but also boo hoo.
5
@Jeanie LoVetri
FIVE major companies in America now control what you see, read and hear. By the way, you can thank Bill Clinton for that.
We've seen a lot of articles about Trump slandering the media without a lot of self-reflection by the media itself.
Once Fox News took off as an expressly partisan and hugely successful multimedia platform, I think a lot of business people running news organizations got the message: be partisan and make more money.
And so yes, now the New York Times is increasingly partisan. Everyone who reads this newspaper that isn't a liberal notices it.
Obama said it himself: "Some people are just watching Fox News; some people are just reading the New York Times. They almost occupy two different realities in terms of how they see the world."
So now even CNN, CBS, NBC, etc. are all reporting with a more noticeable slant. CNN's founder Ted Turner lamented the politicization of his old network a few weeks ago.
And these were the outlets that used to be moderate. The ones where you weren't actually sure which way the journalist voted.
Now we have Times reporters writing articles by day and tweeting expressly partisan statements by night.
This creates self-reinforcing dynamic--as the readerships become more distrustful, they self-segregate and become balkanized and the two sides increasingly see the world with blinders on.
I would encourage news organizations to retake the center.
To alter their unstated mission from fomenting advocacy to providing neutral reporting of facts and analysis so Americans can actually share a common discourse again.
8
The New York Times is aggressively complicit in furthering the "Trump Derangement Syndrome". While all of us need to do our parts in addressing social pathologies, the NYT has a special obligation.Suggestions:
1. STOP now with "Both sides" reporting. No--it is not required to seek out, invent, or exaggerate one example from "each side". "Fair" and "Honest" and "Accurate" is not possible if "Balanced" is put above or on the same level.
2. START announcing the lie in the headline--first, as in "Trump lied by saying ..." if somehow it must be reported at all. The leading paragraph should focus on the contrast to what is said and what is factually true.
3. The issues that will determine our fates are climate change caused by burning fossil fuels nuclear war and reality based decision making. How well we address these (or don't) should be seen as newsworthy. Don't bury the lede.
4. Facing our challenges with effective solutions is not possible if we spend most of our time discussing lies. Accurate reporting includes maintaining a clear distinction between "is" and "some people think". The opinions of flat earthers and other nonsense spewers do not need to be respected.
The New York Times needs to think hard about how they, too, can make a (positive) difference.
7
If I wrote Trump-style tweets in prose form and sent it to the NYT as a letter to the editor, the content would keep it from being printed. If any famous person gave Trump-like speeches denigrating people of color, suggesting high profile people should be locked up for their politics, and calling immigrants murderers and rapists, no reputable news organization would give it play.
Trump-hate speech has proven to be akin to shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, when there is no fire. It is dangerous, and as we have seen this week, life-threatening. Just because he holds office does not mean the press has to give his every nasty comment air time or column space.
Please stick to All the news that’s FIT to print.”
15
Meh. Today it's more like "All the News That Fits." Apologies to either Mad Magazine or National Lampoon.
The media should stop focusing so much on Tump's madness and start reporting more world news. Take a clue from the BBC. There's a lot more going on in the world than President Trump's tweets and race baiting.
11
@Keith Wagner Indeed that is where I turn to for news. Our media I'm afraid is using trump bait to make money.
4
Trump doesn't have supporters, he has cult members. I was stunned by how many people think that the Magabomber is a liberal plant created by the "deep state" and financed by George Soros in order to make Trump look bad. They will argue that all the photos and evidence that show he is a Trump supporter are fake. They also believe that Trump knows this and only reads the teleprompter messages of unity to keep the "deep state" off guard. No one should be surprised that people this disconnected from reality would spawn the Magabomber and the synagogue shooter.
12
I have become inured and disinterested on the constant back-and-forth between Trump and the media. I have stopped reading the opinion pieces in the NYT since I already know exactly what they are going to say about Trump. I already know the news articles invariably report everything negative about Trump. With the constant negative deluge and barrage of the latest Trump happenings, it is just exhausting to try to summon up yet another righteous indignation. Theses days I find the Business section and the DealBook to be good places for neutral, fact based articles.
3
@Integra Casey
You read this article, though.
How about a day when all the media do NOT mention him at all? The next day publish a story that lists all of his lies, half truths, and innuendoes.
12
@Leslie Fenton
Amen. How about a few WEEKS of not mentioning him! It would be so refreshing to focus instead on the do-nothing Congressional Republicans who are coasting on his lies and not doing their jobs of oversight.
3
Trump is right of course. This week we found out NBC News was sitting on evidence that Avenatti and his Swetnick claims were a fraud. They sat on that through the Kavanaugh hearing. Likewise, the media is rightly up in arms about anti-semitism following Saturday's horrifying shooting. This is the same media touting Obama at rallies, an Obama whose smiling photos with Farrakhan were buried by the media until after he left office. The same media who tried to frame out Farrakhan sitting with Clinton at the Aretha Franklin funeral. Trump doesn't need to attack the media to discredit it. Thinking people already see the hypocrisy and calumny coming from leftwing media. Why, CNN and the leftwing media attack the President for vilifying his opponents. Next thing they do is spotlight Howard Dean calling Trump evil. The media's credibility is shot.
3
@TL
And Fox "news" claims that the pipe bombs were a left wing attempt to garner votes before the election. The same media outlet that touted Donald Trump mocking a sexual assault survivor who put country before self. My take away is we are increasingly two Americans and the divide is growing with the help of this President.
1
@TL
As far as I know, Chuck Grassley is the one making those claims about Avenatti. I have have not heard anything about from anyone else.
You say you weren't built to withstand this onslaught of lies and smear campaigns. But withstand it you must, for without you we are truly doomed.
17
Not at my house. I put the TV on mute when Trump speaks and I never look at his tweets.
His foul mouth and ignorance are so obvious to even the everyday Joe that he is impossible to believe. One wonders if he ever went to school past 5Th grade. And it said that Daddy bought his degree at Penn where he lived in the Wharton dorm but was never a student there.
6
Why do you continue to call them "unsubstantiated claims?" They're lies.
15
What does all this say about th
1
I think everyone needs to join one of two camps and carry an I.D. card identifying themselves as either “Fact Based” or “Partisan.” If you self-identify as “Partisan” then everyone you encounter is allowed to treat you as if facts, truth and reason have no bearing on any interactions. For example, if I run an auto repair business, I must treat “Fact Based” customers just as ethical shops do now, but I’m permitted to “make up my own truth” when assessing cars brought in by “Partisans.” Steering wheel pulls a bit to the right? Fix for that is a new transmission!Similarly, medical professionals must specify accepted standard treatments for only their “Fact Based” patients. For that Partisan who shows up with hay fever, a liver transplant is an acceptable remedy. You get the general idea. If nothing else, schools should adopt this experimental policy for one week each year just to teach young people how important rootedness in facts and reality is to a functioning society. Clearly in America right now, their parents aren’t getting it.
3
Cover what Trump says ONLY when it's verifiably true. Ignore the lies and he may soon crumble from lack of attention--and maybe, just maybe, stop telling so many whoppers.
1
Trump speaks with masterful purpose.
A studied and practiced propagandist, Trump speaks slowly, repeating key phrases several times in a row, making sure that his intended message permeates listeners. Is it a form of brainwashing? Possibly.
Trump wants to maintain his base and undermine their trust in those who criticize him.
Twitter gives him a tremendous platform from which to spread his message and so do TV, print and internet media.
