The effing media!!

[AgadorSparticus]

If this election tells me anything, it is the fact that the media produced a Trump presidency. They need to own this bullshit. People are quick to blame Hillary that she is uninspiring, need to work harder, blah blah blah.....but the reality is it is the fucking media that did this. They have MUCH TOO MUCH power. As Donald Trump said, he doesn't need a ground game nor does he need big donors when he has the media in his pocket. And he is right. THAT says a lot right there. The rules of engagement has changed. And power now rests in the hands of a very select few in the media.

When in the world would the likes of Trump win an election with all the controversies surrounding him? Never. Melania plagiarized. Where was the media? They went soft. They ALWAYS go soft. It is no wonder we lost. The media got the alt right frothing at the mouth and yes, it has been decades in the making. But now they are put voting half cocked with lies and more lies.

If there is blame to be had, I think it lies squarely on the media. They just did not do their jobs. They were grossly negligent to the point of....corruption. It was clear who they wanted to win. And they made it happen.

The Democrats need to figure out this media problem if we ever plan on having any real sense of power to affect change.

[MADem]

1. Here's what you can do. Call them on it. EVERY. DAMN. TIME.

Fire off an email, or a tweet, or what have you, saying "STOP NORMALIZING ......" (racism/sexism/incompetence/whatever). Call them out. Disgrace them. Tell them you will flip the channel/not subscribe if they keep this shit up. Tell them to report the news, not shape it, shade it, or create it.

If enough people do this, and keep doing it, they'll realize that their bottom line is fucked if they don't start being journalists instead of scribes.

[AgadorSparticus]

3. Agreed. I have written to them in the past. I now disconnected my cable.

I don't watch any of their nonsense. But that is partly because I just can't stomach it anymore. Coming to DU, I get a gist of what is going on...and what I find is: same bullshit, different day. There needs to be more voices to let the media know their ratings will suffer for their incompetence.

[duffyduff]

21. One way is to start a petition and campaign for CNN to FIRE Jeff Zucker.

I can't stress enough how he was THE person responsible for this massive political disaster, and he did it solely for ratings and bottom line.

The election of a president is deadly serious business. It is not a reality show.

Zucker needs to be gone.

[DesertFlower]

2. i agree. they covered all trump's

rallies and very few of hillary's. how was she supposed to get her message through.

[AgadorSparticus]

4. It as all trump all day. No one had a chance. Even those on the right didn't have a chance.

[guillaumeb]

5. Did you really expect anything different from a conservative owned corporate media?

Eight years of GOP obstructionism went virtually unnoticed by the media.

[AgadorSparticus]

6. Nope. And that needs to change. The media shouldn't be owned by conservatives.

It should be regulated.... to be unbiased.

[Omaha Steve]

7. Reinstate the fairness doctrine

The MSM is after all owned by corporate interests.

Look at what they did to a successful MSNBC!

[AgadorSparticus]

8. I am wholeheartedly for it! I would like to see the democratic party push for this

Kinda makes you wonder why they haven't....

[Grey Lemercier]

26. this!!

[TrekLuver]

9. With them running Trashpot's rallies that should of turned off the American people to this skank...

why did it not?

[AgadorSparticus]

10. They built it up. They didn't report it like the trash it was.

Spin, spin, spin, and more spin!

[TrekLuver]

13. I don't agree with that. And let's face it...Trashpot is "good" TV of course in a train wreck way.

I'd much rather hear specific examples of who and what in the media pisses you off. They most certainly did report (on the whole not every second of every report) what a danger and trash he is. Of course they can't come right out and say he is trash...although a lot of newspapers did...LOL At any other time with any other candidate they would have been destroyed by all the negative press.

So who do I believe? Do I believe the right when they say it's Clinton News Network or do I believe the left when you are saying CNN is "for" Trump?

