CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC & the rest of the undaring US television media outlets should apologize

[mtnsnake]

for nurturing a full blown sociopath all through the primaries and general election for sake or high ratings and to line their own pockets with money paid for by the likes of the pharmaceutical companies who bore us to death with their million dollar drug commercials. They did their absolute best to give Trump ten times the coverage of anyone else, feeding upon the viewing public's addiction to ridiculous "reality" shows. By giving that clown the amount of coverage they did, while ignoring so many of the others, the media plopped Trump into the position he is in right now.

It didn't matter which of the channels you turned to. Whenever you switched channels in an effort to avoid seeing Trump's disgusting face, each and every channel was always focused on the orange blob. The media shoved him down our throats since the day he entered the primaries, all in the cause for high ratings. Without the US media's sustained efforts to enable him, Trump would have been nothing more than a blip on the radar, an unpleasant but forgotten memory by now. Instead, Trump is a never ending nightmare that keeps us awake in the middle of the night. Thanks, Media!

The US mainstream media that pollutes the airwaves today is far from liberal. It has not been liberal in decades, not even close. The "liberal" moniker that has been applied to the mainstream media by the right wing neo-cons is nothing more than the right wing's usual propaganda geared towards getting all their sheep to watch Fox News. Being liberal means being truthful and fair, but they were far from fair. The television media, including CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC et al, did their absolute best to equalize both candidates. That was not fair. It was shameful (I didn't include FOX on that list because anyone with half a cerebrum knows that FOX is nothing more than a right wing propaganda tool aimed at people who do not wish to think for themselves).

Trump is beyond the shadow of a doubt clinically insane. He is a sociopath. He is a pathological liar. He has zero conscience or empathy towards others. Not once did the media ever suggest that he was any of those things. They never did their job like true journalists do. Instead, they pulled a blanket over everyone's eyes to keep their "reality" show running full steam in the cause for high ratings. The only TV media outlet available to me that seemed to have any sense of dignity was BBC World News from the UK.

The US media did their best to make it appear as if Hillary and Trump had the same amount of baggage, hahaha, when anyone with less than half a brain knows that Trump's baggage is 100 times worse than all the other candidates combined. The most sickening thing to me is how they did everything possible to "even up" the two candidates, as if both candidates were equally bad, when again, anyone with any smarts knows that Donald Trump is more evil than all other Republican candidates combined, and that is saying something. Trouble is, this country has been so dumbed down over the past few decades that half the people are naive enough to actually believe everything they see and hear on TV. They don't do any digging for the facts that the TV media conveniently leaves out.

For all intents and purposes, today's US mainstream media is conservative, not liberal. They are controlled, guarded, dangerously cautious, and timid. I used to like CNN, but now I have to wonder if CNN really stands for Conservative News Network. All of the US television media outlets were disgraceful with how they fanned the flames of the Trump Horror Show. They are too invested in ratings, are too much Trump and nothing else but Trump, and are too intimidated by that bully to stand up to him. They are greedy self-serving unprofessional mouthpieces who call themselves journalists despite having little regard for the truth and making too few efforts to report the truth. Good journalists, no. Good actors, maybe. They make very little effort to distinguish what is true and what is a blatant lie. Instead of emphasizing all of Trump's lies AS lies, the media found it in their best interest to let Trump use the media as a sounding board to SPREAD his lies. Sickening.

[ZX86]

1. This is the same media

ignored the coup in 2000. The same media that showed GW standing on top of rumble and characterized as inspirational. The same media that cheer leaded the Iraq War and every lie that accompanied it.

This is small potatoes compared to that.

[lewebley3]

10. Stop watching coporation TV: Use radio internet only

[robbob]

11. Small potatoes now

...but we're just getting started...

If fascism rises in the USA it will be with the help of a complicit media. Even now, on NPR, CNN and other corporate news outlets I am seeing the "normalization" of Herr Drump, from applauding the appointment of an anti-school secretary of education to shugging off the impossible to ignore corruption and conflicts of interest that he is bringing to the table and is already exploiting.