It’s baffling that journalists continue to fall into the Trump trap. Just handing him a megaphone by covering and amplifying Trump rallies, White House scrums and press conferences.
The best way to stop a fire is by cutting off the oxygen - snuff it out.
Stop covering Trump’s rhetoric and limit his coverage to policy.
6
@FJM, great comment! Trump uses these techniques in tandem with Breitbart's "beat the dog daily" process in order to continue to manipulate the media.
Focus on critiquing his policies and actions and the possible alternatives, stop shining the light on him and his bloviating and watch as it drives him nuts
For most Americans of average intelligence and possessing a particular sense of morality, Trump's lies and his "genius" at dividing the nation are repulsive and unacceptable. Our outrage at his repugnant behavior, his deceit, and his inability to lead us in a positive direction is based upon his actions, his continuous campaigning (will he never stop plugging himself?) and his inability to stop demonizing anyone who disagrees with him.
No, journalists should NOT ignore Trump's false narratives, baseless claims and outright lies - they should be published and broadcast so that eventually, we hope and pray, others will come to realize that a man who brags about his sexual proclivities, who lied his way into politics and continues to do so, who hides his illegal tax evasion, and who cannot muster an ounce of genuine regret for his bad behavior should not be idolized, but punished for his misdeeds.
3
The attacks and condemnation of the mainstream news media are justified and most Americans recognize that fact.
1
Never once have I heard any peace and tranquilty come out of his mouth. It's not about making America great again - it's all about winning for him at any cost.
When a killing happens he says the person is nuts - if you say a person is nuts and evil. Evil is a lazy religious emotive word that is used to not look at what's happening in the social structure of your nation and how the mental health system is working and other social welfare policies that could be improving peoples lives. Evil is a word that means you don't have to invest in your own citizens and take look at what's wrong with your nation and making policies to make the nation healthy and safe to live in for everyone. Investing in your own citizens costs money and saying people are evil stops you from investing in mental health and social programmes to lift stress, homelessness, and poverty out of your citizens lives.
Maybe media should be looking at the social cost to everyday citizens of government policies to cut back on healthcare, medic aid, and taxing the wealthy less. How much wealth is enough in the USA and you do have to wonder when the rich have more money than the government. The governments job is to collect taxes and without taxes the government would collapse. Whose running the country - the government or big business and the people who own all the government debt bonds.
4
The media certainly plays a role in this as Trump has been great for their business. So easy to just repeat his tweets and remarks then throw it over to the talking heads. The business model for both Fox and MSNBC. It's also lazy, uninformative and contributes to the distrust. Smirking and rolling your eyes isn't journalism.
2
"Once is a tragedy, twice is a terrible coincidence, three times is enemy action."
Stochastic terrorism has been defined as the use of language "to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.".
Stochastic- 1 : random specifically : involving a random variable a stochastic process
2 : involving chance or probability : probabilistic //a stochastic model of radiation-induced mutation
I did not know how to name it at the time, I only just learned this term today, but I recognized this intent immediately when reagan and the GOP began demonizing abortion and in all the other lies told about bad actors they would never name but happily encouraged adherents to infer the identity of for them. For 40 years the GOP has been attacking us via stochastic terrorism.
When will the Press finally start reporting it?
The way one counters people like El Trumpo is by simply laying out the facts in the paper.
In person you interrupt as soon as he makes a point not allowing him to continue in staccato fashion with another and then another. His intent by doing this is to prevent rational thought, then rational discourse, you should point that out in the paper.
If you have to, keep screaming louder than he until he shuts up. Do not let him get past the first point without answering a question about it. Make him pause between points like an honest person does.
You have to stand up to him.
6
Let's face facts, Donald Trump's weak ego is addicted to the fawning crowds at his "rallies". He will say whatever he believes will stir them up, regardless of the negative impact of his demeaning, bellicose attacks on individuals, Democrats and anyone who voices opposition to his mean-spirited performances.
The faces of the mob behind him say it all: we're afraid and we need to join together to hate. Trump makes it patriotic to hate Democrats, immigrants, and all brown people. What has happened to our country?
5
News media should should starve the beast: no cameras in its face or microphones in its mouth. Go get its comments and then just report on it without visuals or sound bites. Take all that extra time wasted on sensationalizing it to analyze in more depth what its policies are doing.
The media needs to really start understanding that they are under attack. If they continue to give it the platform it is using to its advantage, the media will accept to accept their complicity in what happens to them and other victims that are harmed or killed.
5
Yes, our process of national schismogenesis seems complete!
With the rise of alternative facts, it has become clear that whether or not a statement is believed depends far less on its veracity or robust reporting than on the conditions of its “construction” — that is, who is making it, to whom it’s being addressed and from which institutions it emerges and is made visible. Who or whom do you trust? Some look to Trump & Fox demagogues to provide their facts, others enjoy the NYTimes and the WaPo's FactChecker; a substantial portion of the polity just allows their Smartphones to curate their daily news diet. Where you find your facts is the issue; what facts are actually relevant to an individual's narrative/world-view is a subjective choice. Which is precisely the problem in a world of too-many-facts.
Trump, Hannity, Coulter and other demagogic talking heads shape opinions and provide 'facts' (despite the fact they none work for a News Division) for a significant portion of the polity. Perspective defines what counts as information at all, perspective defines to whom the information makes a difference. Low-information-rationality is affliction for all humanity, so those inclined to have their biases confirmed by demagogues and self-proclaimed messiahs will find their 'infotainment' relevant.
Trump, Hannity, Coulter and other demagogic talking heads have an answer for those who would pound different sets of facts: we exist in different epistemological paradigms, Democrat!
The mainsteam media itself is responsible for the distrust and comptempt so many people have for it. Just few examples...
Calling illegal aliens "undocumented immigrants."
Calling government sanctioned racial, gender, and ethnic discrimination "affirmative action."
Calling US dependents such as Europe, Japan, S. Korea, and Israel "allies." Since WWI it has been a one way flow of money and lives to Europe.
Reporting about "gun violence." A gun has never been convicted much less indicted for crime.
2
@Reader In Wash, DC
The mainstream media really showed its colors when Trump asked the deadbeat NATO members to pay their fair shair. And the media attracked Trump instead of siding with the US!
1
This from a man who, by all rights, should be in jail. Is nothing against the law in this country?
14
Media cannot "science" or logic their way into understanding Trump's psyche. He has to be ignored!
If the major media started ignoring Trump, he would likely shut-up. Just like we ignore trolls on internet forums and they generally go away, the same thing would happen with Trump.
And Twitter should ban Trump from the service!
Why not try it for a few weeks major media? Put Trump into a virtual penalty box until/if he starts acting like a responsible, normal adult. Who's willing to step-up to the plate?
1
This piece ignores an essential piece of the puzzle, without which Trump would not exist: Fox News, which echoes the president in spewing misinformation.
For example, shortly after the latest mass shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue, Lou Dobbs on Fox was talking about "the Soros-funded caravan" of illegals that is about to launch an assault on our country's terrified and defenseless southern border.
It's ironic that a completely manufactured assault of the "fake news" media is based on lies that are repeated ad infinitum by the one major news outlet that could accurately be described as "fake news", but there it is.
The problem is that tens of millions Americans have a pretty good idea that they're being lied to, and don't care. We must not let them impose their worldview on the rest of us, and the one way to stop them is at the polls.
Vote!!!!
5
Any media outlets which are still giving press coverage to Donald Trump’s rallies are playing with fire. And arsonists are some of the most dangerous psychopaths that there are.
