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Year after year, the New York Times "news"paper often
demonstrates a remarkable ability to be seemingly oblivious to elephants
in the room. It even at times flatly denies the reality that the very
facts it reports make obvious. One has to wonder why this is.
Sometimes it would seem to be motivated by a desire to avoid conflict with other capitalist industries, or with institutions of state power. There is also a desire to uphold and protect various planks of the ideological system. They don't want to fundamentally change the outlook or consciousness of people. (That is quite distinct from molding opinion on this or that issue, which they do assiduously, every day.)
Now here is a rather glaring example, which the Times put under the heading "Media," indicating that in the print edition it appeared in the Business section. This is from the Times website dated May 30:
"Television Networks Struggle to Provide Equal Airtime in the Era of Trump." [1]
The article is about Donald Trump's dominant presence in the media vs. Hillary Clinton's much smaller media footprint. This is attributed by the Times to the different behavioral styles of those two presidential candidates, and in Clinton's case, to an active avoidance of the media. Much of the article consists of handwringing by various media executives and on-air figures, which likewise is disingenuous on their part.
The very first paragraph gets things wrong. Quote: "Donald J. Trump relishes the spotlight of live television. Hillary Clinton has long recoiled from it. Now, the television news industry is wrestling with how to balance fairness, credibility and the temptations of sky-high ratings as it prepares for a presidential matchup like none other."
Fairness, credibility and the temptations of sky-high ratings are in reverse order of actual important to the TV industry. Obvious ratings- a surrogate for revenues and profits- is most important. Credibility matters longer term. Fairness? What fairness? Maybe an appearance of fairness, somewhat. Since when has "fairness" (a totally subjective quality in any event, completely in the eye of the beholder) mattered in propaganda?
But no need to dally there. What struck me most forcefully, and revealed the headline to be packed with disingenuousness to the bursting point (remember, Networks Struggle to Provide Equal Airtime) are some facts from the article itself. Namely that when Clinton gave speeches to labor unions, the TV networks blacked out the speeches. In one instance, they instead "covered" an empty Trump podium. (Unmentioned by the Times: the TV bosses did the same thing to Bernard Sanders. On the night of a bunch of his primary wins, they blacked out his speech, focusing instead on an empty Trump podium. But the Times is no stranger to blacking out news itself. Ralph Nader was virtually ignored by the rag when he ran for president, despite drawing tens of thousands of people to rallies, including ones with admission charges such as at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Do I detect a political bias operating in the "objective journalism" of U.S. news?)
Here are the paragraphs from the article that reveal the dishonesty of the headliine:
"Networks are seeking novel ways to maintain balance [between Trump and Clinton], like staging voter town halls that provide candidates with equal airtime; seeking a wider spectrum of on-air contributors and campaign surrogates; and bringing more fact-checking into segments, as Jake Tapper has done recently on CNN to some acclaim. [Acclaim? From who? From other propagandists, that's who! For asking obvious questions! Hey, I could do that job.]
"Still, the presence of Mr. Trump can be irresistible, especially in an election in which viewership and advertising rates have soared, generating tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue for an industry threatened by digital competition. [What "threat"? The networks all ARE online themselves.There are no "upstart" TV networks.]
"Last week, none of the three major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC — carried Mrs. Clinton’s speech to a workers’ union in Las Vegas, where she debuted sharp new attack lines against Mr. Trump. [Sounds "newsworthy" to me. She had new things to say. But ah, she was talking to workers, in a union, and the capitalist media hates unions and doesn't much like workers either.]
"Instead, each chose to broadcast a live feed of an empty podium in North Dakota, on a stage where Mr. Trump was about to speak.
"The same discrepancy [sic!] occurred earlier this month, when the cable networks aired Mr. Trump’s address to the National Rifle Association live from start to finish. A speech by Mrs. Clinton in Detroit days later, to a labor union, did not receive the same coverage; all three networks skipped the speech, with Fox News airing a lighthearted [read: trivial] segment about a nationwide backlog of cheese." [My emphases.]
I wouldn't call that a "discrepancy." But the Times is right: covering a Trump speech, while totally ignoring a Clinton speech, is indeed not "the same coverage." Just like zero and 100 aren't "the same."
So here's the disingenuousness. Are the networks "struggling" to provide "equal airtime" when they actively black out events involving unions? Doesn't sound like they're "struggling" very hard.
Notice too the attempt to substitute "town hall" bullshit for people in their actual role as workers. The U.S. media always strives to prevent people from thinking of themselves as workers. "Workers" are always somebody else, somebody costing businesses money, or being selfish and inconsiderate by going on strike and causing the public hardship (or at least inconvenience). We all are "consumers." So there's "the consumer" and "the worker," and never do the twain meet in bourgeois ideology (or in "economics" either, it seems).
