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http://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-sketch-artist-white-house-briefing-sean-spicer-2017-6
In response to the White House's recent trend of prohibiting cameras at press briefings, CNN on Friday said it sent its in-house Supreme Court sketch artist, Bill Hennessy, to Sean Spicer's latest press briefing.
CNN said it "equated press briefings to a Supreme Court argument -- an on-the-record event at which cameras are banned." The network argued sketches of the briefing had news value in the same way courtroom sketches do.
News organizations and the White House Correspondents' Association have protested the Trump administration's decision to scale back on-camera press briefings to unprecedented levels.
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CNN Sends Sketch Artist to White House Press Briefing
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If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @04:12AM (14 children)
Not a chance in million there. Note even in CNN's 'no cameras sketch' front and center there are cameras. In typical fashion, they couldn't be bothered to explain evidence that seems to directly contradict what they're sensationalizing. Just as importantly, however, is the fact that all conferences are also transcribed. You can see a list/log of all conferences [here](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings). If anything was overtly left out or faked for malicious purposes, that is something the entire media would be immediately and clearly show the American public. That is also something that I think nobody would, ever, support.
However, I don't mind seeing less cameras. The reason is that I think the media is mostly now primarily trying to provoke gaffes. But these gaffes are presented as actual positions (or contradictions) instead of just gaffes. For instance here [youtube.com] is Obama stating he thinks that there are 60 states - he's already visited 57 of them too! It wasn't a joke - just a gaffe or brain fart. But in today's state of the media this would be reported front and center as 'US PRESIDENT DOES NOT KNOW HOW MANY STATES THERE ARE' with the video of him stating 57 states used as supplemental evidence. I think most people are used to knowing that what's written is subject to being taken out of context - yet somehow when something is in video it must be a complete and absolute representation of the truth. You can find countless clips like that of Obama, and anybody for that matter. But the media has sunk to new lows and is not only reporting gaffes as statements of official view, but actively seeking to provoke said gaffes.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @04:40AM (8 children)
You might have a point, if we weren't waaay past that already, with no visible consequences.
To give some examples, this administration has repeatedly lied about stuff that has video evidence, and transcriptions of official conversations with foreign leaders have been withheld and only false summaries given. Still a third of the population supports them, because the media "can't be trusted" and if you don't believe everything the White House says without question you're a traitor.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @06:01AM (7 children)
No, we aren't "waay past that point." Let me give a simple example [politifact.com] from 'politifact' of a lie. Trump's statement, they rated as false was: "When you look for a job, you can't find it and you give up. You are now considered statistically employed."
They seems like a pretty lol, Trump is such a lying idiot type line. However, the official unemployment number (what someone is referring to when they say the US unemployment rate is x%) is known as the U3. The U3 does not include 'marginally attached workers' which is what somebody who was searching for work but gave up are defined as. Here [bls.gov] are the BLS (bureau of labor statistics) definitions. Here [bls.gov] are the numbers for the various sorts of unemployment and what is counted in each. The politifact article further lied in defining people who gave up as a discouraged worker. A discouraged worker is a subset of marginally attached workers, being defined as people who sought within the past 4 weeks. The definition they gave in their "fact check" for discouraged workers was, in fact, the definition for a marginally attached worker. Can you see why people begin to see 'fact checkers' as fake news?
To be clear I'm in no way suggesting Trump does not lie, and regularly. However (and this is in no way a defense of said actions), this is par for the course for all politicians. I think the behavior of our media is fueling political radicalism (on both sides) and I think that's never going to end well for anybody. The right thinking every president is about to turn into Hitler (or the anti christ for those that swing that way) is nothing new. I find it disconcerting that this stupidity is now also infecting the left. I don't see how two equal but opposite extremes can lead to anything but conflict. And nobody's going to win there.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @01:56PM (6 children)
But Trump didn't say (per your post) "discouraged worker" or "marginally attached worker."
He said (per your post) "employed."
I don't give a fuck what he meant because anything Trump says is a Rorschach test. You're reading something Trump didn't actually say into something he said.
(Score: 3, Informative) by art guerrilla on Monday June 26 2017, @02:15PM (4 children)
dog almighty, you ARE dense, and simply overcome with TDS...
geezus, i don't like tee-rump, but you people are seriously delusional...
.
THE FACT of the matter is (aside from this being a GOOD example of the mediawhore's grandstanding gotchas the previous poster was very capably explicating), the unemployment numbers ARE TOTALLY FUCKED, and ONE major reason is EXACTLY as tee-rump mentioned in his VALID shorthand: 'STATISTICALLY EMPLOYED'... and he is 100% correct on that: people who have 'given up' looking, are effectively counted as 'employed' as far as the BULLSHIT stats go...
