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In reply to the discussion: 'This is not normal': Kurt Eichenwald blasts reporters for being afraid of questioning Trump [View all]calimary
(80,699 posts)He was on with Lawrence O'Donnell a couple of nights ago, talking about how the media needs new tools, when covering this next regime.
He spoke about the trump & comp's preferred technique of "fomenting confusion as a strategy.
He urged journalists to STOP CHASING ACCESS!!!! Because it's not gonna help, and it will even cause more problems, because if you whore yourself for access (my words, not his), then you're apt to be hand-fed distraction and bullshit and ulterior motives galore. Access will lead you straight down the garden path and over a cliff. Deliberate deceit, redirection, distraction, they'll tell you what they want you to believe, while they're up to something completely different and don't want you on their trail.
He urged assignment editors to send the interns to the briefing room, and send the experienced reporters OUTSIDE, to develop other sources than the "party/company line" that will be issued from the mouthpiece-of-record.
He urged reporters to start working from outside in, NOT the other way around. Go to the periphery. Go to what he called "the rim of government," the civil servants, the low-guy-on-the-totem-pole, NOT the big name with the big job at the top of the ziggurat with whom you wish to rub elbows at the next fancy Georgetown cocktail party. If you want to report on foreign policy, get your info from foreign governments, NOT ours! Because the people supposedly on our side have their own agenda and won't tell you the truth. They'll only tell you what they want you to know, and preferably try to mislead you so you run off chasing the shiny object and won't notice what they're really up to.
Jay Rosen is my new hero! Check out his stuff here: http://pressthink.org