But you see, this "discrepancy" is because Trump is just so masterful. He's "irresistible" catnip to the media drones and their masters, who count the dollars in the tills. Here's the Times again:
"In interviews, more than a dozen anchors, executives and news producers displayed admiration for Mr. Trump’s facility with their medium. Some expressed a bit of soul-searching, [see the handwringing?] admitting unease at the unfiltered exposure he has received, with one anchor describing frustration about being asked to conduct on-air interviews with Mr. Trump by telephone, rather than in person. But several offered the defense that whatever viewers make of Mr. Trump, he is undoubtedly newsworthy — and always accessible."
Why, it's enough to make a propagandist swoon!
Of course, you have to be "nice" to Mr. Trump, or he'll abuse you ferociously, and in public.
This is such nonsense. It's like "McCarthyism," the idea that one person is making things happen that are in fact institutional activities. "The" media is promoting Trump, although we have to make a distinction here between the broadcast arms and the print arms. The print arms, aimed at more intelligence and intellectually sophisticated people- people who read- has certainly been quite critical (rightly so, and I mean rightly both factually and morally) of Trump and his despicable demagoguery. But there is no question that broadcast media has aided and abetted the Rise of Trump. In fact, the man can be said to be a media creation.
The truth is, the media pick and choose what to "cover" and what to ignore. The only caveat here is that by creating a Frankenstein monster, "the" media have created a self-reinforcing momentum for Trump. Now they feel compelled, for reasons of profit (as the article does admit) and competition with each other, to keep on giving Trump far more attention than his idiotic statements deserve.
But another caveat: now that he's the presidential candidate of one of the two corporate oligarchic political parties of the U.S. two-party dictatorship, he actually is very important.
What happens if this loose cannon, Donald J. Trump, narcissist extraordinaire, becomes president of the globally dominant U.S.A.?
Well, the ruling elites made their bed, now they have to lie in it. They created their monster, and they'll have to figure out how to control his rampages if he attains the top power position in the U.S. and in the world.
As they used to say in Brooklyn, Oy vey!
1] New York Times, May 30, 2016.
Funny thing, when I went to double check the meaning of disingenuous, Oxford Dictionaries online gave a first example sentence that dovetailed nicely with this essay:
DISINGENUOUS
ADJECTIVE
"Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does: 'this journalist was being somewhat disingenuous as well as cynical.'"
Now why did they choose that as an example!
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/disingenuous
Sometimes it would seem to be motivated by a desire to avoid conflict with other capitalist industries, or with institutions of state power. There is also a desire to uphold and protect various planks of the ideological system. They don't want to fundamentally change the outlook or consciousness of people. (That is quite distinct from molding opinion on this or that issue, which they do assiduously, every day.)
Now here is a rather glaring example, which the Times put under the heading "Media," indicating that in the print edition it appeared in the Business section. This is from the Times website dated May 30:
"Television Networks Struggle to Provide Equal Airtime in the Era of Trump." [1]
The article is about Donald Trump's dominant presence in the media vs. Hillary Clinton's much smaller media footprint. This is attributed by the Times to the different behavioral styles of those two presidential candidates, and in Clinton's case, to an active avoidance of the media. Much of the article consists of handwringing by various media executives and on-air figures, which likewise is disingenuous on their part.
The very first paragraph gets things wrong. Quote: "Donald J. Trump relishes the spotlight of live television. Hillary Clinton has long recoiled from it. Now, the television news industry is wrestling with how to balance fairness, credibility and the temptations of sky-high ratings as it prepares for a presidential matchup like none other."
Fairness, credibility and the temptations of sky-high ratings are in reverse order of actual important to the TV industry. Obvious ratings- a surrogate for revenues and profits- is most important. Credibility matters longer term. Fairness? What fairness? Maybe an appearance of fairness, somewhat. Since when has "fairness" (a totally subjective quality in any event, completely in the eye of the beholder) mattered in propaganda?
But no need to dally there. What struck me most forcefully, and revealed the headline to be packed with disingenuousness to the bursting point (remember, Networks Struggle to Provide Equal Airtime) are some facts from the article itself. Namely that when Clinton gave speeches to labor unions, the TV networks blacked out the speeches. In one instance, they instead "covered" an empty Trump podium. (Unmentioned by the Times: the TV bosses did the same thing to Bernard Sanders. On the night of a bunch of his primary wins, they blacked out his speech, focusing instead on an empty Trump podium. But the Times is no stranger to blacking out news itself. Ralph Nader was virtually ignored by the rag when he ran for president, despite drawing tens of thousands of people to rallies, including ones with admission charges such as at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Do I detect a political bias operating in the "objective journalism" of U.S. news?)
