Judy Woodruff, Tamara Keith and Amy Walter (PBS NewsHour, 11/21/16) discuss how Trump distracts us as a way of avoiding talking about what Trump distracts us from.
Euphemism isn’t journalism, but conflating the two can be irresistible for mainline journalists when candor might seem overly intrepid. Two months before Inauguration Day, a straw in the US media wind pointed toward evasive fog around the incoming president when PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff convened a roundtable segment (11/21/16) with program regulars Tamara Keith of NPR and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report.
From the outset, the journalists emphasized that the new president won’t be “traditional.” Walter said: “We have to stop treating Donald Trump like this is just a traditional, normal political candidate who’s now going to be a traditional, normal president.”
Moments later Keith, a White House correspondent for NPR, was explaining that Trump “has not related to the press or the public in a traditional way ever. And he’s had an incredible skill at distracting, at creating—there was this movie Up and there was a dog who gets distracted, and, squirrel, squirrel. That’s what happens.”
As happens so often, top-of-the-line political journalists marveled at Trump’s ability to create distractions while they kept themselves—and their audience—distracted from substantive matters. As Keith immediately demonstrated:
Every time there is a story that is not favorable to him, like settling the Trump University lawsuit for $25 million, suddenly there is a Twitter fight.
Meanwhile, he has skillfully avoided sort of the type of environment that a press conference creates, the environment where you get asked a question, and then somebody else asks a question, then somebody else asks a question, it builds on it, and you really can’t escape. There’s nothing like a press conference.
And his transition team is saying, well, you know, don’t tell him what’s traditional and what’s conventional. This is Donald Trump.
The way Keith veered away after a mention of an actual issue—like the Trump University fraud settlement—to focus on Trump’s stagecraft is, unfortunately, how Beltway journalism typically treats a “traditional, normal president.” When Woodruff commented that Trump is “keeping us on the edge of our seats,” Walter responded: “And he loves doing that. Remember, this is a candidate who said, I like being unpredictable.” From there, Walter was soon back to how untraditional Trump is:
So, this isn’t surprising to me at all that he’s continuing this as president. I think this is what we learned during the course of the campaign is that just, every day, we would come in and we would say, well, maybe now is the time that he’s going to pivot. Maybe now he’s going to look more like a traditional candidate.
That just is not going to happen. And so as he’s parading these people through, you can argue that he’s bringing a lot of different faces and voices, but the people that he’s picked are the people we should be focusing on.
But somehow the seven-and-a-half minute segment never got around to focusing. When the discussion went through the motions of covering the ground of Trump’s major appointees and nominees at that point—Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Mike Pompeo got brief mentions—there wasn’t the slightest indication that in total they had backgrounds inclusive of racism, anti-immigrant fervor, extreme hostility to Muslims, antisemitism and support for torture.
Instead, there was this protracted excursion to pretty much nowhere:
JUDY WOODRUFF: What are we to make of these choices so far?
TAMARA KEITH: Yes, personnel is policy, especially in his case, because he doesn’t have really well-defined policy positions that he campaigned on.
He doesn’t have strong positions on a lot of things and he doesn’t have the government experience. And so what we have so far are people who are very much of the Trump party. They are not traditional Republicans. Now, he’s met with people like Mitt Romney or General Mattis, people who would be considered more traditional, but he hasn’t picked them yet. And so, at this point, it’s really not clear—aside from who he has picked, like a Steve Bannon or a Mike Pompeo.
WOODRUFF: Jeff Sessions.
KEITH: Jeff Sessions.
WOODRUFF: Jeff Sessions for attorney general.
KEITH: Exactly. Other than those names, we know who he’s talking to, but we don’t know who he’s actually listening to or choosing.
WOODRUFF: But it’s giving us—these names, though, Amy, have given us something to look at.
AMY WALTER: The names that he’s picked.
WOODRUFF: The names he’s picked. Jeff Sessions has a record.
WALTER: Absolutely.
WOODRUFF: Steve Bannon has a private sector record. Certainly—
WALTER: And it aligns with the Donald Trump that we saw on the campaign trail. Their views and vision align with what he talked about on the campaign trail. And all of them were active for him on the campaign trail and as surrogates….
Well, in all fairness—the journalists’ roundtable did inform viewers that “Jeff Sessions has a record” and “Steve Bannon has a private sector record.”
Winding down, the segment seemed to remain trapped in an irony-free zone:
WOODRUFF: Amy, do we just get used to this?
WALTER: Yes.
[Crosstalk.]
WOODRUFF: Hanging on the edge of our seats?
WALTER: Yes, is that you have to just get used to all of this.
FAIR associate Norman Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org.
Messages to PBS NewsHour can be sent to Viewermail@newshour.org (or via Twitter: @NewsHour). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Norman Solomon presents a very nice encapsulation of the essential ephemeral nature of the reporting of “news” on NPR and PBS. Every time I hear an ostensibly educated, intelligent person say that she gets her news from these two sources, and proclaims the practice proudly, as if the world would improve if only everybody did the same, I want to cry.
I used to be one of those people, naively equating “public” broadcasting with honest and factual news; until I learned the other sources of their funding. SO disappointing. But it was a blessing in disguise, because it caused me to discover independent media.
It does not take a sky rocket scientist or criminologist in which to put the puzzle pieces together and connect the dots. Our country is in shambles, there is mega insurance fraud, Medicare Fraud, Medicaid Fraud, High Extortion,, Racketeering, RICO Acts, Exploitation, Money Laundering, cooking the books, corruption,Straw Man Mentality, Mob Action, Mob Rule, Kangaroo Court, with the abusive, violent, and controlling feeling they can act as Judge, jury, and Executioner. “Cry_Wolf”, Man-Made Crisis, Shock & Awe, Hostile Take-Over, Abductions, “False Memory”,
The abusive, violent, and controlling feel they can do and say whatever they want and even illegally demand that we cannot have any honest lawyers while they plot and scheme what the feel is the :”Perfect Murder” in the “Perfect Town”. The “Delusional” and “Psychotic” feel they can demand that we keep our mouths shut and they will do all the talking. They feel they are free to seek revenge and go for the kill. “Thanks for the Memories the Truth Shall Set Me Free”. “Trance Formation of America”, “Franklin Cover-Up”, “Red Herrings”, Counter-Transference and it all plays out like “Psycho”, “The Shining” horror shows, snake oil salesman, There is no fool like a you’ll fool. “The Killing Fields”, he did not leave because I did not want him to leave.” “Girl Interrupted”, “Silence of the Lamb”, “Red Velvet”, “Police Brutality” “A Few Good Men”, The want the abused children and targets in the corrupt and deadly system instead of the child molesters, rapists, Sociopaths/Psychopaths. There is no law that states I must see from their point of view and it is a “Felony” to demand one tell a false story. It is a “Felony” to abuse the Elderly. “The False Claims Act” does not allow any one to turn in fraudulent reports to what is supposed to be the people’s government. The “Constitution is the supreme law of the land. As the controlling that is into criminal activity and fraud. They want targets/”Victims of Violent Crime” to talk and talk to a number of people and they will change the story every time and try to blame it on the target/hostage/”Victim of Violent Crime”. “Criminal Solicitaion “, Fix Is In,Inside Jobs, Conflict of Interest, The system reeks of the stench of death. “Medical Murder”, “Wire in the Blood”, “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy”,”Hero Syndrome”.