They cannot just report all good stuff for us ...sometimes they (the anchor) have to try to walk a line or of course it would be very obvious that they are bias then. If you want to see all rah rah rah Democrats than you know the shows you should watch so you can get just that. I like to hear what the opposition is saying so for the most part I want to hear it and not just hear what I want to hear. Of course there are plenty of times when I am yelling at the TV that so and so let so and so get away with saying that...so I understand what you are saying but I disagree that all MSM is shit.

[AgadorSparticus]

27. All they need to do is report the news. The problem is the amount of spin they put on things.

They spin a lot and to be clear, I never said anything about reporting things that I want to hear. Those are your assumptions. I just want clear, unbiased journalism.

I am not going to go into specifics. If you don't think the media is complicit in this, then I have nothing else to say to you because that is something that is blatantly obvious. Fact: my mother gets her news from an ethnic channel and they get FAR MORE news than the American public. So go on and believe that the media we have is hunky dory. I know better.

[shadowmayor]

11. The Fawning Corporate Media strikes again

The biggest Weapon of Mass Deception is the American corporate media monster. Where are those WMD's in Iraq? The surge was a success? Fukushima? How many wars are we stuck in right now? And yet somehow, they found the time to cover STFU Donny 24/7. Our media has generally been third rate - but this new century has unleashed a concoction of entertainment and propaganda wrapped in advertisement machine that apparently is unchecked and unstoppable. The very idea of tRump as President is hard to fathom except for, we had lil' shrub twice!! Two wars, collapsed economy, surplus turned into trillions in debt, and somehow that wasn't enough. Bring on the next candidate - a spoiled brat grifter with a knack for assaulting women and a friend of the white supremacy crowd - er I meant to say alt-right. Alt-right??? Que WTF?? There's no such thing as the alt-right! They're the same racist shitheads they've always been, but give 'em a blog or a web page and suddenly they're transformed into something alternative??? Nice job media. Oh, and Tweety can go suck on a dried turd! FBI drops propaganda bombs on a candidate twice before an election - where's the media on this one? 3 2 1 back to tRump and his boys Uday and Qusay. And please tell us what jewelry the daughter was wearing again.

[AgadorSparticus]

12. They are just more brazen now with their racism and bigotry.

I can't even fathom what economic situation we will be in 4 years from now. when Obama took office in 08, we were on the brink of a depression. So many people forgot that. He saved us economically. I can't imagine what trump is going to do in 4 years. I am bracing myself....

What Comey did seems illegal. I think there is a law against that. And the fact that the media let him slide on that is a real testament to their bias and corruption.

I am so disgusted......

[world wide wally]

14. Couldn't agree more

The last time I watched cable news was the night of the election. These phonies sat around looking stunned at the results and "fake" discussing how this could have happened.
When asshole extraordinaire, Chris Matthews suggested that maybe it was because people want a conservative Supreme Court, I turned it off and haven't been back since.
They are all just second fucking rate actors.
Phonies bug me.

[spin]

15. In a representative democracy or a constitutional republic the job of the media...

is to be the watch dog of democracy. The problem today is that the media is driven by profit not responsibility. Covering Trump brought profits and he was able to gain considerable free time on the news. Covering Bernie also brought more profit than covering Hillary who is not a really charismatic candidate. Obama had considerable charisma which allowed him to defeat Hillary and win the Presidency eight years ago.

I do think the media realized too late that they had a great deal of responsibility for helping Trump become the candidate of the Republican Party for President. Unfortunately Trump was able to capitalize on what opposition the media devolved by blaming the media as dishonest. Since the media was largely viewed as being biased by many in the American public even before Trump came along the effort largely failed. In fact the media may have tried too hard to stop Trump and it backfired. Many Americans have little trust in the MSM today.

Of course this was a change election as many people in this nation firmly believe that both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party no longer represent the voters but instead the big donors and the multinational corporations.

Bernie and Trump were both viewed as change candidates and did both well in the primaries. Hillary and Jeb Bush were viewed as establishment candidates. Not good for either.

