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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMemo to the Media: How Not to Cover the President
http://billmoyers.com/story/memo-to-the-media-how-not-to-cover-the-president/Memo to the Media: How Not to Cover the President
What J-School never taught you.
By Lynn Sherr | March 17, 2017
Dear esteemed colleagues, former colleagues and other members of the responsible media Ive never met:
I am not being sarcastic. Honest. I respect your work and I know that you we are the only thing that has ever stood between a robust democracy and the hydra-headed evils of corruption, greed, incompetence and ignorance. Not to mention the hypocrisy of lies and self-aggrandizement from an unrelenting narcissist with no ability to temper his own apparent madness.
Sure, its important to remind the American people that the president and his staff have little contact with reality. But dont give them the free ride of repeating the lie.
I know that many of you are working god-awful hours to chronicle the absurdity and malevolence of this administration. I believe that you care deeply about your responsibility to the American public to convey the truth.
But I beg you to consider a new approach to our critical profession. I urge you, in the face of what may be the scariest threat yet to our civility as a nation and our freedom as individuals, to consider a new tactic in covering the current presidency.
Specifically, stop reporting everything they say or do.
Stop repeating gratuitously the lies (or the fantasies). Stop reupping the ante. Stop restoking the flames of idiocy.
Stop seeking an Oval Office reaction to every misstep.
Case in point: the presidents insistence that his predecessor wiretapped his phones.
The claim was absurd from first tweet, but of course we needed evidence, so those initial reports were probably necessary. But when the Senate Intelligence Committee and the (Republican) Speaker of the House said Thursday that no such evidence existed, the story was over. Done. Finished. Or should have been.
Then came yesterday afternoons performance by the presidents mouthpiece. He stands by it, Sean Spicer said about his boss and the flatly discredited claim. And the headlines resurfaced, once again producing a he-says/they-rebut, were-in-charge-of-the-dialogue victory. Its difficult to speak louder than the guy with the biggest microphone. But guess what? He cant count on that microphone if you we dont ask the question or honor the response.
Sure, its important to remind the American people that the president and his staff have little contact with reality. But dont give them the free ride of repeating the lie.
I know, I know the monster of competition is on your backs. Bosses often have more on their minds than principles; editors dont exist. You have no time to process your interviews before theyre running on the air, live; no one to challenge your assumptions from the vantage point of more experience, more wisdom. You have no time to think.
And yes, I know, hes the president, and theyre all the presidents men. Dont they have to be covered? Well, no. Not if theyre saying nothing new. Not if theyre spewing garbage.
And yes, I know, hes the president, and theyre all the presidents men. Dont they have to be covered?
Well, no.
Not if theyre saying nothing new.
Not if theyre spewing garbage.
Not if the incoherence is so apparent even they can make jokes about it.
Even when major politicians say important and new things, they dont always get air time. Once, during the historic 1984 vice-presidential campaign of Democrat Geraldine Ferraro the first woman to run on a major party ticket I wanted to do a piece on her surprising face-off with Reagan-friendly autoworkers in the Midwest. My ABC News desk turned me down, full up with stories before noon that day.
I reported, they decided; thats the way it works. I get it.
But the 24/7 pressure of todays endless news cycle has produced a new dynamic, and the catnip of TV ratings as everyone scrambles for new eyeballs has too often led to the easy way out. The quick story, the one that requires no contemplation. Just throw up the latest sound bite and wait for the next one.
Back in the 1970s, as a correspondent for WCBS-TV News in New York, I had a smart colleague who used to flesh out every news conference he covered with actual facts where the speaker was right, and where wrong. Were not human microphone stands, hed say, belligerently and accurately, frustrating an earlier generation of New York politicians.
By all means, keep up the pressure with stories on Russian influence and financial gain until we get some answers. Just Say No to the addictive nonsense.
Another sensible reporter from those early days, fed up with the insistence on granting equal time to often irrelevant opposing arguments, used to call what we were asked to do the delicatessen style of reporting a quarter-pound of this, a quarter-pound of that, even when the two kinds of baloney werent of equal value. It made for a good kosher sandwich, but sometimes, not very significant journalism.
Look, Im not talking about replacing fairness with bias here; nor about trading ice cream for broccoli. And plenty of reporters are, finally, labelling the lies. But pulling back on the repetition the facile regurgitation of everything from populist president to brilliant businessman to, well, making America great again and refusing to headline their version of the facts, might, in fact, free up time to report on things that matter.
By all means, keep up the pressure with stories on Russian influence and financial gain until we get some answers. Just Say No to the addictive nonsense.
Warn the mighty that if they continue to spew word salads instead of sentences, fanciful illusions rather than provable facts, you wont put them on the air or in print. What was good enough for Humpty Dumpty When I use a word, he told Alice as she wandered through the looking-glass, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less wont fly with the American people anymore. Our version of that inversion was the presidents reliance on an infinity of fun house mirrors: Tweeting out the inanity of the wiretap after he saw it mentioned on a wholly unreliable TV show.
If a TV lie is repeated on Twitter and nobody responds, does it fall on any ears at all?
So Im hoping someone will be bold enough to take up the challenge. To stop treating empty opinions like breaking news; to cut off access to publicity the way youd stop reading a book full of gibberish.
And while Im on the subject, one more thing.
Could one of you one reporter, anywhere please say to any Trump surrogate, or to the president himself, when he or they utter one of those unintelligible, fact-free collections of syllables could you just say, please, What are you talking about?
Thanks. We need you more than ever.
