MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell tore into the major cable news networks, including MSNBC, on Thursday after they aired former President Donald Trump’s press conference live and didn’t “fact-check every lie” he told.
O’Donnell then complained that “to make a bad news coverage situation worse, none of the networks – none of them – carried Kamala Harris’ speech live after the Trump appearance. None of them.”
O’Donnell concluded, “It’s 2016 all over again. The same mistakes are being made. I have never seen an industry slower at learning from its own stupid mistakes than the American news business, and you cannot expect them in the next 89 days to figure out what they haven’t been able to figure out in nine years: how to cover a Trump for president campaign.”
I watched both the Trump conference and O’Donnell’s take live and, yeah, he has a point.
The feed I had, you couldn’t hear the reporters questions at all. So all you could hear was Trump and there was no way to know what the actual question was based on his answers.
But nobody follows up on ANY politician and it’s been that way for a couple of decades now.
The classic example I always cite is one that happens all the time:
“Well, we’re going to get rid of job-killing regulations.”
The logical follow up question would be:
“Can you cite an example of a regulation you’d get rid of and in what way it’s a job killer?”
But nobody ever asks that question.
I think the more egregious part is that all of the networks covered Trump’s press conference, then failed to cover Harris’ speech. Giving air time to one candidate and not the other is not balanced reporting. It is giving free publicity to one candidate over the other. They went to Trump’s house on short notice rather than cover Harris’ public speech with plenty of notice.
But nobody follows up on ANY politician and it’s been that way for a couple of decades now.
Denver’s own Kyle Clark has entered the chat. He did a debate (don’t click; it’s boring af) for the CO4 house seat that included Boebert, and he didn’t let her get away with anything. It was great to watch. He’s absolutely loved locally, and probably has a future at the local level.
The feed I had, you couldn’t hear the reporters questions at all.
That is true so often, even when it’s a non-crazy press conference. It would be so easy to just stick an omnidirectional mic in the press gaggle.
It’s intentional. If they had a mic for the press, you’d see the press better able to, well, press the politician in question.
The last thing people like Trump want is a journalist pressing him on why he keeps dodging questions and chopping word-salad.
What the person being questioned is supposed to do is repeat the question before answering it. I suspect they’re intentionally not doing that.
He famously doesn’t drink alcohol, but I’m sure he’d appreciate something else. :)
He’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take this anymore.
There are many news segments with high degree of truth. Each and every journalist that makes a such a stand risks their career and often their life and the lives of their family to bring us the truth.
I’d never really thought about a journalist as a human being before I watched the movie Network (1976): Howard Beale, a prominent newscaster, perceives that he’s nothing to lose. Harrison’s Flowers (2000) does a great job depicting the risks associated with reporting a war and likely is the reason Adrien Brody was cast in The Pianist.
The segment: https://youtu.be/ZD-oTJ49nls?si=Nw811XFtixpvDmr3
Lawrence is an OG Edward R. Murow type mfer. He simply does not give a fuck and he nerds out over arcane political history on his show. It’s like having a civics class with the cool professor that you actually don’t want to miss.
Maybe it’s not a mistake.
MSNBC is owned by NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast. Any publicly traded corporation – let alone one making over $100 billion in annual revenue – will trample over anyone and anything – democracy itself included – in service of its bottom line. They exist solely to grow without bound as fast as possible like a cancer.
Don’t let the company be faceless - it lets them escape accountability. The executive team at Comcast are willing to destroy democracy for a slightly higher bonus.
Ackchyually, it’s the their major shareholders.
Edit: Downvote away, but read the threads under this comment. It’s kinda important to understand if you’re unhappy with the status quo.
Corporate media are doing everything they can to usher in a dictatorship that will see the end of freedom of the press. And if Trump wins in November, they will deserve it. The problem, of course, is they’re going to drag all of us along with them.