Everyone step away from the golden calf for a moment, and consider what money is really worth.
6
We have a president who pantomimes illegal and unprovoked physical attacks at rallies, like a 5-year-old. Party members who rationalize hateful propaganda because the truth won't win elections. Outlandish conspiracy theories are broadcast as entertainment.
The grandparents of most of the Jews now living in the United States emigrated here because of attacks that were seemingly sanctioned by the tsarist government of Russia. There, the people who attacked Jews during the pogroms were convinced, true or not, that the government encouraged the attacks or would not do anything about them. This is absolutely relevant now. When ordinary people, who think themselves hard done by and percieve they won't get in trouble, there is no end to the damage they will do. Not just to Jews, and not just in Russia. Whatever the civil conditions, the religions or prejudices, peace will reign as long as the government/leadership talks peace, and immediate consequences are assumed by everyone.
Anyone in a leadership position (including anyone in the media) must be held to account when their words or actions even so much as imply approval of violence, or the spread of false rumors, or false propaganda. Otherwise, we just might have unprovoked attacks on peaceful people minding their own business--oh, wait a minute--we do now.
8
The average American is down to an eighth grade reading level - that according to former Bush and Obama presidential speech writers during a seminar on how to better communicate with the American public. It should not come as a shock that a loudmouthed showman can bamboozle his supporters, nor a surprise that Americans are susceptible to believing endless conspiracy theories. It's only going to get more ridiculous and violent. Watch Idiocracy and save yourself the endless fretting. It's been over for awhile.
2
One way by which the rules of the game are followed is that it is believed to be essential for trump's nonsense on twitter to be transmitted, despite the fact that
they are mostly idiocies and lies.
Since he doesn't follow
the normal rules of public discourse, there is no reason
why the media should give him free space to flout this. So if
you just shut off his access to media replication of his tweeter
gibberish, what exactly is lost?
Second, limit press coverage only to his official remarks
as potus. Then insist upon running parallel stories that
treat the lies as something that is essential to correct.
Everytime he is given space he would then know that there
would be a parallel and in his face correction with well
documented evidence of the lies. Allocate resources in
print media for this. For electronic media, do not broadcast
what he says in real time. Only broadcast with delays
that give time for the corrections to be prepared and
then presented immediately afterwards, or as text scrolled
underneath.
Coverage of the daily press briefing has become pointless
exercises in watching sanders play goebbels without the
accent. Do the same thing with her. Don't broadcast
until there's a fact based correction, and then broadcast that one after the other.
The need for broadcasting in real time is
the achilles heel of fact checkers. So,
change that. The country does not need to have him
lie freely and so easily. Gum up his mechanism.
10
In America you have high cases of people with mind instability conditions without treatment and access to health services, and the political discourse is not helping. Adding to all of that, racial, sex, classes and inequality issues that just polarize society. I think is time for a new “New Deal” in America. Is that, or prescribing a cocktail of anxiolytics and antipsychotics to the entire nation with the purpose of not missing any type of "solitary wolf" criminals.
1
Ok, so the media can't ignore Trump. That's true and he's clearly taking the American population to the cleaners with that power.
But instead of making what he says central, why not post an opposing voice every single time? Diminish his centrality. Raise up those who are doing actual good and have that the thing people see right beside the hatefulness of Trump. This is a visual generation, make the message visual, dueling headlines, the angel/devil choice that sits on American shoulders.
Get your cartoonists to work, and make America understand this problem. No whining. Fight back. Non-violently, of course.
10
Still waiting for Pelosi and Schumer to make a forceful statement that the POTUS is inciting violence to divide the populations. These people really should not be our leaders. They don't have the guts to stand up to this president.
4
@indisk
Clueless Pelosi demanded an apology from Trump as if violence was his doing.
@Reader In Wash, DC
Read my post again. You appear to be mistaken about my intentions. Trump owns this bloodbath and every xenophobic attack.
Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert have to be funny when they deconstruct Trump's lies, and they are trusted truth tellers. Since mordancy, whimsy and burlesque are forbidden to serious reporters, perhaps blunt statements such as "What President Trump said is not true and here's why" would do. Journalists do the heavy lifting. They should allow themselves better ammunition. When he lies, say so.
6
Trump standing up for families who've seen their livelihoods usurped by globalism is hardly "anti-Enlightenment". It's simply good political strategy - because there are millions of them. The President's ace media tactics (the press obsesses on his most incendiary tweets) appear to render Democrats incapable of both rational thought and a functional policy response. It's called winning.
2
@c smith Actually, Trump isn't "winning" anymore than those families are. Yes, he's the clown in the big tent, but the winners are Ailes, Mercer, the Koch's, and of course the media hound himself, Bannon, who pulled the strings of the little boy. $2b in free media would could have gotten a monkey elected by the Trump base. Trump was instructed on what to say, but allowed to say it his way. You may not know this, or ever hear of it from Hannity, or care to believe it if you do, but then, that's what being ignorant is.
1
Read and follow Prof. George Lakoff, American cognitive linguist and philosopher. He has dedicated his career to finding effective strategies for countering false narratives. All the "effective way(s) to counter the litany of baseless claims washing through the news cycle" are in his work.
3
I've spoken to some Republicans who ONLY watch Fox News and never read (won't read) the NYT or WAPO or any liberal publication or opinion piece.
Tribalism started years ago, it's not new. Those who did not vote for and did not like Obama found a home at places that supported their dislike of him. They avoided anything that would report good things about Obama's policies. These people hated a man that they really didn't know anything about or anything about his achievements as potus either. They only exposed themselves to negative views of Fox News.
When it was brought to my attention that these conservatives were not reading other points of view and there could be only one sided debates, it was extremely frustrating.
And that's where we are. Ignorance and lies are dangerous platforms which is Trump's go-to.
Trump says B...which is a lie and Fox backs him up, then his supporters refuse to look into B to see if he's telling the truth so, they go on living with B as their reality because Trump says so! Trump is the Wizard of Oz for these people and they are not going to look behind the door for the truth.
To compound the problem, Trump keeps relying on his Base's inability to fact check him and so he keeps lying and to the point of distorting reality for his supporters and keeps creating Trump's worldview like a brainwashing technique. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
7
"I turned to an expert in rhetoric, David Zarefsky, professor emeritus at Northwestern University. Reporters must adjust themselves to someone who has thrown out the classical rules of debate, he said."
I thought about that during the campaign debates. Why weren't the classical rules enforced when they could have been? I always thought ad hominem attacks were disqualifying in a debate, yet nobody stopped Donald. That was one place where rules could've been applied to him but they weren't. He should have been warned and then ejected as soon as he started calling a person names or criticizing appearances. I know it's too late now, but part of the reason Donald gets away with acting like a petulant brat is simply because he knows he can. The media still expects rules to be followed and he knows rules are for suckers.
6
Journalists should have disavowed Trump's shock value long ago. Focus on actions, not on words. Three years later, journalists are just as susceptible to his diversionary tactics. This enabling behavior on the part of journalism is absolutely infuriating.
5
Sometimes I wish journalists would just ask basic questions after Trump makes an assertion; for example after the recent shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue Trump claimed that if there had been an armed guard it would have been averted, or caused fewer casualties (he used cruder terminology).
Why didn't a journalist ask Trump to name one instance when an armed guard has averted a massacre of this kind? Or ask Trump how he knows this to be true? (a beginner reporter question, asking for evidence) Or even ask how he knows this to be true when the police were injured when trying to stop it? This kind of thing.