I am not being sarcastic. Honest. I respect your work and I know that you we are the only thing that has ever stood between a robust democracy and the hydra-headed evils of corruption, greed, incompetence and ignorance. Not to mention the hypocrisy of lies and self-aggrandizement from an unrelenting narcissist with no ability to temper his own apparent madness.
Sure, its important to remind the American people that the president and his staff have little contact with reality. But dont give them the free ride of repeating the lie.
I know that many of you are working god-awful hours to chronicle the absurdity and malevolence of this administration. I believe that you care deeply about your responsibility to the American public to convey the truth.
But I beg you to consider a new approach to our critical profession. I urge you, in the face of what may be the scariest threat yet to our civility as a nation and our freedom as individuals, to consider a new tactic in covering the current presidency.
Specifically, stop reporting everything they say or do.
Stop repeating gratuitously the lies (or the fantasies). Stop reupping the ante. Stop restoking the flames of idiocy.
Stop seeking an Oval Office reaction to every misstep.
Case in point: the presidents insistence that his predecessor wiretapped his phones.
The claim was absurd from first tweet, but of course we needed evidence, so those initial reports were probably necessary. But when the Senate Intelligence Committee and the (Republican) Speaker of the House said Thursday that no such evidence existed, the story was over. Done. Finished. Or should have been.
Then came yesterday afternoons performance by the presidents mouthpiece. He stands by it, Sean Spicer said about his boss and the flatly discredited claim. And the headlines resurfaced, once again producing a he-says/they-rebut, were-in-charge-of-the-dialogue victory. Its difficult to speak louder than the guy with the biggest microphone. But guess what? He cant count on that microphone if you we dont ask the question or honor the response.
Sure, its important to remind the American people that the president and his staff have little contact with reality. But dont give them the free ride of repeating the lie.
I know, I know the monster of competition is on your backs. Bosses often have more on their minds than principles; editors dont exist. You have no time to process your interviews before theyre running on the air, live; no one to challenge your assumptions from the vantage point of more experience, more wisdom. You have no time to think.
And yes, I know, hes the president, and theyre all the presidents men. Dont they have to be covered? Well, no. Not if theyre saying nothing new. Not if theyre spewing garbage.
And yes, I know, hes the president, and theyre all the presidents men. Dont they have to be covered?
Well, no.
Not if theyre saying nothing new.
Not if theyre spewing garbage.
Not if the incoherence is so apparent even they can make jokes about it.
Even when major politicians say important and new things, they dont always get air time. Once, during the historic 1984 vice-presidential campaign of Democrat Geraldine Ferraro the first woman to run on a major party ticket I wanted to do a piece on her surprising face-off with Reagan-friendly autoworkers in the Midwest. My ABC News desk turned me down, full up with stories before noon that day.
I reported, they decided; thats the way it works. I get it.
But the 24/7 pressure of todays endless news cycle has produced a new dynamic, and the catnip of TV ratings as everyone scrambles for new eyeballs has too often led to the easy way out. The quick story, the one that requires no contemplation. Just throw up the latest sound bite and wait for the next one.
Back in the 1970s, as a correspondent for WCBS-TV News in New York, I had a smart colleague who used to flesh out every news conference he covered with actual facts where the speaker was right, and where wrong. Were not human microphone stands, hed say, belligerently and accurately, frustrating an earlier generation of New York politicians.
By all means, keep up the pressure with stories on Russian influence and financial gain until we get some answers. Just Say No to the addictive nonsense.
Another sensible reporter from those early days, fed up with the insistence on granting equal time to often irrelevant opposing arguments, used to call what we were asked to do the delicatessen style of reporting a quarter-pound of this, a quarter-pound of that, even when the two kinds of baloney werent of equal value. It made for a good kosher sandwich, but sometimes, not very significant journalism.
Look, Im not talking about replacing fairness with bias here; nor about trading ice cream for broccoli. And plenty of reporters are, finally, labelling the lies. But pulling back on the repetition the facile regurgitation of everything from populist president to brilliant businessman to, well, making America great again and refusing to headline their version of the facts, might, in fact, free up time to report on things that matter.
By all means, keep up the pressure with stories on Russian influence and financial gain until we get some answers. Just Say No to the addictive nonsense.
Warn the mighty that if they continue to spew word salads instead of sentences, fanciful illusions rather than provable facts, you wont put them on the air or in print. What was good enough for Humpty Dumpty When I use a word, he told Alice as she wandered through the looking-glass, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less wont fly with the American people anymore. Our version of that inversion was the presidents reliance on an infinity of fun house mirrors: Tweeting out the inanity of the wiretap after he saw it mentioned on a wholly unreliable TV show.
If a TV lie is repeated on Twitter and nobody responds, does it fall on any ears at all?
So Im hoping someone will be bold enough to take up the challenge. To stop treating empty opinions like breaking news; to cut off access to publicity the way youd stop reading a book full of gibberish.
And while Im on the subject, one more thing.
Could one of you one reporter, anywhere please say to any Trump surrogate, or to the president himself, when he or they utter one of those unintelligible, fact-free collections of syllables could you just say, please, What are you talking about?
Thanks. We need you more than ever.
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Memo to the Media: How Not to Cover the President (Original Post)
babylonsister
Mar 2017
OP
elias7
(3,997 posts)1. They should consult psychiatry.
I have deal with one sociopath in my life and the indeed do not respond like a normal person. Their gift is to grift, to bullshit, to turn the tables in a seemingly impossible manner because their minions are captivated.
Ignore press conferences. Ignore tweets. Ignore everything the say. No more surrogates on cable. They cannot stand to not be the center of attention.
I agree with the OP, and it is up to the us and the media to save us, a hopefully a few republicans with any moral fiber.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)2. Here's the pictorial version of that article (from Lakoff)
:large