Kristoff: The Media Helped Make Trump: "We Were Lap Dogs, Not Watchdogs"

[kpete]

My Shared Shame: The Media Helped Make Trump
Nicholas Kristof MARCH 26, 2016

:large



MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/opinion/sunday/my-shared-shame-the-media-helped-make-trump.html?_r=0
plus some interesting comments here:
https://twitter.com/NickKristof/status/713874739333189633

[underpants]

1. Yeah, uh, about that Iraq war....

[2naSalit]

7. ^^^THIS^^^

[malaise]

10. +1,000

Truth will out

[GreenEyedLefty]

12. ^^YES

Trump is about a million times less dangerous than GWB and the BFEE, and they're just now getting around to wringing their hands???

[Volaris]

28. It's just now dangerous TO THEM.

so NOW they care.
fuckers.

[hibbing]

19. Yes, what about that?

That famous liberal media were like bulldogs in questioning the idiot son and his cabal of criminal cohorts in the White House while they lied to promote the war, yeah right. I'll never forgive or forget all those criminals and their willing whores in the media for what that war has done to the people of Iraq and the region, let alone all the veterans who have served there.

Peace

[nruthie]

2. Ain't that the truth.

They have followed along like a pack of sheep. Enabling a demogauge.

[C_U_L8R]

3. y'think?

I really wish more journalists would stand up stronger
for their profession and shame away the paid poseurs.

[JHB]

4. And you'll all do it again, Nicky, because you guys...

...never get fired for it! Not so much as a demotion. Do you guys at least lose a bonus, or don't you even pay that price for not doing your job?

It's the sort of thing that leads people to as what exactly your job is, and whether it's not the one in your job description.

[Nay]

14. They ARE doing their jobs, though -- making tons of money for their

owners. That's also why they don't get fired.

[sendero]

5. You could say that .....

.... about any subject or personality. There is no fourth estate left in America, its spin, lies by omission and outright progaganda 24/7. Why should this be any different?

[closeupready]

15. +1000.

[Trust Buster]

6. The Right wing media.

[mulsh]

8. " deserved much more scrutiny of his bankruptcies and mediocre investing." so much of

this article is in the past tense it appears the "Journal of Record" and its stenographers have given up on any kind of investigative reports or any more of the scant fact checking Kristof highlights.

Yes the media is in large part to blame. They want to scape goat the people they consistently condescend to and put down but as a person on the periphery of that group I can assure you those folk know exactly who to blame. NY Times, CNN, Faux, MSNBC- Rachael, Chris, Chris in particular, et al.

[1939]

9. Not lap dogs, just opportunists

The media sold themselves out for "good copy". Trump fed them a steady diet of sound bites and outrage and they just spread their legs in order to get a scoop on the circus acts.

[Wounded Bear]

11. Do lapdogs really cheer that much?

They have hardly been obsequious in their support for RW bullshit.

[Nay]

13. As usual, we get the fakey apology after the damage is done. Just

fuck right off, Kristol. You and your buddies knew exactly what you were doing and you did it on purpose.

[jwirr]

16. Were lapdogs? Still are.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Have been for 30 years...

Don't try to pretend this is a new development. People in your business are nothing but glorified entertainment reporters

[Jim Lane]

18. Exactly! It didn't start with Trump or Bush, but goes back at least to Reagan

The book On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency detailed the process in 1988. A summary:

ON BENDED KNEE: THE PRESS AND THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY presents a history and an indictment of the relations between Ronald Reagan’s White House and the major U.S. news media. Based on more than 175 interviews with most of the key figures in the White House and the press, the book exposes one of the great scandals of 20th century American politics–how the press, both through government manipulation and voluntary self-censorship, abdicated its responsibility to report on what was really going on during Reagan’s eight years as president. Indeed, as author Mark Hertsgaard reveals, there were many instances of network and press executives at CBS, The New York Times, ABC and elsewhere, stifling their own reporters’ coverage of such stories as Reaganomics, the invasion of Grenada and the Iran-Contra Affair.

