The enemy of the american people

Lavender Room
1

there are several threads here where conservative members of the board are taking issue with professional journalism. and that’s fine. just, the president, which conservatives and republicans elected, just listed* all* the broadcast institutions most critical to the ability by which america has gotten its news and journalism since the 1950s, and labeled it: the enemy of the american people.

stop! contemplate this. ABC, CBS, NBC, these organizations are the enemy of the american people. think of what it takes to be an enemy of the american people. that’s a pretty high bar. and no, that’s not just hyperbole. that’s word-for-word. from the president.

so that you guys understand this through the prism of those of us who, by and large, see these along with the oldest and most venerated daily newspapers as critical to the mission of a free press, when you say…

“yeah, but…!”

…what we hear is that you are more interested in the very small, parochial picture, wilfully blinding yourselves to the big picture. i don’t expect the dallas morning news nor the arizona statesman to have editorial boards that are left-leaning. i do expect them to accurately report the news. and this they by and large do. yes, sometimes they under-value what i consider the big stories and over-value the smaller stories and yes, sometimes this is because of their editorial slant. but in general i trust these newspapers.

during the 2012 election 41 major newspapers endorsed obama. 35 endorsed romney. stipulating that not all the news is going to be treated exactly equally, by and large i would trust the news of virtually all those newspapers. you should too. they are professional journalists!

what we have here, and which should trouble you if you are a republican or a conservative, is that the posture of your side is to align itself with the onslaught on the professional press, and the full frontal assault on the professional press by the republican president, with pretty much silence on this from the republican congress.

your problem begins when your legitimate views and goals and themes of conservatism (which in many cases i share) get conflated with this attack on the first amendment institutions. i hope the conservatives here see and feel that peril, and that some of you will be on the right side of this rather than forming in your brain, even as you read this, “but, but…!”

2

Thank you ! Well stated.

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We subscribed to The Failing New York Times this month. The press is part of the checks and balance system that keeps America great.

4

Well said.

It is obvious but bears repeating: “enemy of the people”, uttered by Trump, is an analogue for “enemy of me”. And he would dearly love to be able to shut his enemies up.

He took the following oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”. He would do well to re-read it and reflect upon it before everything he says. He gives the firm impression that once he got to the comma, the voice in his head said “and yadda yadda yadda blahdy blah where’s the helicopter?”.

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I’ve criticized Trump for his words, I didn’t vote for him, don’t support him. Not sure what else you want…as with all things Trump there are underpinnings of good ideas in many of his words but he takes things way too far. And in fact, it isn’t his job to criticize the media, in fact I think it’s dangerous for him to be critical of hte media (as I said when Obama was critical of FOX News and talked about banishing them from press conferences).

That does not mean that there aren’t issues of liberal bias among our great journalistic institutions, as a number of editorials at those institutions admitted after this election. I think much like higher ed, the journalism business attracts liberal-minded people, and that’s fine. But I believe it’s tilted too far to the left in recent years and needs more balance. Again, much like higher ed.
And I don’t think it’s wrong of me, as a citizen, as a reader (because I do read them, frequently) to criticize them and point out the bias when I see it.

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“Not sure what else you want…”

here’s one option:

you and i have our ideological differences, and you and i probably don’t share reading lists. but through the mccarthy hearings, the kennedy assassination, the civil rights movements and legislation, through vietnam and watergate, and during the economic upheaval of the carter administration, the triumphs and the shortcomings of the reagan administration, through desert storm, the political intricacies of the 90s, through the clinton scandals, bush and iraq, 911, the financial meltdown of 2008, the obama years, the professional press has served us well.

in fact, it has been indispensable to our democracy and for a president to claim otherwise, and further to attack this institution, is ethically if not by statute treasonous. if there is anything by which all sides and all views can agree, it’s this. there’s no space between us on this.

that would’ve worked.

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It’s getting positively Orwellian.

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Great, and as I said I believe that the great journalism institutions in this country have moved further left over the past few decades, and much like some of their own editors have said I believe they need to evaluate who they employ and try to bring more balance to their reporting.

And I can say that WHILE condemning Trump’s words, and believing that what he’s said is dangerous and out of line.

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“the great journalism institutions in this country have moved further left over the past few decades, and much like some of their own editors have said I believe they need to evaluate who they employ and try to bring more balance to their reporting.”

bearing in mind that the 80 or so big city newspapers are roughly evenly split in their philosophical leanings (maybe 55/45 democrat), that reads to me awfully like a, “yeah, but…!”

still, i am glad you ended with… “what he’s said is dangerous and out of line.”

i hope you think what trump is doing and saying is the much bigger story, especially because the NYT, wapo, etc., are no further left-leaning than they were a generation ago, and the problem trump has with these institutions is no different than the problem nixon had with these very same institutions.

