Yesterday I listened to the morning “talking heads” programs on network television as usual. Something that struck me was that it was clear that the various representatives of the major media outlets had no idea how much credibility they had lost or why.
Example: on CBS Sunday Morning Tracy Smith conducted a highly reverential interview of Bill Clinton (presumably to promote his new book). 20 minutes later on Face the Nation Margaret Brennan went after Republican members of Congress hammer and tongs on whether, given the sexual crimes and improprieties of which he has been accused, they would support Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz. As I see it there are three alternatives:
- An accusation or an investigation is not the same as a conviction and that is equally true for Bill Clinton and Matt Gaetz
- Accusations are enough. Bill Clinton should have been taken to task for his sexual history
- The attacks on Matt Gaetz in the media are simply partisan politics as usual
IMO it is clear that the media have been successful in convincing a lot of Americans that the last was the case and everything they say should be taken with more than a grain of salt. We’ve come a long way since Walter Cronkite. “That’s the way it is” and “in seeking truth you have to get both sides of he story”.
Not seeing your point. Clinton did have sex with a woman outside of marriage though she was 22. If memory serves he settled out of court with someone else. In Gaetz case the investigations are being hidden, unlike with Clinton where every detail was “leaked”. (Let’s face it, Starr was deliberately releasing everything.) What I think we know for sure is that Gates is known for sending out unasked sexually explicit pictures to colleagues and that some of his friends have been convicted of sex trafficking or similar. There is a lot of smoke which doesnt necessarily mean a fire but does mean the investigative results should be released.
My prediction is that everything will be done to not release any investigation results. The old double standard exists. A Democrat will actually have to answer real questions and can face charges while in office while a Republican doesnt have to do that.
Steve
He’s been accused of a lot more than that. Clinton has also been accused of forcible rape as well as other transgressions.
Let me be more explicit in my point. I think that the job of a journalist is to get the truth which, as Walter Cronkite maintained, requires telling both sides of the story. If you think the story only has one side, maybe you’ve stopped being a journalist and have started being a partisan activist.
To pile on….
Steve – ever heard of Juanita Broadrick? You conveniently left that out. And as a former buddy from the AK news business told me: “you have no idea. None. Just ask the State Police……….actually, no, don’t ask them.”
I have to say, Gaetz flummoxes me. Not the chick. That smacks of pure politics. You know, Bret K ran a prostitution ring in college……. We have a ditz who will testify……
But Gaetz is an asshole. And not the right guy. There must be something else going on here.
Look, there is no doubt Clinton was a sex sleaze. Both he and Trump probably raped at least one person and had sex with underage girls at Epstein’s place. I have said many times here that I am not a Clinton fan. Neither he nor Trump has the moral character a leader should have.
However, let me be extra explicit. Near every detail of the Clinton investigations was released as the investigations were ongoing. Gaetz has had at least two groups, Congress and the Justice Department investigate and we arent seeing the results of either one. Why do the results of investigations of Republicans get withheld? Why do only Dem Presidents have to submit to actual questioning? Let’s see the results of those investigations.
Steve
You’re trying to change the subject, steve. My question was quite specific: why did the CBS journalist treat Clinton with such reverence? By her own standards she should not have. Unless it’s all just political posturing in which case it makes perfect sense.
I’m not defending Matt Gaetz. Or Donald Trump for that matter. I’m just pointing out that the media are treating Clinton differently than they are Trump or Gaetz.
I’m all for letting all of the details on Matt Gaetz out including who is bringing the charges. What I’m not for is lionizing Clinton while subjecting Gaetz to the question.
Clinton is largely irrelevant in our politics. Trump and Gaetz are not. As you noted it appears he has written a book and was there to promote it and it seems like most people get fluff interviews on the books they write. Good grief, just noted that Clinton interview was on the Sunday Morning show which exists solely to peddle soft, mostly happy stories AFAICT while FACe the Nation is a politics show.
Steve
You aren’t the first one to notice there are issues with CBS news.
Both the New York Times and WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/business/media/cbs-news-chief-tested-by-internal-crises-and-an-agitated-owner-14a0d6b7) reported employees and the owner complained of several types of biases.
There was the interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates; the reaction to the staff who complained about the interview, and the selective (and perhaps deceptive) edits of Harris’s interview with 60 minutes.
We have very little real News, what we get the most of is entertainment, flashy sets, attractive people, eye candy, distraction. Print news, has been pushed aside by the internet…the time of paperboys and home delivery of news papers is over. The internet has left us uninformed, just entertained.