Trump and his cronies need to be pushed to provide evidence for their often ridiculous claims, not once and constantly. And if he attacks one journalist for asking it, another needs to pick the line of questioning up.
This article was interesting, but there needs to be more analysis of this, not only how journalists/the media can respond but activists more generally. It'd be interesting to know how and why he/his team (as there are people behind him feeding him these lines, it's so scripted) are vulnerable and can be countered
Trump looks set to win the next election, he's getting away with it. This is depressing for you in the U.S. but affects everyone in the end.
5
The effectiveness of Trump's attacks on the media are easy to explain. We've spent decades dumbing-down the population of America. Our educational system long ago abandoned teaching critical thinking skills for standardized test passing skills. Home schooling and private schooling are the worst. People unqualified to teach promoting isolationist propaganda to brainwash young minds while preventing their socialization with anyone who may think differently. We are no longer a diverse nation of smart people who think for themselves. We've become a nation of people who believe we are smart because we think and do as everyone else. Such homogenous thinking was behind the rise of fascism, Nazis and communism. Challenging and investigating the government is the reason for the existence of our fourth estate. It's the primary mission of a free press. It is our responsibility as citizens to evaluate and challenge the reports, views and ideas presented by the press. It is our duty to hold the press accountable. NOT ignore them outright as government leadership would have us to do. This is a very dangerous time and our very fabric as a nation is under attack by a very dangerous few.
4
The coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings showed just how partisan the mainstream media is and how in bed they are with the DNC. Trump rightly pointed out that Christine Ford's story had more holes than a 50 pound wheel of swiss cheese. And because of that the the media said Trump was mocking and attacking her.
1
The nation has dissolved into a land where political lies
(once called "campaign promises") are accepted and cheered by many who, like children following a Pied Piper, only hear the music that makes them prance to the piper's tune. Trump fans tell us they don't care about Trumps tsunami of lies. Facts are no longer relevant, and when reporters with integrity point out Trumpian flim-flam, the reporters are blamed for telling truth to power. How deep is corruption -- of language, ethics, morality?
Today, with the Internet and a clamor of voices, there seems to be no Walter Cronkite, no respected figure of authority whose exposure of this naked emperor-wannabe would enlighten the population.
Past warnings by Orwell and others are ignored. Education and the pursuit of knowledge leading to enlightenment is ridiculed -- proof of education's failure in the wake of a skilled con artist intoxicated with his own being and the power he can wield.
Somewhere, perhaps waiting behind a boulder on an old-time Paramount movie lot, is a person or a group who could ride to America's rescue. Some insightful Republicans have stepped aside from this lemming march to disaster, but their voices are too mild and too few.
History has given us prior examples of demagoguery run amok, but human nature shows those lessons must be learned and re-learned with each new reign of terror.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
5
65 percent of Americans still rely on legitimate news organizations for the truth. Trump is succeeding at brainwashing his cult base, but that does not mean he is winning. We must trounce the GOP in November.
6
The Republican Party and 45 derive immense pride and display effete snobbery by relentlessly denigrating the media. Their coordinated vitriolic assault upon the vehicle providing critical, objective reporting guaranteed by the First Amendment not only is savagery of expository intellectualism but correspondingly destructive by expressly motivating their base to chill reporting. The Republican Party indeed has studied history of prior regimes’ malevolent, sadistic measures to quell media coverage critical of their policies and actions. The tyrannical despots of 1930s Germany, Italy, Russia, and Spain established the standard in the first half of the 20th Century for destroying the free press: foment, incite, and engender xenophobia, racial division, class difference, religious intolerance, and scape particular groups responsible for the unfortunate state of the nation. Attack, and when justified, kill, reporters. Fire bomb media offices. Pass edicts curtailing freedom of the press. Establish government control of instrumentalities of media reporting. Outlaw opposition parties. Constantly hold spectacular campaign rallies denouncing the media and political opponents by inciting the crowds through demagoguery. The GOP and 45 rally circuit does not even come remotely close to the super mega rally achieved in Nuremberg. Undaunted, with help from Fox, they may achieve that goal. Racial, antiimmigrant, LGBTQ, religious, and xenophobia antipathy fuels the hate fire. Race matters.
4
The president wants to spend $10 billion to build a wall on the southern border to protect Americans from criminals entering the US from Lati America. Yet, such a wall would do nothing to protect us against gun violence perpetrated against other American Citizens by other American Citizens - who are mad men - with easy acces to battle-grade weapons. The President also thinks that tragedies such as school shootings, shootings at places of worship, nightclub massacres, festival shootings, etc., could be prevented if more people were armed with weapons to thwart the perpetrators of this violence. There is a simple compromise that makes sense. Instead of spending $10 billion to build a wall, let’s spend the $10 billion to arm every american citizen with battle-grade weaponry.
If its "working" as reported, this election may be the last chance for the country to avoid a slide into a form of permanent autocracy and corporate rule in which case our future is one of savage economic inequality, declining scientific leadership, pollution and climate disruptions, gun violence, fascist gangs and hate crimes, and growing ugliness in every sense.
While I feel bad for the younger people that will have to experience this, its some consolation that most of the Trump supporters who back his regime will also be the victims.
3
The more you hit the man, the greater his appeal. You just don't get it. Trump is the first man in the political arena to use the strategy of telling absolute TRUTH. I have never heard a politician (or President) tell the truth like this, he makes promises and keeps them. He tells us what he is going to do, then does it- he keeps us informed. I like it!
He is a breath of fresh air to the American voter. Voters that have clear vision, that is!
Here's the bit you really don't get, the majority of us would not trust the media as far as we could throw them. Trump has become the News, the media have become a comic, just like the funny pages.
2
@Rob Campbell Trump is the first president to have over 5000 plus and counting lies in his first 18 months in office.
2
@165 Valley, says who? Consider the source!
People who enjoy his entertainment do not recognize his malicious intent. Lawless physical criminality which he incites in right-wing fanatics may unnerve many of his followers to abandon him and his Congressional supporters. To save the country, Republicans need to vote for Democratic candidates at this time. Yes, the media needs to focus on the details of governmental policies and not on antics (behavior). Fact plus analysis as done by ethical newspapers and news programming serves the public more than well. This comment also thanks those who strive and sometimes risk their lives to report and understand the truth.
3
The concluding one sentence paragraph shines the spotlight on why the media will point out lie after lie:
At this rate, a solution may come sometime in Mr. Trump’s third term.
Now, the louts, racists, fearful 'nationalists', haters and just plainly confused MAGA proponents may forgive, accept or shrug off an immoral,shoot from the hip liar but the rest of us will fight this blight on true American values. We will form a caravan of not several thousand poor, powerless immigrants from Central America but millions of American citizens to wrest control of our democratic institutions.
The past week, along with the past two years, is is a hiliter on why trump's actions and lies need to be called out even if they cause his base to solidify. Reality calls for a strong reaction to a blight on our democracy.
1
Let me ask: should we still approve Fox News (as some of you call, “faux noise”) as the freedom of the press?
A basic value is sacred, but what if someone tries to abuse it intentionally, to mislead and demean others, under the name of the freedom of speech or press?