Here are the paragraphs from the article that reveal the dishonesty of the headliine:
"Networks are seeking novel ways to maintain balance [between Trump and Clinton], like staging voter town halls that provide candidates with equal airtime; seeking a wider spectrum of on-air contributors and campaign surrogates; and bringing more fact-checking into segments, as Jake Tapper has done recently on CNN to some acclaim. [Acclaim? From who? From other propagandists, that's who! For asking obvious questions! Hey, I could do that job.]
"Still, the presence of Mr. Trump can be irresistible, especially in an election in which viewership and advertising rates have soared, generating tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue for an industry threatened by digital competition. [What "threat"? The networks all ARE online themselves.There are no "upstart" TV networks.]
"Last week, none of the three major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC — carried Mrs. Clinton’s speech to a workers’ union in Las Vegas, where she debuted sharp new attack lines against Mr. Trump. [Sounds "newsworthy" to me. She had new things to say. But ah, she was talking to workers, in a union, and the capitalist media hates unions and doesn't much like workers either.]
"Instead, each chose to broadcast a live feed of an empty podium in North Dakota, on a stage where Mr. Trump was about to speak.
"The same discrepancy [sic!] occurred earlier this month, when the cable networks aired Mr. Trump’s address to the National Rifle Association live from start to finish. A speech by Mrs. Clinton in Detroit days later, to a labor union, did not receive the same coverage; all three networks skipped the speech, with Fox News airing a lighthearted [read: trivial] segment about a nationwide backlog of cheese." [My emphases.]
I wouldn't call that a "discrepancy." But the Times is right: covering a Trump speech, while totally ignoring a Clinton speech, is indeed not "the same coverage." Just like zero and 100 aren't "the same."
So here's the disingenuousness. Are the networks "struggling" to provide "equal airtime" when they actively black out events involving unions? Doesn't sound like they're "struggling" very hard.
Notice too the attempt to substitute "town hall" bullshit for people in their actual role as workers. The U.S. media always strives to prevent people from thinking of themselves as workers. "Workers" are always somebody else, somebody costing businesses money, or being selfish and inconsiderate by going on strike and causing the public hardship (or at least inconvenience). We all are "consumers." So there's "the consumer" and "the worker," and never do the twain meet in bourgeois ideology (or in "economics" either, it seems).
But you see, this "discrepancy" is because Trump is just so masterful. He's "irresistible" catnip to the media drones and their masters, who count the dollars in the tills. Here's the Times again:
"In interviews, more than a dozen anchors, executives and news producers displayed admiration for Mr. Trump’s facility with their medium. Some expressed a bit of soul-searching, [see the handwringing?] admitting unease at the unfiltered exposure he has received, with one anchor describing frustration about being asked to conduct on-air interviews with Mr. Trump by telephone, rather than in person. But several offered the defense that whatever viewers make of Mr. Trump, he is undoubtedly newsworthy — and always accessible."
Why, it's enough to make a propagandist swoon!
Of course, you have to be "nice" to Mr. Trump, or he'll abuse you ferociously, and in public.
This is such nonsense. It's like "McCarthyism," the idea that one person is making things happen that are in fact institutional activities. "The" media is promoting Trump, although we have to make a distinction here between the broadcast arms and the print arms. The print arms, aimed at more intelligence and intellectually sophisticated people- people who read- has certainly been quite critical (rightly so, and I mean rightly both factually and morally) of Trump and his despicable demagoguery. But there is no question that broadcast media has aided and abetted the Rise of Trump. In fact, the man can be said to be a media creation.
The truth is, the media pick and choose what to "cover" and what to ignore. The only caveat here is that by creating a Frankenstein monster, "the" media have created a self-reinforcing momentum for Trump. Now they feel compelled, for reasons of profit (as the article does admit) and competition with each other, to keep on giving Trump far more attention than his idiotic statements deserve.
But another caveat: now that he's the presidential candidate of one of the two corporate oligarchic political parties of the U.S. two-party dictatorship, he actually is very important.
What happens if this loose cannon, Donald J. Trump, narcissist extraordinaire, becomes president of the globally dominant U.S.A.?
Well, the ruling elites made their bed, now they have to lie in it. They created their monster, and they'll have to figure out how to control his rampages if he attains the top power position in the U.S. and in the world.
As they used to say in Brooklyn, Oy vey!
1] New York Times, May 30, 2016.
Funny thing, when I went to double check the meaning of disingenuous, Oxford Dictionaries online gave a first example sentence that dovetailed nicely with this essay:
DISINGENUOUS
ADJECTIVE
"Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does: 'this journalist was being somewhat disingenuous as well as cynical.'"
Now why did they choose that as an example!
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/disingenuous
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