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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGenius businessman, huh?
Fuck you, Mark Burnett, for creating that fucking myth.
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Genius businessman, huh? (Original Post)
Aviation Pro
Dec 2022
OP
Blue Owl
(50,383 posts)1. Burnet's credibility has always been an illusion
Barbara Walters and anyone else with half a brain was onto this fraudster over 30 years ago!
brush
(53,778 posts)2. And he kept the "N-wprd" out takes from that trump show in his vault instead of releasing them...
which would've probably, along with the "Access Hollywood" tapes, defeated trump in 2016.
EYESORE 9001
(25,939 posts)3. I have no problem holding the likes of Mark Burnett responsible
The average person may not recognize puffery when its being used to create a myth about an undeserving individual. Those who continue to believe the lies swirling around rump, however, are willful and headstrong in their ignorance.
tanyev
(42,559 posts)4. Yes indeed.
How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success
snip
The Apprentice was built around a weekly series of business challenges. At the end of each episode, Trump determined which competitor should be fired. But, as Braun explained, Trump was frequently unprepared for these sessions, with little grasp of who had performed well. Sometimes a candidate distinguished herself during the contest only to get fired, on a whim, by Trump. When this happened, Braun said, the editors were often obliged to reverse engineer the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trumps shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense. During the making of The Apprentice, Burnett conceded that the stories were constructed in this way, saying, We know each week who has been fired, and, therefore, youre editing in reverse. Braun noted that President Trumps staff seems to have been similarly forced to learn the art of retroactive narrative construction, adding, I find it strangely validating to hear that theyre doing the same thing in the White House.
Such sleight of hand is the industry standard in reality television. But the entire premise of The Apprentice was also something of a con. When Trump and Burnett told the story of their partnership, both suggested that Trump was initially wary of committing to a TV show, because he was so busy running his flourishing real-estate empire. During a 2004 panel at the Museum of Television and Radio, in Los Angeles, Trump claimed that every network had tried to get him to do a reality show, but he wasnt interested: I dont want to have cameras all over my office, dealing with contractors, politicians, mobsters, and everyone else I have to deal with in my business. You know, mobsters dont like, as theyre talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesnt play well with them.
The Apprentice portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealtha titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. Most of us knew he was a fake, Braun told me. He had just gone through I dont know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king. Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.
Trump maximized his profits from the start. When producers were searching for office space in which to stage the show, he vetoed every suggestion, then mentioned that he had an empty floor available in Trump Tower, which he could lease at a reasonable price. (After becoming President, he offered a similar arrangement to the Secret Service.) When the production staff tried to furnish the space, they found that local venders, stiffed by Trump in the past, refused to do business with them.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success
snip
The Apprentice was built around a weekly series of business challenges. At the end of each episode, Trump determined which competitor should be fired. But, as Braun explained, Trump was frequently unprepared for these sessions, with little grasp of who had performed well. Sometimes a candidate distinguished herself during the contest only to get fired, on a whim, by Trump. When this happened, Braun said, the editors were often obliged to reverse engineer the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trumps shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense. During the making of The Apprentice, Burnett conceded that the stories were constructed in this way, saying, We know each week who has been fired, and, therefore, youre editing in reverse. Braun noted that President Trumps staff seems to have been similarly forced to learn the art of retroactive narrative construction, adding, I find it strangely validating to hear that theyre doing the same thing in the White House.
Such sleight of hand is the industry standard in reality television. But the entire premise of The Apprentice was also something of a con. When Trump and Burnett told the story of their partnership, both suggested that Trump was initially wary of committing to a TV show, because he was so busy running his flourishing real-estate empire. During a 2004 panel at the Museum of Television and Radio, in Los Angeles, Trump claimed that every network had tried to get him to do a reality show, but he wasnt interested: I dont want to have cameras all over my office, dealing with contractors, politicians, mobsters, and everyone else I have to deal with in my business. You know, mobsters dont like, as theyre talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesnt play well with them.
The Apprentice portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealtha titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. Most of us knew he was a fake, Braun told me. He had just gone through I dont know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king. Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.
Trump maximized his profits from the start. When producers were searching for office space in which to stage the show, he vetoed every suggestion, then mentioned that he had an empty floor available in Trump Tower, which he could lease at a reasonable price. (After becoming President, he offered a similar arrangement to the Secret Service.) When the production staff tried to furnish the space, they found that local venders, stiffed by Trump in the past, refused to do business with them.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success