Worst Bit of Journalism of the Year

The New York Times commissioned a profile of a Neo-Nazi white supremacist leader in Ohio, and it made Jimmy Fallon's softball interview of Trump on the Tonite Show, look like hard hitting journalism.

We discover that he worried about his wedding, that he goes shopping, that they eat at Applebee’s, that he loves the TV shows Twin Peaks and Seinfeld, etc.

Any number of people have excoriated the Times over this, and the author wrote a rather self-serving response to the criticism where he basically threw up his hands and said, "Sometimes a soul, and its shape, remain obscure to both writer and reader."

Basically, he said that there was no story there.

If there was no story, then he should have told his editor, and his editor should seen that there was no story, and should have spiked the story, because the alternative was a story that presented no insight, no information, and no news.

Absolute crap journalism.

Journalists and editors need to know when to cut their losses and walk away from a story.

Good Day for Journalistic Malpractice

Buzz Feed just published a story claiming that Russia wired to thousands dollars to its embassy in Washington, DC to influence the 2016 election.

Their evidence is a leak from someone in the FBI saying that they surveilled transfers to the embassy with "2016 election" in the memo field.

It turns out that if you ignore the headline, and the over the top tweets, and make it down 7 paragraphs, (Well, not any more, they rewrote the article) you discover that the money was to cover the expenses of setting up polling places for the 2016 Russian parliamentary elections: (Wapo link because I don't want to raise their Google rank, and because of the rewrite)

There is a persistent belief among many Americans that there exists a piece of evidence that will, once and for all, prove that President Trump was aware that the Russian government hoped that he would win the presidency and, further, that he or his campaign encouraged and aided that Russian effort. That belief is informed by two things: the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the election and the surfeit of revelations that, looked at through the proper lens, indicate an awful lot of smoke masking an as-yet-unseen fire.

The result is that a lot of people are eager for any new bread crumbs that seem as though they might lead to clear proof of Trump’s collusion. And that, in turn, means stories that might serve as those bread crumbs tend to see a lot of traffic for the news outlets that write them.

On Tuesday afternoon, a new story at BuzzFeed seemed like it might find a place in the picture of Russian meddling. “Secret Finding,” the headline proclaimed, “60 Russian Payments ‘To Finance Election Campaign Of 2016.’ ” The quoted section of the headline referred to the memo fields of a wire transfer sent by the Russian government to the embassy in Washington. It was Aug. 3, and the embassy was being sent $30,000 earmarked for the “election campaign of 2016.”

………

There was just one detail that didn’t warrant mentioning in the blurb or the alert . . . or even the story until the seventh paragraph: Russia, too, had an election last year, for its own legislative body. That election was held in mid-September, six weeks or so after the payment to the embassy in Washington.

BuzzFeed noted that it wasn’t only the U.S. Embassy that had received money. So, too, did embassies in countries as widespread as Afghanistan and Nigeria, with the last payments being sent two days after the election. After the Russian election, that is.

 Someone got their journalism degree out of a Cracker Jack box.

Hackitude

Of course, it's Ezra Klein who is the very modern model of cognitive dissonance.

He suggests that the Democratic establishment, of which the DNC is a part, tried to determine the outcome, and that somehow this is not an attempt to "rig" the primaries, because ……… Sparkle ponies.

It's kind of like how he suggests that the DNC debate schedule, which foreclosed meaningful exposure to candidates not named "Clinton", and the rules prohibiting other debates, weren't an attempt to fix things because, "Debates are arguably her best medium," despite the fact that Sanders more than held his own, and O'Malley excelled, while he lasted.

The concluding paragraph of the article summarizes this incoherent world salad:

The 2016 Democratic primary wasn’t rigged by the DNC, and it certainly wasn’t rigged against Sanders. But Democratic elites did try to make Clinton’s nomination as inevitable, as preordained, as possible. And the party is still managing the resentment that engendered in voters. “Once somebody doesn’t trust you,” sighs Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chair, “it’s very hard to get that trust back.”

Jeebus.  I wish that there were a cure for Michael Kinsley Disease. (Mindless contrarianism)

PLONK!!!!!!!!!!*

The day before the California primary, Rachael Maddow, and the rest of the NBC news org, breathlessly and gleefully announcing that they had surveyed the "Super Delegates", and declared that Hillary Clinton had won the nomination.