2
We'll see in about ten days what kind of verdict voters have on this presidency. This article is premature. But it's hard to miss the ways in which the NYT has been "gamed." Splashing big pictures of the Central American migrants above the fold on page 1 two days in a row this past week (Monday and then Tuesday)--that's playing Trump's game. The Times has choices. There is no natural law that mandates covering what the president wants covered. On cable TV, Trump's gaslighting is often successful, because he stokes conflict and TV loves conflict. However, viewer fatigue set in on Trump's reality show, and it may set in much more quickly now that he is almost inescapable. In fact, if voters deliver a solid rebuke to the president in November, the whole tenor of coverage may shift in a very unfavorable way for Trump, perhaps so much so that he will find a (relatively) graceful way to exit. Or, if not, there will be new faces on the Democratic side running for president. Maybe one or more of them will strip the bark off of the president, with help from Congressional oversight committees. My point again: this column is quite premature.
3
Rutenberg says the strategy is "working." How does he know?
True, the media could cover the same stories differently. Perhaps the media have not figured out how best to do so. That's a legitimate professional judgment.
But "working" in Rutenberg's question means there is empirical support for his "yes" conclusion and the column offers none beyond the statistic that 91 percent of "strong Trump supporters" believe Trump's facts, which is to be expected.
Rutenberg seems to measure "working" by asking whether Trump has succeeded in controlling the news cycle. Presidents can always do so. If that is the definition of "working," of course the answer will be "yes" however the media covered him.
What Rutenberg doesn't tell us is the extent to which the broader public trusts Trump's facts or has lowered its estimate of media credibility from pre-2016 levels. It is the answer to that question that will tell us if Trump's strategy is working.
5
I would disagree. Gallup reports that in the later part of 2016 the media had a 32% trust factor for a great and/or fair amount. in September of this year it's up to 45%. That is good news. When you just poll some far right wingers, sure it's going to look like they trust the President more, it's called "really, really good propaganda".
However the rest of us would much rather seek out factual news through the media.
5
"Something has to be done, Serge. Something has to be done."
I had forgotten this chilling scene in the movie Chocolat until watching it again this weekend. The 2000 classic featured a tyrannical mayor of a provincial French village set against new residents to the city, primarily a chocolate shopkeeper and boat people who had pulled on-shore.
Serge, a mentally-unstable resident, responded to the veiled call to action and set the boats on fire.
Trump has been sending signals to nationalists and alt-right folks who have been waiting for the "go" signal. They are unleashing with bombs and shootings, feeling justified in their own pursuit of warped justice. Trump is responding by attacking the press as printing false news and claiming others are doing it as a distraction.
Trump makes Nixon's backroom shenanigans, veiled and secretive, quaint by comparison. Nixon was hoping to get away with something to benefit his own ambitions; Trump hopes to reinvent our democracy.
We cannot respond in hatred, and we also cannot ever believe or condone what is happening.
This is not normal.
13
@Nancy J
El Trumpo is only capitalizing on what Nixon, Ford, reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2 have built before him.
It is called Stochastic Terrorism.
There is a Chinese proverb, or at least that is how it was relayed to me in one instance, you may have heard this before too. It is;
“There is a good dog and a bad dog fighting within each of us. The one that is going to win is the one we feed the most”
The republicans have been feeding the bad dog with added steroids since Nixon. The only surprising thing other than the failure of the press to report this, is that the violence in our society is not worse.
1
Trump's comments, like himself, are a symptom, not a cause. The country has been polarized, probably since the 2000 election. That the news media has picked a side is unfortunate, and Trump is riding a wave of dissatisfaction, not leading it. He's an opportunist, not a leader.
3
In a sense, Trump is absolutely right. The media should be talking about politics ahead of the midterm elections and not let acts of violence dominate the news. Unfortunately, these acts are no longer news. And it just makes people sad, depressed and angry without providing them with a constructive way to channel these emotions. Why not do an in-depth story on how different candidates stand on gun control? That would be a lot more helpful and meaningful to our democracy.
7
@World Traveler
The media's job is to report this violence, not provide people with a constructive way to cope with their sadness, depression & anger over these events. We cannot protect ourselves from the truth - it must be reported and if we are despairing because of it, we must find a way to survive & fight back - without any instructions or salving from media whose job is to report facts & truth.
Perhaps, rather than reporting Trump's daily emanations of dishonesty, ignorance, provocation and bile as news stories, a single running daily feature might be kept in tabular form.
The first column would list what he said and how (via Tweet, rally pronouncement etc.) a quick fact check when factual assertions are involved, perhaps a reference to elucidating material, and then leave it that. Perhaps an embellishment might be a categorization with sequence number, such as "baseless (500) "false statement (432)", "misleading(564)", "lie (302)". Little commentary would be needed.
Devote news stories to what's happening in the U.S. That way, the press has don't its job, the public adequately made aware of the facts and real news reported without giving all attention to antics.
9
The more we pay attention to the President and react to each and every tweet and rant, the more credence we give to falsehoods and inaccuracies. I stopped reacting to his each and every statement—maybe we should begin to focus on more important issues such as policies that help families make ends meet, improve educational opportunities for our children, plan for the changes in our earth’s climate and ensure protections to the poor and defenseless. Let’s start talking about policy and hear from experts in the field rather than talking heads who only specialize in name calling and demonizing opponents.
6
When for any reason you give credence to false unsubstantiated comments of someone who is supposed to be leading a country, supporting that country’s values there will be consequences. And we are paying the price now. Wouldn’t it be great to go back to someone who deserves respect? Who loves this country and what it stands for? I hope for those days once more. God help us.
8
Funny how Donald J Trump, with nearly every word coming out of his mouth a prevarication, exaggeration, or outright falsehood, is taken the least bit serious, by the public, when he criticizes the mainstream news media.
It doesn't appear the majority of our citizens consider this to be a problem? Fact checking this man's statements has no bearing on public opinion, whatsoever!
Alas, maybe it's time for those of us in the United States to consider a change to the constitution that reforms the election of our leaders from the present method, to one that more closely resembles a UFC cage match. Including the primaries, we could have a month of cage tournaments, just like the gladiators in ancient Rome, and there would be no doubts as to the final outcome.
It would be well covered by the news media, the candidates would have real skin in the game, maybe even some blood, and the lobbyists would become 'sponsors', legitimately advocating their support for specific candidates without the need for backroom deals.
5
Here is a thought. Print all Trump tweets and comments in a single daily side bar. At the same time, keep his tweets and inflammatory remarks (all remarks...) out of news articles. It’s simple enough for the reader to reference the Trump section if they choose but the meaningful news isn’t corrupted by his provocative language and thought pattern.
67
Totally agree. A separate report with fact checks. Some exceptions, such as cheering on or encouraging violence. Or Twitter could just shut down his private account and force every tweet to be official. They’re a private company and can do this.
1
It is impossible to discuss anything in a reasonable way with a man who pays no attention to reason and loves to distract and inflame and exploit with impunity. His backers slavishly protect him because they see him as useful for the cause. How much more they will take is anybody’s guess, but since raw power at any cost is the aim, this could continue.This puts any reasonable response to anything at a big disadvantage.
This situation of having a man with a personality disorder as president means that his disturbed responses and inflammatory reactions are now the norm. This situation is infecting America and spreading to the rest of the world because out of control mentality is seen as OK now. Like climate change and gun control,this is now a race between the forces that seek to control, mitigate and normalize and the forces that seek to destruct and run with the prize. Destroy and run is in charge at the moment. But pay attention because Time is running out and the window of opportunity for normalcy is closing.
20
The conventional news media is obsessed with 'news'. Problem - there is nothing new in what Trump says and does - and the yet the news hounds still chase hares. The answers surely lie in much deeper and long-run assessments of the play between his quest for power and the damage done to principles, policies and institutions. This is no time for an 'average reporter', you need to bring to the fore people with knowledge and - dare I say it - wisdom.
