Journalists and Media: Stop Feeding the Right-Wing Spin Machine
Oct 9, 2018, 1:08pm Murshed Zaheed
Reporters and pundits in corporate media act less like journalists and more like right-wing megaphones. This needs to stop.
Excerpts:
Right after the right-wing extremists in charge of the Trumpian outfit masquerading as Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party succeeded in confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sen. Mitch McConnell spiked the football. The Kentucky Republican attacked the thousands of activists and citizen lobbyists who almost pulled off the improbable feat of stopping the confirmation by smearing them as a “mob” and claiming, without any evidence, that their activism was some kind “political gift” for the Republican Party.
And the media hand-wringing started almost immediately. The so-called impartial reporters and pundits in traditional corporate media outlets (hereinafter I will refer to them as “trad-media”) immediately adopted McConnell’s talking points in their ridiculous “both sides” frame. As Media Matters documented, “The Washington Post’s analysis of the week concluded that Democrats and Republicans are equally at fault for divisive politics.” The dean of Washington’s “both sides” nonsense, Chuck Todd, agreed with right-wing pundits that both sides in Washington are taking part in the “vulgarization” of politics. These claims were made, naturally, without any viable data or evidence as support.
These trad-media reporters and pundits went with what is clearly their gut instinct to punch down at liberals. In this case, they were denigrating the heroic advocacy of hundreds of activists—primarily women—who came to the Hart Senate Office Building from all over the country to engage in grassroots lobbying in an effort to make survivors of sexual assault visible to a mostly male Republican Party. And they were getting results.
The last thing progressive activists—who have powered the unprecedented resistance to stop the effort by Trump, McConnell, and Ryan to gut our health care and came so close to stopping their hijacking of the Supreme Court—should do right now is listen to these trolls. If we had listened to these trolls who had been working so hard to weave a narrative of inevitability for Kavanaugh’s confirmation, he would have been sworn into the Court weeks ago.
As I noted, the data we have seen so far indicates that despite the rights’ best effort to undermine and denigrate the progressive movement’s activism, the voters in battleground districts are not falling for it. Neither should we.
https://rewire.news/article/2018/10/09/journalists-stop-feeding-the-right-wing-spin-machine/
= new reply since forum marked as read
props him up and gives the right wing unjustified support. the kavanaugh framing is a case in point.
it should have been a cakewalk. donnie could have chosen someone who was a scandal-free nazi and it in this environment it would have sailed through. but he chose someone who not only had controversial views (on presidential immunity, e.g.) but also someone with horrific baggage. then, of course, donnie and his gang of sycophants dug in deeper rather than fixing the situation.
the media frame should be that donnie botched what should have been a simple exercise and walked away badly bruised and the democrats walked away freshly energized shortly before crucial midterm elections.
but no, the media is actually claiming that this mess is somehow a republican victory and that *their* base is somehow energized by a botched nomination process.
the media long ago stopped dealing in facts, and reduced themselves to scribes, having decided that the only thing they could prove and stand by was that somebody said something. that opened the door for republicans to claim credit for the sun rising in the west, and the media will simply report that that's what they said, and then maybe follow with democratic objections, that, hey, they sun rises in the east, and donnie had nothing to do with it. then the opinion people come along and insist that republicans made the stronger argument.
And I still remember during the campaign when it was Trump TV 24/7 - his offensive antics spelled ratings and any other news (and candidates!) were sidelined. And it's still going on! 
