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Just before the dawn of the Trump administration, journalism in Washington, DC, faces an existential crisis -- but virtually no one in the profession is willing to diagnose it.
Here it is: For the first time, words don't matter. In August, as a guest on MSNBC's Meet the Press Daily, I noted that voters take Donald Trump seriously but not literally, while journalists take him literally, but not seriously.
[...] And journalists keep falling for it because they, like politicians, over-value words -- and they are now covering a politician who does not. President-elect Trump still takes the same cavalier approach to verbal description as he would in hawking a condo tower that's yet to be designed. And more than enough voters don't seem to mind. Trump has spent a career interacting with journalists, but as the first president never to serve in the military, the cabinet, or another public office before his election to the White House, he's never been immersed in the word culture that drives political journalism. [...] Most recently, when Trump announced he had chosen South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to be his ambassador to the United Nations, journalists raced to re-tweet a March rant from Trump in which he said the people of South Carolina should be embarrassed by her.
[...] Writing endless columns on this or that flip-flop based on Trump's conflicting rhetoric is wasting the time of the readers and viewers who have decided that's not what matters with this particular President-elect. [...] If the press covers Trump the way it covered prior presidents -- too literally -- it may find its own customers take journalism itself a lot less seriously.
Source: CNN
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:57AM
It's a bit like Brexit in the UK:
Some people are now saying: "You see! Don't be so frightened. It's six months after Brexit, and nothing bad has happened yet!"
Where they ignore the fact that Brexit hasn't begun yet (May said she would maybe kinda probably leave the EU in March 2017. Depending on a few lawsuits, the weather, phase of the moon, parliament, you know how it is.)
Of course it is the sovereign right of nations to dither, procrastinate, change their mind etc.; that often happens after a change of government.
But it makes it more difficult to consider doing business with those kind of countries, if you can't make a mental prediction model of what a *current* government's official policy is.
I get the strong impression that the current prediction model of what the UK and USA are going to do in 2017 is: "we don't know yet what the policies are going to be, but you'll find out after the fact".
In such a case, the only predictor is, what kind of people have the government hired as ministers to do the work?
For the UK I have read that the health minister, mr. Jeremy Hunt, is somebody who wanted to privatise the NHS:
from wikipedia:
For the USA I read that the prospective energy minister, mr. Harold Hamm [wikipedia.org], is the 98th richest person in the world, and made his fortune with shale oil fracking.
And I read that the prospective head of the EPA, mr. Myron Ebell [wikipedia.org], worked for the last 19 years as a climate change denialist.
From this I suspect that in the UK, the Tories are going to try to pull the plug on the NHS, and in the USA, the Republicans are going to try to erase Obama's autograph on the Paris Agreement [theguardian.com].
In other shocking news, China declared that climate change is not a Chinese hoax [theguardian.com].
Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:42PM
Friend, don't be afraid!
America is about to be made GREAT again.
And the UK is going to make a SUCCESS of Brexit.
This is word from the highest people in the land, get on board and you'll be TIRED of winning real soon.