I have not watched Maddow since, I saw that it was a descent into hackdom. (though I have referenced online video clips)

Her later non-reveal Trump tax return reveal, parodied by Stephen Colbert, confirmed my opinion.

Well, I just dropped Talking Points Memo from my blogroll, because its founder and editor-in-chief Josh Marshall, just confirmed his descent into hackdom with a truly laughable OP/ED condemning Donna Brazile's Politico article revealing of the Clinton Campaign's takeover of the DNC more than a year before the convention.

In order to do this, he had to ignore contemporaneous reports of some of the issues raised in the essay, including reports from Talking Points Memo at the time, as well as insisting that the DNC is moving left while TPM is reporting a purge of progressive members.

There are a number of news orgs whose OP/ED pages contradict what their news section reports, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are legion for this, but they have a wall between opinion and reporting, and Talking Points Memo does not.

Notwithstanding the work done by TPM employees, and the fact that Josh Marshall has assembled a top flight team, this site is, and will probably will always be, Josh Marshall at its core.

He's jumped the shark, so:  Plonk!!!

^*This is a term from the very early (Usenet) days of the internet. the term PLONK is a statement that you have added a user to your killfile, meaning that you will not see their posts.

God Damn Staten Island Commies!

Cue Jake and Elwood

Now we have reports that the Russian intelligence agencies were running their nefarious meddling in the US elections out of Staten Island, New York.

If you find that absurd, I wholeheartedly agree.

Looking at what they did, and what they hosted, I cannot see anything that is in any manner indistinguishable from from your run of the mill click-bait troll farms.

This, "A noun, a verb, and Vladimir Putin," sh%$ is getting seriously old.

Oh well, anything to avoid any serious self-examination.

How Convenient!

Dara Khosrowshahi will be the new CEO of Uber.

All the profiles mention that he was CEO of Expedia, but none of them seem to mention that he is a member of the board of directors of the New York Times.

Anyone besides me (and Dean Baker, who pointed this out) wondering how this might affect coverage of the company?

Headline of the Day

Trolling is not Opinion.

It is what I consider to be a very well reasoned critique of OP/ED pages in general, and the New York Times opinion page in particular:

Opinions. Every asshole has one, or something. Opinions are good! People who have no opinions are boring. But what about opinion sections of newspapers? Are they good? Should newspapers even have them?

First, let’s talk about me, the Leah of Leah Letter. I would like you to know more about me, and feel free to ask me personal questions at any time. One of my first jobs in journalism was in the Opinion section of the New York Times. I was mostly in charge of fixing paper jams in the printers and keeping track of Thomas Friedman’s schedule, among other things (fun fact about Thomas Friedman: whenever he sends an email, he makes the subject line “Thomas Friedman”).

………

Still, I thought the section did some good things during my time there, although I can’t really remember any of it so maybe it wasn’t that good. But I came to understand some things about opinion journalism. A good opinion section is not one that seeks to confirm its readers’ values, but challenge them. A good opinion section is provocative, thoughtful, and delightful. A good opinion section will turn down an op-ed submission from a head of state that doesn’t say anything. A good opinion section does not kowtow to blowhards.

You might say that the Times has a responsibility, in this fiery era, to present opinions that will cause Trump to resign or be impeached. But the Times is not a radical, or even particularly progressive, paper. It refused to acknowledge the AIDS crisis in in the ‘80s. It basically started the Iraq War. It could be argued that it helped give rise to Trump by hammering Hillary Clinton on everything it could possibly hammer her on. It didn’t even know what bubble tea was until a few weeks ago. Traditional newspapers are by nature conservative, not wanting to believe anything is happening until there is concrete, or official, proof, which marginalizes the oppressed who do not have means of providing such proof.

An opinion section is a crucial part of the sad business of a newspaper. Like it or not, a sh%$-ton of people look forward to reading David Brooks, the paragon of family values who married his decades-younger assistant no judgment just stating facts. The politics of idiotic centrists who pontificate on specious social trends closely mirror the politics of most of the paper’s employees: over 50, white, well-educated, and generally disdainful of the young. At the end of the day, though, the Times is a content mill, and there are deadlines, and traffic quotas, and column inches to fill. And so sometimes it publishes bullsh%$.