Of course to be fair that is only one factor that determined this election. There is little doubt that Trumb was able to generate far more enthusiasm in many of his supporters than Hillary was. Trump voters showed up at the polls but many Hillary supporters stayed home. Trump voters realized how important it was for them to vote while far too many Hillary supporters felt she would win in a landslide and wouldn't put forth the effort to vote.

It looks to me like Trump himself felt he would lose the election which is why he is in a bind picking people for his administration at this time.

[-Steph-]

16. Today CNN was taking the time to trash fake and misleading news websites online, and questioning

their impact on the election. Fake news websites are indeed a problem, but CNN should not be overlooking their own impact on the outcome of this election. What's even scarier than the bogus news websites, are news sources that are supposed to be legitimate, going out of their way to lend credence to the likes of Donald Trump. CNN, and MSM in general, played a huge role in legitimizing Trump's candidacy.

Today, they were going through some of the false rumors and stories about Hillary that were shared millions of times on social media during the election. They denounced the fake stories. That's great, but where was this kind of reporting during the election WHEN IT ACTUALLY MATTERED AND COULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE?!? It was no secret that these falsehoods were spreading like wild fire throughout the entire election season. People were calling for Hillary's imprisonment, assassination, threatening violence if she wins.. mostly due to the fear-mongering falsehoods that went largely unchecked by the MSM.

The MSM chose ratings and sensationalism over journalistic due diligence. Even though they had nearly non-stop coverage of Donald Trump... when it came to the very long list of things that make Trump wholly unqualified and unfit to lead our nation, MSM's coverage of it was mostly finding ways to downplay or normalize it. Their goal was clear, to keep Hillary Clinton from pulling too far ahead in the race. They wanted a nail-biter. They wanted people to be on the edge of their seats, tuning in to their coverage. Every time that Hillary would gain momentum, they would slam her with negative coverage. And it's almost the only coverage she would get.

I'm downright HORRIFIED by the role that MSM played in getting Donald Trump elected to the highest office in the land.

[Auntie Bush]

22. You hit the nail on the head!

I wonder if they are happy now that they screwed up the election?
Actually I think they are glad. Trump and his presidential follies / mistakes make for more entertainment news than how Hillary is running an excellent transition.
How can democracy survive in this sort of situation?

[-Steph-]

30. It's hard to know whether they actually wanted/expected him to win, or...

if they just wanted to keep the race as tight as possible for election cycle ratings and profits.

Even their own maps were showing a nearly impossible path to victory for him. Not to mention that attacking MSM became a very central part of his campaign. One would think that with the amount of hatred for MSM that Trump not only has, but also incited in so many others, that a Trump administration would have been serious cause for concern to the MSM. That's why part of me thinks their end-game wasn't an actual Trump Presidency.

On the other hand, a Trump win means a never-ending supply of salacious headlines to grab their viewers/listeners/readers attention... and the potential for much higher ratings than a Hillary administration would give. Not to mention, his policies and tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit those at the top, ie like those in charge of the MSM.

I've even wondered if some in the MSM actually knew and had more accurate polling information than they were showing us when it came to the states that ended up handing Trump the Presidency. Perhaps keeping the numbers to themselves so they could give us a huge manufactured upset on election night for the ultimate ratings grabber. There did seem to be some accurate polling that we weren't privy to, because the Trump campaign was touting it all along, oftentimes the exact states that gave him the win. If his campaign had this accurate polling, why didn't anyone else? It seems very odd to me.

Ultimately though, I'm leaning toward MSM just wanting a tight election cycle for ratings and profit. I think even they couldn't predict an actual Trump win. In the end, I think the election was rigged through the purging of voter rolls, making sure there was a gross lack in polling places to vote, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was rigged by much more sinister means also.

[AgadorSparticus]

29. 1,000!!

[byronius]

17. My journalist wife would want you to draw the line between print and television media.

Two different animals entirely.