[asuhornets]

2. I concur.....nt

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

3. Damn right... but these media fucks will NEVER change. Once we get back in office, the FCC needs to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

[SeattleVet]

6. If the FCC still exists; tRump is making noises about killing it off.

He thinks it's unneeded. He hasn't got a clue about everything it really does...same as he has no clue about the true functions and operations of any other agency or department he's appointing people to.

[Kathy M]

4. I do not think you are looking at the whole picture from the beginning .

An article worth reading ..... There is one person ( maybe a couple ) that lost the election that may have lost who their enemy / goal was in 2016 election . Hope you read in entirety . Here are a couple paragraphs . Honestly ask who is the real divider and label maker of people 's races and cultures in this country ......... Something to think about ...........

Article from " they always wanted Trump"

"So to take Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee: “This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field,” it read.

“The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.

“Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:
• Ted Cruz
• Donald Trump
• Ben Carson
We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."

Clinton strategists' initial reaction to Trump’s blaze through the primaries at the time was giddy disbelief, but back in New York the anti-Trump plan and machinery was still barely begun.

“I know you can’t look past Bernie and March primaries,” senior Democratic strategist and Clinton veteran Joel Johnson wrote to Palmieri on February 26, one week after Trump won South Carolina and four days after he won Nevada. “But who is in charge of the Trump swift boat project? Needs to be ready, funded and unleashed when we decided — but not a half assed scramble."

The final Trump research book still was not finished."

And now, with hours until polls close, Democrats’ yearlong divide is as deep as ever between those who see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to drive a stake through the Republican Party and those who think a mold-upending candidate like Trump has made for the toughest challenge in years. After all that, the final margin is unlikely to be a blowout, and it’s unlikely to be a squeaker.

But Clinton, at least, got the opponent her aides wanted, and a strategy to stick to."

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428

[duffyduff]

13. Nope. He was Jeff Zucker's baby from the beginning.

Trump was not a serious candidate for president. The Clinton campaign had no idea how a joke candidate would be manufactured into the monster we have now.

Zucker and Trump go back to 2003 when Zucker headed NBC Entertainment and Trump had his hit show The Apprentice. The conflict of interest was not revealed until much later on, when it was too late.

[CousinIT]

5. Corprat media same business attitude as Hair Trumpenfuhrer

Their ONLY motive, objective or obligation is to make MONEY. Nothing else matters.

This is why it's a YUUUUUUUGELY bad idea for a businessman to be President. Government is NOT all about making money at any cost. Any government that is, isn't a government that should exist. Especially not in the US.

So - yea. They LOVE Trump. For the YUUUUGE tax breaks he'll give them at our expense and for the ratings that garners them even MORE money.

The love of MONEY is indeed the root of all evil.

[randr]

7. Inventing new lies like "alt-right" aint makin it better

[DK504]

8. Nailed it!

You put everything I have said and thought for this entire clown car of media executives and their actions.

So perfectly stated. Thank you. Maybe I could learn from you.

[randr]

9. Even now they pretend the election is locked in for Trump

In their haste to be the first to declare victory for one side or the other they have neglected an important task.
They must keep us informed of the Constitutional process.
There is no final validation until the EC votes.
They had no problem waiting out the fiasco in Florida though they did rush the conclusion without warrent.
The SCOTUS may not have stepped in had the media done their job back then.

[duffyduff]

12. Best post of DU about this election. Thanks.

I have been saying the media, with Jeff Zucker and CNN in the forefront, are entirely responsible for this DISASTER.

Zucker created Trump the presidential candidate for ratings and ad revenue.

[Raastan]

14. And it is still happening by the promotion of false reasons to explain what went wrong and who is to

All the pundits look like fools now in light of the information coming out now about voter suppression, etc.