But there’s been a remarkable uptick in the bullsh%$ published since James Bennet, formerly of the Atlantic, became editorial page editor last year. James Bennet is the Spencer Pratt of opinion journalism. This guy loves to troll, and position his writers as martyrs for their bad opinions. He also seems kinda bad at the basics of his job (writing and making sure facts are correct).

………

But the controversial pieces the Opinion section runs under the auspices of fomenting some sort of “conversation” are done so disingenuously. The Times is not furthering useful conversation with these bad and wrong op-eds, it is spraying its readers in the eyes with tear gas and then asking them why they’re screaming. They’re not seeking to upend established, calcified viewpoints, but deliberately instigating anger and spreading disinformation in an insincere attempt to “show both sides.” This is particularly egregious when you consider that, post-Trump, the Times has widely marketed itself as a crusader for capital-T Truth and an essential component of a healthy democracy. But the Times’ version of the Truth is highly subjective, and when it lends credence to vile idiots like Erik Prince or Louise Mensch, it loses any semblance of legitimacy.

People expect a lot from the Times, much like they expect Tina Fey to solve the nation’s problems with comedy and then get mad at her when she does jokes. Newspapers are emotional! I know. But it’s fairly insane how out-of-touch the Times’ Opinion section is. Frankly, I’m tired of being trolled.

(Emphasis and %$# mine)

Of course, it doesn't just apply to newspaper opinion pages.  It also applies to art, entertainment, at least one recently deceased Supreme Court justice, and the leaders of the the oldest and the most recent nuclear powers.

Just stop trolling.

MSNBC Gets to Know C. Megalodon*

I have noted the self-immolation of the journalistic credibility by Rachel Maddow in the past, and while I do not generally watch Maddow, or MSNBC any more, I was bored and flipping channels, and came across Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell having a rather breathless discussion about how Donald Trump is asking for legal opinions about whether he can pardon family members and himself.

They are referring to a Washington Post story in which there is a more general discussion of legal tactics considered by the Trump administration.

Pardons came up, but is appears to be a part of discussion of a myriad of potential legal options to thwart MUller's investigation, so, not only did MSNBC bury the lede, but in so doing they missed the real story, which that the entire f%$#ing Trump administration is planning to subvert a federal investigation by constructing a  pretense for his dismissal:

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself ,’ ” a close adviser said.

With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal advisers.

………

Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s private lawyers, said in an interview Thursday that the president and his legal team are intent on making sure Mueller stays within the boundaries of his assignment as special counsel. He said they will complain directly to Mueller if necessary.

“The fact is that the president is concerned about conflicts that exist within the special counsel’s office and any changes in the scope of the investigation,” Sekulow said. “The scope is going to have to stay within his mandate. If there’s drifting, we’re going to object.”

Sekulow cited Bloomberg News reports that Mueller is scrutinizing some of Trump’s business dealings, including with a Russian oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach mansion from Trump for $95 million in 2008.

“They’re talking about real estate transactions in Palm Beach several years ago,” Sekulow said. “In our view, this is far outside the scope of a legitimate investigation.”

………

The president’s legal representatives have also identified what they allege are several conflicts of interest facing Mueller, such as donations to Democrats by some of his prosecutors.

Another potential conflict claim is an allegation that Mueller and Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia had a dispute over membership fees when Mueller resigned as a member in 2011, two White House advisers said. A spokesman for Mueller said there was no dispute when Mueller, who was FBI director at the time, left the club.

………

Some Republicans in frequent touch with the White House said they viewed the president’s decision to publicly air his disappointment with Sessions as a warning sign that the attorney general’s days were numbered. Several senior aides were described as “stunned” when Sessions announced Thursday morning he would stay on at the Justice Department.

Another Republican in touch with the administration described the public steps as part of a broader effort aimed at “laying the groundwork to fire” Mueller.

“Who attacks their entire Justice Department?” this person said. “It’s insane.”

It's a big story, but MSNBC is so far into its, "A noun, a verb, and Vladimir Putin," that it's missing the actual story:  Obstruction of Justice, the thing that they got Nixon for.

