More lopsided than a bad boob job
With the fifth pick in the draft, your newspaper says they did right.
I’m sorry. I really am. I feel like a broken record here. And, I am. Tune out if you’re sick of this rant. But the quality of news is awful. No. Not awful. Useless. No. Not useless. Jaded, sided, slanted, and more lopsided than a bad boob job. If you don’t want to hear it, I get it. You’re excused. Come back again tomorrow. If you’re still here…
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The other night, “legendary” journalist Carl Bernstein showed up on Anderson Cooper’s 360°. You may recall Carl from Washington Post investigative stories like Watergate.
Well, Carl did some digging about Biden being unable to use a McDonalds kiosk to order a Happy Meal. To be fair, swapping out the apple slices for something more deep fried can be tricky.
Probably worth reminding people, I don’t care about politics. I don’t have a party affiliation. And, I don’t vote in any country. I have equal disdain for pretty much all politicians. This is not about politics.
I’m a media guy and this is about media. I hereby renounce Media… and all its works… and all its pomps.
And, we’re back.
Anderson leads him in, “legendary… New reporting from Carl Bernstein.” I’m going to emphasize, “New.” Because if this weren’t new, someone would have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
So, Carl comes on an says unabashedly with seemingly genuine surprise, “The Joe Biden we saw the other night was not a one-off. There have been 15-20 of these occasions in the past year and a half…People around the President are aware… including some reporters,…”
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa
Year and half. That’s not, “new.” Ok. Like those old NBC ads when we didn’t watch Cheers in its first season and it placed dead last and the network didn’t have a summer replacement and Brandon Tartikoff believed in, “If you have seen it, it’s new to you.” I guess it was new to Carl and all his pals in real media.
Which brings me to, “reporters.” If you’re aware of something like, say, the President of the United States being, oh, I don’t know, incapable of presiding and you don’t “report” it, you’re not a reporter. Carl may call you one. And, you may have a byline at a fancy paper. And your Twitter (‘cause you still call it that) bio says, “Reporter.” But, Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy and you’re no reporter.
That got part of my goat. The rest of my goat got got, when someone I respect is always my first morning read, Bo Sacks, chose to highlight this story in his daily newsletter to lots of media people.
Journalism’s trust problem is about money, not politics
Maybe if this were published a couple of weeks ago, it might have been excusable. But it wasn’t. It was *new*. There’s that word again. It was published on July 1st. An Associate Professor of Communication from the University of Utah penned this. He is trying to tell us that money; not trust is the primary reason people don’t trust journalists.
“In short, people are skeptical of the news and distrustful of journalists, not because they think journalists want to brainwash them into voting certain ways, but because they think journalists want to make money off their attention above all else.”
Read it again if you have to. It’s kind of a biggie. He surveyed 34 people on Zoom to reach this conclusion.
In the wake of the biggest media failure since Renaissance scribes insisted the Sun revolved the flat world, he found a way to defend unreported festering turds and close ranks around poor communications. Congratulations, Professor, Jacob L. Nelson.
If democracy dies in the darkness, it’s because no one at the Post bothered to shine a light on anything. Just like no one at the Times is printing all the news that’s fit to print. Those aren’t words to live by, they’re marketing taglines. Taglines up there with Sega’s 1992-ish classic ad, “The more you play with it, the harder it gets.”
The cat is out of the bag. The cows have left the barn. Elvis has left the building. News (especially but not exclusively) around politics is absolutely worthless.
Like I said, this isn’t about politics. It’s about all news.
A real writer I know messaged me the other day, “I cannot believe that the London Times employs a journalist who doesn't know better than to ask ‘yes/no’ questions.”
It’s about more than media reporting on media. It’s about sports.
The NHL Draft was this weekend. The Montreal Canadiens (yes, that’s how they spell it), had the fifth pick. With it, they drafted a Russian guy named Demtri something. Sorry, no. Ivan something. Anyway, the guy who writes for outlet that holds the national NHL rights in Canada wrote a story about the pick.
He asked the player’s agent if the player was good. “Absolute superstar.” He backed up this specious claim in his second ‘graph with a quote from the player himself. “Self-described gamebreaker.” OK, let’s turn to the GM who picked the player. “We had him ranked No. 1… surprised that he was still available.”
Stultifying reporting there, Eric.
Now, Ivan may turn out to be a steal. Or he may be a bust. But Habs fans get no value from the awful. No, useless. No, jaded, sided, slanted, and more lopsided than a bad boob job reporting.
Look I don’t care if you don’t trash a president running for reelection. I don’t care if you eschew intelligence and ask Elon Musk “yes/no” questions at Cannes. But when this slipshod style of reporting trickles down to the people who cover sports, it’s a travesty and something needs to be done about it.
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To confirm my objectivity, I interviewed one friend of mine about all of this. “I haven’t watched major broadcast news in years. My sense is that viewers don’t trust the networks like they once did and believe there’s a definitive bias within their newsrooms.”
I objected, “Objection. Speculative. You can’t know what ‘viewers’ think. The Supreme Court just weighed in on that.”
Friend, “Right, right. I consume a variety of sources. Almost all written. WSJ, NYT, National Review. I read the Atlantic with a perpetual smirk. Occasionally, I flip though the NY Post so I can laugh at them ripping NY politicians.”
I asked, “Carl Bernstein was surprised. Were you?”
Friend, “No. This has been a major story for a while. NYT and other major networks haven’t been reporting it.”
Me, “Any closing words?”
Friend, “Over pizza tonight, one of my boys (they’re 14 and 15) asked, ‘if your Uber driver showed up and it was Joe Biden, would you get in the car?’”
The kids knew. Maybe there is hope.