Thursday, March 01, 2018
Political Mayhem Thursday: News of the week
At the start of the Trump administration, I was really taken by the way the news cycle seemed to speed up-- a lot. I would read the paper at the end of the day, and it seemed like it was from the previous week because so much weird stuff had happened. I figured that eventually things would slow down.
But they haven't.
Yesterday the sitting president wrote that he was disgusted by his Attorney General. And that was not the big story of the day. The big story was that a 29-year-old White House aide resigned. We live in strange times. And when I picked up the paper at the end of the day the lead story was that Jared Kuschner had lost his Top Secret security clearance-- news that seemed like it was from ages ago.
Some of this is intentional, I think. The attack on the Attorney General was just... well, I would call it a "self-inflicted wound," but the President clearly does not think it was any kind of mistake.
It seems as if what they are shooting for is to have a crash every day. I've been to NASCAR races (with IPLawGuy), and a lot of the people are there because of the crashes. They keep things interesting. And my impression is that being interesting--and having people pay attention to him--is very important to Donald Trump.
But they haven't.
Yesterday the sitting president wrote that he was disgusted by his Attorney General. And that was not the big story of the day. The big story was that a 29-year-old White House aide resigned. We live in strange times. And when I picked up the paper at the end of the day the lead story was that Jared Kuschner had lost his Top Secret security clearance-- news that seemed like it was from ages ago.
Some of this is intentional, I think. The attack on the Attorney General was just... well, I would call it a "self-inflicted wound," but the President clearly does not think it was any kind of mistake.
It seems as if what they are shooting for is to have a crash every day. I've been to NASCAR races (with IPLawGuy), and a lot of the people are there because of the crashes. They keep things interesting. And my impression is that being interesting--and having people pay attention to him--is very important to Donald Trump.
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Just another day in Trumpland.
You missed the real late news that the Kushner Company's received some really big loans from Apollo (some big private equity firm) and Citigroup. Apollo in particular after a visit to the White House. Let's hope someone delves into the source of that funding as apparently the amount was much 'larger' than what Apollo normally invests.
Oh wait, we don't have access to White House visitor logs because they are scared we will really find out what the hell is going on in the People's house.
You missed the real late news that the Kushner Company's received some really big loans from Apollo (some big private equity firm) and Citigroup. Apollo in particular after a visit to the White House. Let's hope someone delves into the source of that funding as apparently the amount was much 'larger' than what Apollo normally invests.
Oh wait, we don't have access to White House visitor logs because they are scared we will really find out what the hell is going on in the People's house.
Trump is obliviously the driving force behind much of this, and in ordinary times it would be news that the president is running the White House like a reality show producer. But these are not ordinary times, and the news media (particularly cable news) are now fully complicit in turning the news cycle into a circus. Some of this is a product of news media partisanship--Fox News was not exactly falling over itself to undertake good old fashioned investigative reporting in the Obama era, not when outrage 140 characters at a time was so good for ratings; any more than CNN current programming of 24/7 hot-take reactions to Trump tweets--but much of it is simply the media choosing to let the tail wag the dog. When everything is "BREAKING NEWS," nothing is. And what we lose in the process is any grasp of what's important.
When serious media and clickbait are indistinguishable, we have bigger problems than Trump.
When serious media and clickbait are indistinguishable, we have bigger problems than Trump.
CTL-- I don't think serious media are obsessed with click bait; we aren't there yet. I love the NY Times and think they do great work. BUT I agree that CNN, for one, has gone over the falls on the reactions to every tweet. Ignore them! They don't really mean anything other than provocations...
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