6
The media has to take a heavy dose of responsibility for enabling Trump and thus reaping what you've sown. There were many talking heads who exercised no journalistic standards whatsoever and just bubbled over at the idea of a reality television star going fr the gold. Wether openly fawning on them or snidely using him as a target for faux outrage or elitist barbs, they failed to call out any of his lies or ask for details concerning his promises. They didn't do their jobs and here we are.
Many voters were completely taken in by the false promises of better social programs, lower taxes, new infrastructure and new jobs. That's what they wanted and needed and he promised that.
Democracy depends on people of average intelligence being told the truth. Ordinary people rely on the media to tell them how things work and what our big problems are as well as what viable solutions could be. In the 2016 election the Media failed to address the details of BOTH candidates proposals, instead reveling in the horserace.
It's too late to expose lies after election day.
Perhaps American media professionals were afraid to seriously challenge a wealthy influential man favored by many of their employers and their advertisers. Perhaps they just saw it a s a show. The Romance of Fascism might promise good entertainment, but you get more than the drama — this show has no good ending.
46
The problem is - you can't paint all "journalists" with the same brush. You can't equate Fox News with CNN. You can't believe both established, truly investigative journalism and tabloid headline-screaming, click-bait generating "news reporting" or the ideological, manipulative fabrications of Brietbart. Given, all news outlets have some form of bias but you do need to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction. This requires an educated public. That is a large part of the reason things are so fraught.
3
Trump's attacks on media are not working on me. They work because the "art of propaganda" lies between the ears of the audience that believe it. Psychologists have been telling us for years about confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. These are enemies of critical thinking lurking in all of us that must be actively resisted.
Any one who tries can tell the difference between the major newspapers and broadcast chat rooms like MSNBC and Fox News. Just ask yourself whether you are hearing factual news or an interpretation of news or, worse yet, an assignment of motives to the principal characters in the news. Ask yourself whether there is any editorial oversight of what is being reported. Most of the people we watch on TV news shows are news "readers." They only know what they have been told by reporters in the field. Who confirmed the story?
Celebrities may or may not know anything: they get exposure solely because an audience out there is thrilled to see them. Adulation leaves anyone vulnerable to exploitation. Anyone trying to sell you a product, including adulation, is not to be trusted. No one you see on TV shares your life experiences and certainly they don't share your motivations. If they sound like you, then they are just good con artists.
7
@cowboyabq There is another, simpler explanation.
See www.trumphasdyslexia.com for the details.
@cowboyabq - But it does not matter whether whatever Trump is doing is working on you or not. IT IS working on his base and the crazies that follow/worship him.
Now, what do we do about it?
At one time, reporters took shorthand and reported speeches of important leaders word for word. And that was before there was any technology to assist with accuracy. Doing that would do away with a lot of the faith now given to Trump's rants of fake news. Instead of constant commentary, which is mostly supposition, just run important speeches. I would like to hear what candidates and leaders actually said, not journalists pulling out select tidbits. There would still be room for commentary on what was said, but there would be less supposition and questioning by others. Also, statistics should be stressed. Government information on population, immigration, lots of economic information and many other types of statistical data is gathered regardless of who is in power, that way people can see for themselves. Newspaper should include more factual resources.
I do think journalists are doing a much better job than they did when covering Bush and his lies about Iraq, which they accepted and in one case actually supported. I'm glad there are more reliable newspapers than before. It still takes a lot of reading to know what's going on, to wade through all the noise, even on reliable sites.
4
Isn't the news media benefiting from Trump's outrageous statements and attacks? Reporting on Trump, deploring Trump's lies, holding endless panel discussions, etc. is good for the news business: papers increase their subscribers, networks their viewers and both their advertising revenue; and, finally, the media don't have to spend much money on investigating and reporiing the real damage Trump is causing, directly or through negligence.
7
R. Law's Comments below are comprehensively insightful and I will not repeat them.
But there is a wider history of the symbiosis of media and marketing money forming the shape of our excuse for political dialogue.
What used to be condemned as rote sticking to the party line is now praised as disciplined staying on message, when the message is a childish slogan, concocted by the same expensive technicians who make us crave for dubious nostrums we can ask our doctors about.
Platforms that offer contrasting means to common public goods have been dumped in favor of vague promises, crafted for sound bites and striking visuals, and made to the core of the donor class who pay to have other people serve their ends under bought government direction.
Bernie Sanders did offer an alternative but he was covered primarily as a maverick who sought only small donations and thus the debate, as it is with Warren, is about which donor group or class will dominate the media and thus have their ends served.
Sanders then and Warren now are urged to go to the Center, the mythical land crowded with Congressmen and big spenders.
Trump lies and cheats and undermines democratic norms. But the media from the top are embarrassed by his clownish candor and obvious ignorance. He is not a good liar, which regrettably is most often the type politically rewarded.
2
The media are restrained by laws and there are procedures to take if they produce false accusations whereas the internet is like the Wild West and anything goes. Another thing, Trump is the President of the USA and not citizen Joe Bloggs so there is a higher standard of behaviour on the internet expected of The President of the USA. In all my life I have never read of a President with unrestricted access to the internet that has no controls on what comes out of his mouth, bad mouthing his own citizens so badly - where is the patriotism when you start slagging your own institutions and people who are governed by USA laws. Unfortunately Trump is not governed by the same laws on the internet.
18
Re: "running tallies of his false statements" -- I wish they'd stick to clear-cut, indisputable falsehoods, like birtherism or the crowd size. But they also count some statements that, on their face, aren't simple facts, like how much credit Trump should get for the economy. And even a few such inclusions undermine the credibility of the whole count. Why do that, when there are so many uniquely Trumpian, indisputable falsehoods?
7
@Raul Campos "he has not repeated the accusation since" he did: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/donald-trump-obama-birthe... . That's why he had to disavow it in September 2016 (and then he falsely claimed Hillary started it). And there's the concept of "bad faith". It's bad faith to accuse someone of fraud without _some_ evidence; Trump had none.
FOX IN THE HENHOUSE
Without the echo chamber of Fox, Trump's blatant lying could not survive long.
The actionable issue is not how media unread by those in the Trump counter-reality bubble can counter him -- they don't matter to his base -- but how FOX can be exposed as the propaganda channel it is.
Focus on Fox to get to Trump!
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Yes, Fox News is one of the most damaging organizations. It does much of the work to make half of the American public distrust each other, as well as science and other facts.
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@Randallbird
Rupert Murdoch came here from Britain at age 50 and became a U.S. citizen for the purpose of legally setting up his disgusting media empire for one reason - to make billions of dollars in the United States. That's it. Murdoch was already a billion and controlled a vast media empire in the U.K. He doesn't care about anything but enriching himself. Murdoch may be a conservative but the FOX NEWS media machine is now a conspiracy-mongering direct assault on our democracy by a family - the Murdochs - who are willing to continue this assault on our democracy if they can keep raking in billions. Call them out for what they are. They are profiting from their role in the destruction of the United States of America.
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The simplest way is to concentrate on politics as a whole and making Trump a small part of the story. In a front page daily series feature a box with bold font. Make it about all politicians who propose ammendments, laws, etc that will impact on the lives and rights of the electorate. McConnel's threat to Medicaid, Medicare, and, by inference, Social Security comes to mind. Yes it was covered, but many people did not read about it.