[6000eliot]

20. Not only did they not do their duty to the American public,

they actively ENCOURAGED Trump and his supporters because it was money in their pockets.

[certainot]

21. this is less about trump that what crapped trump out- talk radio

the real failure is the total ignore-ance of talk radio by the left/liberals dems the last 30 years while 1200 radio stations kicked our ass over and over.

money in politics? at a cheap $1000/hr x 1200 x 15 hrs a day, that's a nearly 5 BILLION$ per year pro trump/wall st/ and anti liberal infomercials.

that is where trump is from, and it wouldn't matter a bit if the "drive-by liberal " media fact checked anything- limabugh and savage and hundreds of local blowhards are making excuses for him and he's riding 25 years of unchallenged alternate reality repetition.

making the whole thing really absurd and tragic is that without these 90 universities supporting 260 limbaugh stations the whole talk radio PSYOPS would fall apart.

[DallasNE]

22. Dog Bites Man Story

The 5 major networks have been lapdogs for at least the last 30 years so this doesn't tell us anything we haven't known for a very long time. The same can be said about the lack of fact checking and Bob Schieffer has been part of the problem for all of those years.

[Solly Mack]

23. Snort. After-the-fact mea culpas for an action willingly and intentionally embraced.

Cause, gee, they were just too caught up in the moment? Too stupid to know what they were doing?

Liars?

[tenderfoot]

24. Trump - like the Kardashians today - was FOISTED upon us against our will

Last edited Mon Mar 28, 2016, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)

They had him on the Today Show back in 1980. Why he was on? Who knows... but he was shoved toward humanity, coddled and promoted by the media. So yeah, he's a media creation all right. He should have been shown the door after the USFL.

[valerief]

25. Plunder and whoops! Plunder and whoops! You go after what you want, declare ignorance,

and say whoops!

That's the strategy of TPTB, the "Who could have known?" strategy.

In the Trump case, you served him up, as ordered as part of the regular brainwashing strategy of TPTB to stoke racism and the normal diversion of REAL issues in a presidential campaign, and then you say, "Whoops!" when his destructive influence becomes too great to ignore. Then TPTB has an excuse to serve up Ryan at a brokered convention to a frothing, rabid, hateful constituency eager to vote Republican ("cuz them Dems are all them welfare queens and fence hoppers and terrorists&quot . And Ryan doesn't have to say one hateful thing during what's left of the campaign.

It's so tiresome. Plunder and whoops! Plunder and whoops!

TPTB don't make mistakes.

[Major Nikon]

26. Kristoff certainly had no problems with demagoguery as long as it was serving his neocon agenda

It's more than a bit hypocritical for him to wag that finger now.

[Volaris]

27. Oh so NOW there's a problem with Journalistic 'integrity'.

If you wanted watchdogs instead of what you have, you fuckers probably shouldn't have repealed the Fairness Doctrine. And if you're REALLY serious about fixing this problem, there would be a House floor vote to reinstate it TOMORROW (won't happen, I know but nice try)

The media is doing what the Republican Party and Corporate Consolidation has wanted them doing for the last 20 years, which is the journalistic equivalent of fluffing the Male Talent. What YOU'RE afraid of is that THIS TIME YOU'RE THE ONES WHO ARE GOING TO GET FUCKED.

guess what? Now you get to sleep in the Bed you've Made, with the Lover that comes with it. No sympathy from me, not even a little bit.

[Bad Dog]

29. That's why America was the only country where public opinion favoured the illegal war in Iraq.

It wasn't just the broadcasters either.

[Chipper Chat]

30. No more obvious than 2 weeks ago when

CNN and MSNBC showed several lengthy segments of an empty podium where "Donald Trump is due to speak at any moment" while ignoring a major speech by Bernie Sanders which was happening live. (I wanted to kick my television).

[NoMoreRepugs]

31. How can an asshat like Kristoff be taken seriously

when he is so seldom correct about ANYTHING?