[CETrotman]

15. No...They should be boycotted

TUNE OUT THE MEDIA & VOTE WITH YOUR REMOTE!

The media knew Donald Trump was a con artist from the very moment he descended the escalator to the staged applause from an audience paid by him. Thus began the obsessive fraudulent media coverage of the Trump campaign. According to a Harvard University study, “Trump is arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee” --- and to our disgrace and despair, he is arguably the first bona fide media-created President-elect.

For the sake of ratings and profits corporate media ownership, through their complacency, empowered the platform of a misogynist, racist, xenophobic demagogue who is now the face of our country. Media columnist Jim Rutenberg reported CNN president Jeff Zucker gushing over the Trump-induced ratings. “These numbers are crazy — crazy.” CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves said, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. The money’s rolling in and this is fun.” But who’s laughing now.

Not only did the media enable and propel Trump’s rise, it also failed to subject his bizarre assertions, empty policy proposals, and troubling biography to the scrutiny normal candidates receive. With very little push back, the media was a launching pad for Trump's five-year foray into birtherism, when he claimed he sent his investigators to Hawaii and they found “unbelievable things” regarding President Obama’s birthplace. Trump, with very little challenge or outrage from the media, demanded to see the first African American President’s birth certificate (and his college transcripts). To date, the media has failed to investigate Trump's investigation.

The media, throughout the campaign, very timidly requested Trump to release his tax records and, of course, he refused knowing that there would be no repercussions from the media for his refusal, even though Trump was critical of Mitt Romney for being hesitant about releasing his tax records. Even when the media knew that there were no legitimate reasons for Trump not to release his records they failed to consistently and relentlessly hold him accountable. Conversely, the media relentlessly scrutinized Clinton for what she willingly disclosed in thirty years worth of tax records even when they couldn't dispute her tax records. What we know about Trump is horrific enough…but what we don’t know should give us all nightmares.

In comparison to their love fest and obsession with Trump, "Clinton received largely negative coverage across the eight news outlets. Whereas media coverage helped build up Trump, it helped tear down Clinton. Trump’s positive coverage was the equivalent of millions of dollars in ad-buys in his favor, whereas Clinton’s negative coverage can be equated to millions of dollars in attack ads, with her on the receiving end. Of all the candidates of recent decades who have been front-runners, she has had the strongest headwinds of negative coverage.” Whenever Clinton appeared to take off at the runway, in unison, the media was there to clip her wings with a quick “lack of trustworthy poll,” and a sly reminder that “people don’t like her…” This constant beat down ushered in the notion that lead to the dangerous territory of false equivalence. Mathew Ingram of Fortune had a similar sentiment, wondering: “How much of what the media engaged in was really an exercise in ‘false equivalence,’ in which a dubious story about Hillary Clinton’s use of email was treated the same as Trump’s sexual assault allegations or ties to Putin?” “The truth … is that the email server scandal is and always was overhyped bullshit,”

Matt Yglesias, a Vox writer wrote. “Future historians will look back on this dangerous period in American politics and find themselves astonished that American journalism, as an institution, did so much to distort the stakes by elevating a fundamentally trivial issue.”

Prior to the election, no one illustrated this irrational notion that ‘both candidates are equally flawed” better than Seth Meyers: “After all, these voters have a really difficult choice. Do they choose between someone who made the poor choice of keeping a private email server while Secretary of State, or do they choose the guy who,

* Called Mexicans rapists

* Claimed the president was born in Kenya

* Proposed banning an entire religion from entering the U.S.