Some readers only learn facts on the Internet. A story of how the Conservatives have plotted for years to dismantle Social Security and other social programs or how the politicians are destroying our National Monuments, or how the Republican led Congress are starving the beast of Obamacare (and other social programs that help people like Planned Parenthood) to make them ineffective. Write about how both help people and ignore the rest.
Make it succint with enough facts to prove the accuracy. and stress what this means to the common man.
Journalists would know best how to reach the reader with meaningful information. Unfortunately, the followers of Trump never think beyond slogans and chants and don't realize what his proposals would mean to them if enacted.
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@DeeJayCee It is a constant wonder to me how Trump's supporters do not realize how his policies will hurt them.
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@DeeJayCee And neither do they care, or believe it. Unfortunately, these people will continue to take the Republicans' bait and vote against their own interests.
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@DeeJayCee
I agree -- focus on telling us about the issues and give equal time to local political figures. What does my congresswoman or my senators, or governor, even my city councilmembers, have to say about health care, taxes, sexual harassment, immigration. Let them be the ones to show up Trump's lies.
Let's take the spotlight off of personalities -- personality politics is killing us.
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Trump lying is old news. It deserves to be covered, but not on the front/home page.
I would rather see the media analyze his policies. For example, immigrants are surging across the border. This bothers Mr. Trump and many Americans. In my opinion, the surge shows the ineffectiveness of Trump's immigration policies. Can the Times and other media please give us immigration statistics and graphs, and interview border-crossers so I can better understand what motivates them?
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I strongly disagree with David Zarefsky that the media must adjust its fact checking to align with Trump's strategy of gaming them only to yell, "see? the press is out to get me."
That only works when your supporters aren't interested in fact-checking for themselves.
Trump maybe conning his supporters, but he's certainly not conning most NYT readers from what I can see.
For the press to give into Trump's lies by critiquing less means abdicating its role of pointing out when the emperor has no clothes.
We're at a very dangerous point in our history: Trump knows exactly what he's doing, and why.
Absolute power is his goal, any educated observer sees that.
He's a classic fascist in waiting, a strong man wannabe who chafes at the (very limited) limits on his power thanks to one-party rule and a complicit Congress.
And if folks don't go out and vote, we could very well find his attacks on the press could turn into shutting them down altogether. The Times "joke" about a 3rd term says it all.
When a demagogue convinces enough people that he's right and the press is wrong, stick a fork in our country: we're done.
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Ok, so how about giving this a try. Trump doesn’t like the reporting of the mainstream media. so how about the media ignore EVERYTHING he says, does, or tweets for 48 or 72 hours. Keep reporting on any official actions or communications from the Executive branch, but simply deny him this echo chamber for just a short while.
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@Dan Akerib, amen. Can't you Press folks declare solidarity with each other and the world's journalists for at least a short term of black-out protest?! If Fox goes on blaring propaganda, let it; that will speak volumes, as well--at least to those citizens that are still capable of critical thinking and serious reflection. Trump is not going to change; his ugliness continues to benefit him. Protest by ignoring him; the silence might only be momentary and largely symbolic. However, it will not be meaningless.
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@Dan Akerib
What Trump has said in tweets and at rallies and off the cuff is so destructive and dangerous that it must be reported, discussed, analyzed. His discourse is so dangerous to our democracy we must pay attention to exactly what Trump says. We and the news media could theoretically ignore it but his "base" will read his tweets and watch him on FOX and we would be fools not to pay attention to them listening to him and supporting him while he chips away at democracy and decency.
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@Dan Akerib - Can you imagine what Trump would do with the power of the Presidency if no one reported on anything he did for two whole days? Nightmares are made of this.
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One anti-pattern is articles that quote or are primarily rebuttals to mr T's tweets, effectively amplifying them.
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51% of Americans polled by Politico do not support Trump. 3% have no opinion (which I find very hard to believe.) And 45% of this poll, taken at the end of September show us the majority of people still do not support Trump. But, his followers are sometimes the loudest. They are most certainly, the most terrifying. they send bombs to former presidents, they shoot people in Krogers or, murder them in their place of worship. He celebrates, basks in the attention. He blame the shootings on a lack of an armed security guard rather, than saying he feels sorrow for the victims. A number of the victims are police officers who were armed, Mr. President. The problem here is, if we let it go and keep asserting that, his failure to accept reality is 'just Trump,' we are going to lose this battle. Losing this battle instigates an authoritarian state. In these states, people don't get to watch the news any longer. People don't get to go church or, vote for whom they want any longer. I feel like we are on the cusp of this moment. We have the opportunity to save our Republic. But, if we allow it to decay much further it, may be un-salvageable. We need to stop the nonsense. we need to cease to be objective. When objective means, the other point of view is a lie; than this isn't being objective. Lies are not facts. We have to stop playing this game. We have to demand facts.
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In NY Times vs. United States, 1971 (The Pentagon Papers ruling), Justice Black said, "In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."
Now more than ever we need the Courts to protect the Free Press from any attempts to manipulate the media into becoming another tool of the Trump takeover of the government. The Constitution will be the last bulwark against Trump's narcissism, lies and demagoguery.
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@MCV207
too late.
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Mr Trump’s rethoric is ghastly but successful because it is like guerilla warfare. Deceit, sneakiness, pinpricks by the millions, demagoguery, instilling fear, anger and vilifying all so called opposition. Attempting to constantly show him wrong only fans the flames of discontent and is exhaustingly tendions. The press should focus on positive stories and build many concise but solid illustrations of the benefits of programs he ridicules, and reinvent its role.
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@GL
Thank you for your view. I also agree that the best antidote to misinformation is *more* information. Perhaps you have hit on something here - the press can focus on what's going well and make sure people understand the benefits of good government.
And they can raise a ruckus when those good things are threatened - ACA/Obamacare, safe drinking water, addressing climate change, elimination of bias, etc.
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Nothing in Trumps tweet justified this inaccurate headline - which proves the legitimacy of some of Trumps claims of media bias. Media is so blind it can’t even see these obvious biases.
“President Blames Media For Attempted Bombs,” read the onscreen chyron on “Good Morning America”
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@Nyalman:
The article didn't print the actual "tweet" that supported that headline from CNN. I've pasted it here for you:
"A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!"
Hard to go from that tweet to “blame the media for the bomber”
"The journalism industry wasn't built" to withstand trump!
Well, I'd say you had better rebuild it, and fast. The lessons learned will strengthen your industry help prevent another catastrophe.
Start by canning the fatalistic, cynical baloney like in your last sentence: "At this rate, a solution may come sometime in Mr. Trump’s third term."
What harmful hogwash!
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What happened to "The Pen is mightier than the Sword."? Thought all journalists learned that in school. Or did the author of this piece graduate from Trump University?
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Very aggravating that nowhere in your story do you reference polls is Sept showing 54% of Americans trusting the media to tell the truth, and Trump at 30%.
“Accuracy” is connect, and you seem to be clickbaiting with your headline, premise, and selective sourcing.
The country doesn’t need the misleading impression that Trump’s lying “is working”.
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@Steve Friday
Agreed. And I think it should also be pointed out that the "91%" of Trump supporters who believe every lie are a reduced demographic from the registered Republicans and Trump voters in 2016.
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@Steve Friday
Three Steves agree. The article completely ignores context. Independents and democrats outnumber republicans by more than 2:1 and most are not drinking the cool aid served in Trumptown.
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@Steve Friday Other people not named Steve agree with this, too. I'm one of them.
