End The White House Press Briefing

Last week when Sean Spicer expelled CNN, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and others, apart from the habitual antics of a juvenile administration, perhaps it was a harbinger of a new post-briefing era. While this administration’s anti-First Amendment frolicking is repulsive, it could just be President Trump and Sean Spicer did us all a favor. I say we end the White House press briefing.

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Will Trump’s War On The News Media Work?

With President Trump’s “fake news” crusade now turned up to eleven, we are left little choice but to assume it is part of a broader de-legitimizing strategy. And strategy is the job of Steve Bannon, Trump’s White House Chief Strategist. Bannon told the New York Times in January that the “media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.” Bannon was talking about how the media was wrong about the 2016 election, never mind that the polls were not all that far off from the popular vote tally. “The media here is the opposition party,” said Bannon in the Times interview. “They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.” If it is a blueprint, Trump’s anti-media bombast is a plan likely architected by Steve Bannon.

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Fox News Seeded Trump’s ‘Fake News’ Paranoia

The Fox News and conservative talk radio war against the mainstream media seeded Donald Trump’s “fake news” paranoia. There is nothing new about politicians going after the news media, but Donald Trump takes this time-honored practice to an absurd level made possible by his uniquely narcissistic personality. When it comes to what people say about him, Trump has an uncontrollable obsession. And now he has a new tool for his bravado, anything less than flattery is “fake news.”

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This Is What Liberal Media Bias Looks Like (To The Rest Of Us)

When conservatives deliver sermons on the liberal biased mainstream media, first I wonder what exactly constitutes “mainstream.” I suppose if you aren’t mainstream, then you are what some call “new” or “alternative” media, but do conservatives really believe Fox News falls into this surrogate classification? I grant we could assign Fox News to a class of its own, but even if their brand nurtures a conservative echo chamber, I find it troublesome to view a high-rated cable news network as anything other than predominant. That makes Fox News very much part of the mainstream, never mind the radio airwaves dominated by conservative talk. And we haven’t even dived into the corporate owned news. Just how often do we apply the “liberal” label to media conglomerates? So when conservatives refer to the mainstream media, they definitely aren’t including Fox News, or conservative radio, or the corporate entities that own all media, because that might detract from their directive.

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MSNBC Super Tuesday Coverage Unexpectedly Terminated

I’ll admit, I’m a night owl, so yes, I was still up shortly before 1:30am on the Wednesday after Super Tuesday when MSNBC decided to abruptly pull the plug on its live Super Tuesday coverage. Okay, I admit, I’m still up writing this damn article. So, MSNBC had their usual coverage team this election season with Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow at the helm. They were on the air all night, announcing poll closures and projected winners. I thought for sure they would end their live coverage at 1AM, which is when I planned to go to bed. But, shock and surprise, they continued their live coverage beyond 1am Eastern. So, being the fool that I am, I stayed up to continue watching. Then at around 1:20ish Brian Williams dispatched us to a commercial break, and when coverage returned, the graphic on the bottom right changed from “Live” to “Earlier,” but otherwise no mention of the end of live coverage. Would it have been so hard for MSNBC to announce that they were ending their live Super Tuesday coverage for the night? I mean, why not just end it at 1AM? Now, this would be totally bizarre, except here’s one small problem, they’ve done this before. If MSNBC is trying to compete with other cable news networks, maybe they need to try to show less contempt for their audience. I mean seriously, as if we wouldn’t notice?

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Chuck Todd Admits Mainstream Media Must Ask Softball Questions

I guess we can call it a quest for ratings when new Meet the Press moderator Chuck “The Todd” Todd (I think I stole that from someone, maybe Stephen Colbert … R.I.P.) decided it would be a good idea to invite a panel of comedians on the show to discuss comedy and cynicism within our news and political discourse. Of course, the major conveyance here is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which was a frequent reference during this MTP segment. And I’m actually fine with the panel of comedians, which included Lewis Black, Laura Krafft, and W. Kamau Bell. Maybe I’m even fine with the premise, although I think it’s a vehicle to deflect blame away from the mainstream media, and the job it is failing to do, intentional or not.

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The Politics Of Fear And Ebola In America

I tuned into my local news last night, and as you might guess, Ebola dominated the broadcast. And maybe that would be acceptable if this coverage, using title graphics like “Ebola Outbreak,” and “Ebola Crisis,” was centered in West Africa. Nope.

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Republicans Outnumber Democrats On Sunday News Shows

Now I know why I so strongly dislike the Sunday morning news shows. The New York Times ‘The Upshot’ reviewed data collected by American University, combined with ideological scores calculated by Crowdpac, and concluded that since January 2009, liberal bias simply does not exist when it comes to the Sunday morning news shows. Okay, they didn’t exactly put it that way, that’s my wording, but what the The Upshot did find is that congressional members from the conservative side of the aisle made up 57 percent of appearances compared to 42 percent for liberal Senators and representatives.

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Chris Christie Administration Says MSNBC Is A Partisan Network: True

New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie is in the middle of two scandals, the bridge lane closing, and use of Hurricane Sandy relief funds for tourism advertisements (where Christie himself was prominently featured while running for re-election). Yesterday MSNBC’s Up with Steve Kornacki broke the news of a third scandal. Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer says the Christie administration has withheld Sandy relief funds because she did not give her approval to a redevelopment plan in the city.

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