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No further left leaning than they were a generation ago.

Makes me laugh to see that. They were very left leaning then and have gotten worse. Don’t want to take my word? Go get the Washington Post’s Ombudsman’s report from 2009. They published that they looked at their coverage of the Obama-McCain election and saw that they published 700+ articles on Obama that were mostly positive articles and published 300+ articles on McCain that were mostly negative. Not even close to fair. They then said they would try to do better. They haven’t.

My wife is a big Dem and is sick and tired of me pointing out this report when she starts talking about the media is always fair. Because she has no comeback. They are not fair and haven’t been for a long time.

Remember when the WH tried to ban Fox? Remember the quotes about steering access away from Fox and the other outlets only briefly covered it?

The media only cares about generating clicks and dollars.

Enough ranting. I am no fan of Trump, did not vote for him. I look at and laugh at the media and public that mock and berate him and then are shocked that he reacts negatively to them.

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Sigh. I thought this Was about the bureaucracy that is fighting the will of the people to reign them in. The real enemy to the American people.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445042/donald-trump-washington-how-bureaucrats-are-undermining-voters?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=58a89b1b04d30131b9868624&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

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Sigh. I thought this Was about the bureaucracy that is fighting the will of the people to reign them in. The real enemy to the American people.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445042/donald-trump-washington-how-bureaucrats-are-undermining-voters?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=58a89b1b04d30131b9868624&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

I thought maybe the IRS and how they treat conservative groups differently.

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But the fact that they have an ombudsman who says they’re biased proves that they’re not biased!

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bearing in mind that the 80 or so big city newspapers are roughly evenly split in their philosophical leanings (maybe 55/45 democrat),

Can you cite to a source for that?

Also do you have a similar study for the network news organizations?

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When the most trusted name in news legitimately colludes with one political party for their preferred outcome they become an enemy of the people.

‘But Trump!’

Lol.

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I don’t think major news organizations are the “enemy”.

I believe that they are doing what they think is best for America.

An enemy of America (in my mind) is someone (or an entity) that wants to destroy America.

I don’t think that is the motivation of “the news media”.

I do think that major portions of the “news media” are the enemy of Trump and that is actually a good thing over all.

I just wish CNN, et al would be as aggressive with all who hold power.

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That does not mean that there aren’t issues of liberal bias among our great journalistic institutions

do you think there are issues of conservative bias?

is bias a problem for you, or just liberal bias?

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Going to respond again because on my way home from the gym I caught a snippet of a conversation on NPR (I know, I should stick to FOX and Breitbart…). The conversation centered on Trump and the media, and especially his press conference on Thursday. One interesting point was that in many ways the presser was refreshing; while it was schizophrenic and at times demeaning he answered something like 45 questions in 75 minutes, unprecedented in comparison to his predecessors.

Just thought it was interesting…he’s clearly at odds with the media and the rhetoric is dangerous and needs to stop. BUT, he seems to be an open book, between his twitter freak-outs and his pressers we might get more information from his presidency than any before his, and certainly the media will hold him accountable (as they did in the press conference, calling him out on a few outright lies).

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It’s getting positively Orwellian.

Good thing I’m packing …

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That does not mean that there aren’t issues of liberal bias among our great journalistic institutions

do you think there are issues of conservative bias?

is bias a problem for you, or just liberal bias?
I think there’s an issue of people silo-ing themselves off with like-minded media sources, regardless of ideology. But I have no problem with general bias among journalists, it’s to be expected because they’re only human.

The problem, however, is in something that Ken just displayed (and I brought up earlier) in my other thread: the ‘conservative sites’ are always labeled as such, regardless of quality, and so they’re expected and known to have an obvious bent in their coverage. That’s fine…but the same ‘liberal site’ label isn’t applied, there isn’t that same stigma about liberal news because, in my opinion (and based on studies) there’s a liberal bent to the media anyway. And so you have a chart like this, with CNN somehow winding up down the middle, the WaPo, NPR and NYT down the middle.

There isn’t a problem, per se, with bias in media. There is a problem when people use the ‘conservative’ label to dismiss information from valid conservative sources, when liberal sources are accepted as the ‘fair and unbiased’ organizations.