Or did the Internet merely reveal that the emperor had no clothes?
Dave, “Or did the Internet merely reveal that the emperor had no clothes?”
Perhaps it is not so much that the emperor has no clothes, but more of an illusion that it does not matter any longer, do we really think deeply for our selves anymore? We repeat what we are told. We do not talk to each other much, we choose our side and shout and repeat the team mantra. Are we in the middle of a new Tipping Point? Is there to much information for good or bad which is nearly impossible to filter through, there so much trash to weed through. Most of us do not care what the emperor is wearing, Nor does the emperor care much about us. We do not have much choice in matters of this life. We simply try to survive.
There is a corroborated relationship between literacy and the ability to follow a logical argument vs. relying on authorities. In this context “literacy” doesn’t just mean the ability to read but relying on the written word for information.
An increasing number of Americans don’t rely on the written word for information but on various visual sources, YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram videos, etc. That has also been correlated with increasingly agonistic (aggressive, appeals to emotion) modes of expression.
Larry has a point.
I don’t really know where to turn for facts, do they even exist if their source is innuendo or simply denied as fact by other sources?
Even rather important questions such as whether it’s time to start for the fallout shelter have various nebulous answers with questionable motives.
The AI world is here. Information is a weapon, disinformation a tactic.
I didn’t even read the sex related charges against Gaetz because such are now routine in politics and I’ve no way to tell.
Asshole? Sure looks like it.
” In this context “literacy” doesn’t just mean the ability to read but relying on the written word for information.”
Like the bible for example?
An increasing number of Americans don’t rely on the written word for information but on various visual sources, YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram videos, etc. That has also been correlated with increasingly agonistic (aggressive, appeals to emotion) modes of expression.”
Have these alternate pathways taken us away from text, books, to something fast and furious, no sooner then you read or hear one thought twenty different thoughts appear, confusing information a best. In the past, humans shared information by verbally talking to each other. The abundance of printed material has not been around that long in human history, and when it was a bit more prevalent not many could afford to purchase books. I crew up in a house with no books, there was a news paper, then television. So many book stores have closed, libraries are being censored, if this becomes the norm, where will the written word be focused?
And, what is news anyway?
I grew up in a house filled with books and my parents had subscriptions to three newspapers, Consumer Reports, National Geographic, Life, Time, the Saturday Evening Post, and Reader’s Digest.
My dad tended to be an “early adopter”. We had a television set before I was born. That was just about as early as they were commercially available. I think my dad had seen them when visiting Germany.
Dave, you were lucky. I didn’t know what I was missing until I left the nest. I had no idea what broccoli or so many other amazing foods were until I left. I was lucky to meet up with some good folks who guided me towards some great reads, although I have yet to finish Don Quixote, it does remain on my reading list…I still have time..
Dave, I have been reading your site for years! I discovered your site before Google got so big…Thanks to all who visit.
I’ve told this story before. I didn’t learn to read in first grade. i learned to read by taking my father’s fourth grade reader behind the couch the summer following first grade and teaching myself to read from it. When I came out from behind the couch I was reading at a fourth grade level. I don’t know what would have happened without that book.
As it worked out my father’s fourth grade reader was a compilation of sections from other books. After I had completed the reader I sought out the sources for the passages. Captain January. The Jungle Book. Robinson Crusoe. Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. By the time I was in third grade (a year later) I had read what was to become one of my favorite novels—David Copperfield. A year after that I had read the entire works of Dickens. And everything written by Jules Verne or H. G. Wells I could put my hands on.
Once I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs in our small town library, I read every book he published, including the series on Pelucidar. Read some Zane Grey, Hardy Boys, and three re-reads of The Frontiersmen by Allen W Eckert, a novel that transfixed me, I lost myself in the book. But back to the topic, I’ve no idea if the written story is more accurate than today’s quicker versions.
History and truth are both multifaceted and complex.
There are a million stories in the big city……….
How old was I when I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs? Maybe 12? I believe I bought a copy of Tarzan of the Apes at Stix, Baer, and Fuller. Shortly thereafter I began scouring used book stores for every Burroughs novel I could find. BTW the best are Apache Devil, Apache Chief, and The Mucker. The Apache novels are an odd sort of reworking of the Tarzan material with a very sympathetic treatment of the Apache.
I introduced Burroughs to a sickly, lonely young neighbor boy I used to babysit for. They sort of taught him to come out of his shell. However, I did so with an explanation. You’ve got to take his treatment of ethnicities and races with a very large grain of salt. They reflect his times. Mostly extremely stereotypical.