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This is a sick & twisted person who claims to be president. He is sounding like a third world dictator who is afraid of the very people he rules. If he were doing it right he wouldn't have to show all this fear & aggression. He needs to be evaluated for dementia & persecution mania. Is there no one who can stop this man & his spewing vile hatred & violence? There has to be some adults in the government who are becoming afraid of this man. Where are they? Will it be up to the lowly, ordinary citizens to stage a revolt? The Declaration of Independence & the Constitution must mean something better than this for the USA. Is trump's rhetoric "divide & conquer" instead of "United we Stand". I am definitely hearing more hate filled war mongering in the "divide & conquer" & not just from trump, but all the republican representatives of the white minority of voters. Vote someone in who will work for term limits in Congress, Supreme Court & maybe lower the presidency to one term & revise or do away with the electoral college as it is now. Vote or enjoy your life under a dictator (you will experience what migrants all over the world are trying to escape). Your Choice & It is Now.
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@Nostradamus Said So Also get the money out of politics! Term limits a must. One term in d.c. than go back to your state and real job. No more lifetime politicians; no retirement money and health benefits for life.
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Liars can spew nonsense much faster than honest people can fact-check. The liar's plan is to keep honest people off balance by the constant barrage. By the time the fact-checking is complete, the liar has moved on to several new lies and nobody is focused on the old lies anymore.
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@B.
And he does much of it via Twitter, which also makes it very difficult to counter.
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If anyone has noticed the real evil attacks against Blacks, Jews, LGBT, Muslims, Immigrants, etc. have increased and become brazenly apparent after trump was elected this past 2 years. He is not a dog whistle to the underbelly of humanity, he is a mega-phone and made it OK to spew hate speech daily against anyone who does not agree with him. Complicit in this is Fox Noise who almost NEVER report the truth of news. Get rid of trump and the other extremists and we may have decency back in public discourse.
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Donald is a very disturbed person. Keep calling out his lies because his followers take them seriously and so should reasonable people, including journalists across the political spectrum. By the way, the three celebrity troublemakers you named are NOT journalists but self-promoters who mine a sick man’s hate speech for their own enrichment, at the expense of people’s lives.
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The media should be ashamed of themselves for their sanctimonious diatribes. Our president could save a town from Godzilla and the headlines would read-Trump is an animal killer. Try accurate and fair reporting rather than the cliquish commentary you all engage in to show one another how "holier than thou" you can be-the media slant is tearing us apart not the President.
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Maybe people should have paid attention when this President installed Steve Bannon of Breitbart in the White House. I'm still amazed when a voter tells me they have never checked out the Breitbart website. Without it, you can't know what this imposter is.
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Asked about his rhetoric Friday, President Trump said he has toned it down. 'I could really tone it up, because the media ... has been unbelievably unfair to Republicans and certainly to me,' he said." A poster boy for chutzpah: "Donald Trump on protester: 'I'd like to punch him in the face' ", "President Donald Trump ... praised a congressman’s past assault on a reporter", " [Trump] told audience members he would pay their legal fees if they engaged in violence against protesters", " 'Get him out,' he said of a protester ... 'If you [hurt him], I'll defend you in court. Don't worry about it' ", " ... Federal Judge David Hale ... said there was sufficient evidence that the protesters' injuries were a 'direct and proximate result' of Trump's comments ... ", " 'When [police] put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head ... You can take the hand away, OK?' ", etc., etc. Among his many personality disorders, our POTUS is a shameless hypocrite.
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@Steve Kennedy
The US should pass laws against hate speech like a lot of other countries have. Incitement to violence should not be covered by “free speech”. Trump could have been indicted and prevented from running for president if that was the case and we would all be a lot better off for it.
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Any media besides the biased Fox News are his enemies for speaking the truth. The recent violent events are perpetuated by him. And as usual he doesn't accept the causality of it all.
He is tearing our country apart. His words of hate is destroying our country.
Vote blue straight down. This mafia boss needs to be overthrown.
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@Goahead "Vote blue straight down" - I did that last week here in Idaho early voting.
“Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will...."
Funny? At will? Give that man a copy of the First Amendment!
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Why does the media cover his racist, misogynist, xenophobic and anti-semitic verbal rubbish? You recognize it as fodder for his endless campaign.Why not have a page 20 for his disgusting, revolting campaign rhetoric and tweets.
Save page 1 for policy statements only.
The media does all of us a dis-service when the daily focus is on his tweets. It also riles up the nuts and look at what has happened. You are truly complicit in normalizing the rhetoric of this sociopathic man.
I use that word deliberately because he has shown that is seems incapable of empathy - a characteristic of sociopaths.
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There are no more journalists left, only left wing activists posing as journalists like Jim Acosta. How much credibility can be left when left wing journalists at the NYTs and CNN reported Trump Russia collusion for two full years when there never was any? Trump has been hovering at around 46-48% approval with 98% negative media coverage. What would his numbers look like if he had a fawning media like Obama had? "How was your golf game with Tiger Mr. President?"
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@P McGrath your perception is inaccurate. I have yet to see anyone on CNN or any reputable media assert, as news, that there was collusion. They report about investigation into Russian meddling and possibility of Trump campaign involvement. No one knows if there was any, whether it constitutes a conspiracy.
There has been discussion, as a matter of opinion, as to whether Trump's behavior constitutes obstruction of justice.
None of this constitutes poor reporting or left wing activism.
And Obama got plenty of negative press. He did, however, manage 8 years without an average of 4+ false, misleading or clearly fabricated statements. He did manage to comment on events without slandering anyone who disagreed with him.
Trump has never broken even in public opinion because, thankfully, more than half of Americans have a notion of honesty, acceptable behavior, and some ability to see through lies. Hopefully, more eyes will be open to such consideration.
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@P McGrathYou say there was no collusion, which tells me you cannot connect the dots (how many connections to Russia his aides had/have).
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@P McGrath how is trumps golf game? Better when he plays it at one of his very own courses on your dime.
Trump Property/Days
Mar-a-Lago 72
Trump International Hotel Washington, DC 19
Trump Tower 13
Trump International Hotel Waikiki 1
Trump Golf Course
Trump International West Palm 42
Trump National Jupiter 2
Trump National Potomac Falls 43
Trump National Bedminster 69
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Trump supporters need to ask themselves which news organizations they listened to and watched when America was great and then return to that.
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For starters, the fact-based media must stop using euphemisms like "whopper", "offered without any evidence", "extremely misleading", "untruthful," "pants on fire" and other cute turns of phrase.
It may not be poetic, but the president lies, and "lie" is a word everybody understands. Just as repetition of "fake news" has taken hold, "once again, he lied" can, and will do the same. There will still be gray areas Trump can exploit but a lie is a lie.
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Trump wouldn't know presidential if it bit him on the nose. 'Bomb' stuff. So "totally" juvenile. Reality tv sells too. No wonder The Base eats it up. Let's just hope the majority doesn't, and they learn to vote.
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The fact that Trump supporters don't trust the media doesn't mean his attacks are "working" in my opinion. His supporters are mostly uneducated people, many of whom don't understand how a newspaper works (the difference between a report and an editorial, etc.) The press is doing an excellent job in my opinion! I do worry about our educational system, however. Why do we have so many citizens who can't read critically and who seem incapable of logical reasoning? And, even more terrifying, who lack empathy altogether? I'm no fan of Fox news, but if I saw their newscasters looking terrified and rattled because of a bomb, I would feel for them. Trump and his people did not care a whit.
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