.
that YOU don't have a clue as to the REAL unemployment picture AND how it is GROSSLY distorted by statistical trickery and merely redefining things out of existence, then you don't know shit about shit...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @04:44PM
but that isn't news -- even the last administration acknowledged this definition of how employment numbers are counted. Each administration will even take advantage of something they claimed the previous one couldn't claim. It's like negative profit instead of taking a loss--the numbers are the same but the wording changes.
The propaganda in the media is the only difference. The actual means of accounting it has not differed between administrations.
Trump just went off script as usual. His (perhaps inadvertant or just unguarded) honesty is not a change in longstanding policy and rhetoric, but I think it caught people off-guard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @04:56PM
We need a new category: too stubborn to relocate and too dumb to retrain.
Are they unemployed? Sure. Do they want a job? Sure. Are they waiting for a messiah to save them? Sure. Are they going to get one? Hah hah hhaah. I mean, sure. Trump.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 26 2017, @09:16PM
This way, the US has half the unemployment of the pinko commie socialists in Europe... Do you really want to be like Europe? Look how their silly socialist system doesn't work, with all the unemployment! Big government is bad, if all those people are unemployed!
Stay in the US and vote consevative, for only then shall you be rewarded with a non-living-wage poverty-assisted part-time at-will precarious job!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @11:58PM
Great opinion. Got any evidence to back it up?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @02:15PM
He said you're be considered statistically employed, and that is 100% accurate. Imagine there was literally not a single job available in the US and everybody wanted one. After exactly one month we'd have, according to the official numbers, 0% unemployment. That makes 0 sense, but it's the absurd system we have and exactly what he was mocking.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Monday June 26 2017, @02:12PM (1 child)
>But the media has sunk to new lows and is not only reporting gaffes as statements of official view, but actively seeking to provoke said gaffes.
This surely has nothing to do with the administration's position that such gaffes *are* statements the administration's of official view? "All (non-vetted) tweets are considered official statements by the president", "The president and a select circle are aware of what 'covfefe' means", and so on?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @04:58PM
Why can't we all just let The President's words speak for themselves? Next question. GOTO 10
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @03:52PM (1 child)
There may be some truth in what you say, but I doubt that is the whole story. As anybody who has gone through office politics, nobody reads the "meeting minutes," until way later when there is a problem.
If Trump says, "I'm going to pay $30Million to Education," nobody's going to check the White House transcript for each and every individual statement. Not until things change weeks later.
Let's say that more gaffs occur. The press conference says, "no Russian interference in the election, never happened, it's all fake news, we're dropping it." Transcript says, "there is little evidence of Russian involvement in the elections." What kind of news report would there be that the transcript was somewhat off? It would be a huge deal in a congressional inquiry, though.
The further we get divorced from THE TRUTH, the less ability we have to say that 2+2=4, the more dangerous it is. This seems like a minor thing, but little things can add up, and Gaslighting [wikipedia.org] is a thing. In fact, speaking for myself, when I look at the Presidency in light of Gaslighting (and in comparison to what's happened in Russia, Turkey, and several other countries), I get very scared.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @06:11PM
Except it isn't just office meeting minutes. It is a word for word transcription of what is said. After the meetings you're going to have people looking through every word that was said looking for a way to make tomorrow's headlines.
On the topic of gaslight, I will say something I've observed about the Trump administration is troubling to me. It's pretty safe to say that he's gone through an infinitely more vicious directionless attack from the media, with a unified front, than any politician - ever. Take even this [nytimes.com] - an archive of the NYT coverage during the height of Watergate. It's amazing to see the impartial and detailed reporting of the facts compared to the frenzied speculation and interjection of opinion that's become standard for them today.
But anyhow, the thing that's troubling to me is that this coverage seems to have had minimal to no effect. And I think it has to do with how Trump handles the heat. When he apologized over the 'grab them by the pussy' banter, he got torn to pieces by the media for it - and took a substantial hit in the polls. Apologizing or even accepting that you are wrong is not seen as a strength of character, but something to be used to attack somebody with. He's made a lot of incorrect statements and done plenty of insensitive things since then. He's never once apologized. For that matter he never even acknowledges when he's wrong. I don't think this is anything like gaslighting. It's sadly a result of our current system. This even plays out in social media. When somebody apologizes it's not grounds to accept and move on, it's dogpile time - make them hurt even more! Take for instance 'shirtgate' with the Rosetta scientist Matt Taylor. As he broke into tears a genuine and broken man on a live stream to apologize - there was no sort of media reflect on whether doing this to a person over a t-shirt was appropriate. Instead, it was used to further justify their hostility and aggression and in some cases bring even more - with some calling for his dismissal of a career he worked a lifetime to build... because of a shirt.
So no, sadly I think the reason people like Trump simply do not apologize and do not back down is because it's simply not smart to do for a person in the public eye. We're nasty little critters anxious to hop on any sign of weakness from our 'enemies.'
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday June 26 2017, @09:39PM
What are you talking about? Of course there are 57 states -- it says so right on the ketchup bottle.