* Mocked a disabled reporter

* Said John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured

* Attacked the parents of a fallen war hero

* Bragged about committing sexual assault

* Was accused by 12 women of committing sexual assault

* Said some of those women weren’t attractive enough for him to sexually assault

* Said more countries should get nukes

* Said he would force the military to commit war crimes

* Said a judge was biased because his parents were Mexican

* Said women should be punished for having abortions

* Incited violence at his rallies

* Called global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese

* Called for his opponent to be jailed

* Declared bankruptcy six times

* Bragged about not paying income taxes

* Stiffed his contractors and employees

* Lost a billion dollars in one year

* Scammed customers with his fake university

* Bought a 6-foot painting of himself with money from his fake foundation

* Has a trial for fraud coming up in November

* Insulted an opponent’s looks

* Insulted an opponent’s wife’s looks

* And, bragged about grabbing women by the pu**y.”

It’s a tough call.”

False equivalence by the news media is their most egregious and hideous sin. Sexual assault and using a private email are NOT equal. There were NOT “two evils.” There was one. And his name is Donald Trump. Joy Reid rightly blames the media for “equalizing Trump and Clinton.” The consequences are horrendous.

The media made a decisive decision to normalize Donald Trump's behavior throughout the excessive coverage of his campaign and gave him cover for his dangerous ideology, flawed decisions, and dog whistles to racist groups like the KKK, who heard and enthusiastically embraced and endorsed his reckless message. Now after aiding and abetting a known and

proven con-artist, fueling his rise, and selling out the country for ratings, the media whores want to normalize an astonishingly abnormal President-elect. Come together! Give this President-elect, who is endorsed by KKK, a chance--Forget that he degrades women; Forget he blocked African Americans from renting his property; Forget his xenophobic ranting; Forget his exuberant number of lawsuits; Forget he rigged the system (and probably the election…) to his advantage and refused to compensate hard working Americans; And forget he proudly boast about assaulting women. NO--We will NOT forget. We will not forget that the news media sold the presidency for three pieces of silver. And they want to continue to keep this shiny and abhorrent object in our face for four long years because though it is “bad for America, it is damn good for CBS, ABC, CNN and MSNBC. The money is rolling in and we are having fun.”

Comedy Central's Trevor Noah gave a scathing repudiation against news media on their responsibility for the rise of Donald Trump: "The media loves Trump, because covering Trump makes the media money…they are supposed to keep the system healthy,” Noah concluded, “but this year they are like a doctor who says, ‘I hate to see all these patients coming in with cancer, but I have to admit, it’s been really good for my practice. Oh and breaking news, here’s another cigarette.” At least the Surgeon General is considerate enough to warning us.

But we, the electorate, still have A vote left in us--A vote to deliberately bring down their ratings and affect their bottom-line; a Vote to drive down their “favorability number” just as they did Clinton’s. A vote to tune out the media and MAKE THEM PAY!

TUNE OUT CBS. TUNE OUT ABC. TUNE OUT NBC. TUNE OUT CNN. TUNE OUT MSNBC. Any time they force that shiny object on the screen, VOTE WITH YOUR REMOTE.

#MakeTheMediaPay

[CETrotman]

16. Alternative Media Sources

There are alternative Media outlets and talk shows to follow...can anyone recommend other reputable sources?

NPR

PBS

Lynn Cullen Show: http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/LynnCullenLive/Page

Free Speech TV https://www.freespeech.org/

Full Frontal with Samatha Bee (tbs): http://samanthabee.com

Chelsea Handler: http://www.chelseahandler.com

[bdamomma]

19. Thank you

and welcome to DU

[davidmp]

17. Baggage?

The only baggage Hillary had were some corporate speeches. Every thing else was fabricated by right winger and Russian trolls. I was for Bernie, and DWS did us wrong......... Hillary could have lead this country to a better future.

[bdamomma]

18. hit them in the pocketbook

aren't their DU'ers who are cancelling their subscriptions keep on doing that.

Also find other news outlets to listen to for instance Democracy Now or BBC, or Free Speech TV. Again hit them in pocketbook.

[KingCharlemagne]

20. After Trump leads them to the gallows or firing squads, I for one am

going to enjoy dancing on the graves of those MSM motherfuckers.