[-Steph-]

18. The most thorough, in-depth, and unbiased investigative reporting that I saw during the election

cycle was overwhelmingly from printed media. Unfortunately, nearly none of it caught the eye of televised MSM.

[NRaleighLiberal]

19. Exactly.

[duffyduff]

20. Yes, they did, and people here need to face the TRUTH. ONE PERSON is responsible.

Trump was an entirely manufactured candidate akin to The Monkees being a manufactured band (though they eventually became a legitimate band). He was a joke candidate not unlike television's Pat Paulsen when he "ran" for president numerous times, starting with the Smothers Brothers variety show in 1968. A totally unserious candidate. There was no groundswell of support for Trump; it was manufactured after the despicable, unethical, sociopathic JEFF ZUCKER, formerly head of NBC, now president of CNN, promoted this piece of crap 24/7, days on end, on a NEWS network. He not only committed journalistic malpractice, he committed what amounted to treason against the United States by denying millions of voters the information they needed about their candidates. He pimped for Trump virtually shutting everybody else out. No other GOP candidate could get a word in edgewise. Fox and other outlets jumped into the 24/7 Trump insanity because they couldn't compete with CNN. ALL reports of the GOP campaign framed those stories in reference to Trump. I had read that Trump raked in some $3 billion dollars to the "news" outlets during the primaries. Few people here were following this but instead focused on the Democratic campaign where the outcome was known from the beginning. EVERYBODY should have been looking at what was happening with the GOP.

Zucker's conflict of interest, which I have written about over and over again on DU, originated because he had a longstanding friendship with Donald Trump, going back to when Zucker was the president of NBC Entertainment and Trump had his hit program The Apprentice. Zucker knew Trump was a ratings winner, so after Zucker somehow got hired by CNN and Trump started his then-longshot campaign, Zucker figured lightning could strike twice. Hey, Trump was great for ratings and ad revenue on his reality show; he should be great for ad revenue and ratings on a NEWS network. It worked. It worked TOO well, for Trump, who had no policy positions whatsoever, engaged in more and more demagoguery, which the largely entitled white dudes who had their minds addled with hate radio and Fox "news" and racist, sexist parents, took to heart and turned Trump's candidacy into a messianic CULT.

The "news" media found they didn't want Hillary Clinton at all, and it had nothing to do with her positions on the issues or the bogus "scandals." They wanted her gone because they KNEW she would tank their ratings and ad revenue.

Lots of articles throughout the campaign and thereafter (google "Jeff Zucker&quot have been written about the unseemly relationship of Zucker/CNN with Donald Trump. Even right-winger Cal Thomas a year ago started comparing Donald Trump to "Lonesome Rhodes," the main character in the 1957 film A Face in the Crowd, which people here should watch or rewatch along with Network. Then they would have a clear picture of what happened.

I have never, ever seen anything like this in my entire life. I don't think I will EVER get over this election because the media corruption was so blatant and so destructive.

Only one person is responsible for this mess. Only one.

Jeff Zucker should be doing prison time, not continuing to make millions of dollars as a media executive.

[FrenchieCat]

23. Hope you don't mind if I repost this.....

[duffyduff]

24. Spread it far and wide, FrenchieCat

All people need to do is google Jeff Zucker.

Dan Rather has written about the media corruption, Gene Lyons has, and many, many others over the course of this campaign and the aftermath.

[AgadorSparticus]

25. Thank you for posting this. I did not know the extent of Jeff Zucker's involvement.

But it goes back to the fact that NO ONE person in media should have this much say and power. NO one. The news should be regulated.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. James Comey 11 days out from an election and a cable "newz" media that invariably would distill

his nothingburger letter to GOP congress into "CLINTON EMAIL INQUIRY REOPENED ANTHONY WEINER TEEN SEXTING SCANDAL"- there is a perfect storm of complicity, there.

I think the criticisms that Hillary's campaign make some serious strategic errors re: the Rust belt are valid, too, though.