Lame.

^*The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). But in either case, you are jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.

Giving Money as an Insult

When Bernie Sanders did his tour with Tom Perez in their mutual political tour, he paid his way for his expenses so as not to be beholden to the DNC:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who clashed with the Democratic National Committee during his 2016 presidential campaign and continues to criticize the party, gave $100,000 to the DNC in May to help cover costs from his cross-country spring tour with DNC Chairman Tom Perez.

Sanders and Perez embarked on the nine-state “unity tour” earlier this year after Sanders' endorsed candidate, Rep. Keith Ellison — who supported Sanders in the 2016 presidential race — lost the race for DNC chairman to Perez. Sanders moved the money from his presidential campaign account to the DNC to help pay for the tour, according to campaign finance records and Sanders spokesman Josh Miller-Lewis.

The rare transfer of money from Sanders to the national Democratic Party comes after the unity tour and addition of Ellison as a “deputy chair” at the DNC, two changes that could signal a thaw in a high-profile, often-icy relationship. Former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile, who led the DNC after Wasserman Schultz resigned, were both Hillary Clinton allies — a fact that roiled Sanders supporters when hacked emails showed DNC staffers discussing Sanders unfavorably during the primary.

The Sanders campaign also filed a lawsuit against the DNC in 2016, alleging the party wrongly revoked his campaign’s access to voter data during that year's campaign. The lawsuit had marked a particularly low point in relations between Sanders and the party, which pulled Sanders campaign access to certain databases before the first 2016 primaries and caucuses, after discovering that Sanders staffers had improperly accessed data used by Clinton's rival campaign. Sanders withdrew the lawsuit last year.

But despite the unity tour and the May donation, Sanders is still outwardly critical of the Democratic Party, which he recently said needs “fundamental change” and "fundamental restructuring." During the 2016 presidential race, Sanders set up a joint fundraising committee with the DNC — but no money ever passed through it.

Claiming that the money transfer, "Signals a thaw in a high-profile, often-icy relationship," seems to me to be a little bit clueless.

If Bernie Sanders explicitly raised money for the DNC, that might constitute a thaw.

Refusing to let the DNC pay his way on a DNC tour is a way of staking out his independence of the Democratic Party establishment.

This is a f%$# you to the DNC, not a rapprochement.

As Atrios Would Say, "Time for a Blogger Ethics Panel."*

The Wall Street Journal has just fired its chief foreign affairs correspondent because he was negotiating a business partnership with an arms merchant that he was also covering:

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday fired its highly regarded chief foreign affairs correspondent after evidence emerged of his involvement in prospective commercial deals — including one involving arms sales to foreign governments — with an international businessman who was one of his key sources.

The reporter, Jay Solomon, was offered a 10 percent stake in a fledgling company, Denx LLC, by Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation magnate who has ferried weapons for the CIA. It was not clear whether Solomon ever received money or formally accepted a stake in the company.

"We are dismayed by the actions and poor judgment of Jay Solomon," Wall Street Journal spokesman Steve Severinghaus wrote in a statement to The Associated Press. "While our own investigation continues, we have concluded that Mr. Solomon violated his ethical obligations as a reporter, as well as our standards."

Azima was the subject of an AP investigative article published Tuesday. During the course of its investigation, the AP obtained emails and text messages between Azima and Solomon, as well as an operating agreement for Denx dated March 2015, which listed an apparent stake for Solomon.

………

Read some of the source documents here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3871143-Jay-Solomon-Documents.html

This doesn't just happen with people covering arms dealers. 

The very rich use their wealth to shape the news and bribe and or intimidate journalists routinely

^*Atrios was early to the blogging phenomena, and noted how many in the MSM dismissed blogs because there were no editors, and thus no journalistic ethics. Whenever a mainstream reporter is shown to be corrupt, he ironically made this comment.

Almost, but Not Quite a Stopped Clock Moment

The reliably wrong "Very Serious Person" (VSP) Matthe Yglesias,  is justified in his condemnation of Obama's $400,000 payday Wall Street speech, but his statement that this, "Will undermine everything he believes in," is wrong on a number of levels.

First, there is no way to determine what any public figure truly believes, so couching this in those terms is wrong, and second any examination of the Obama administration would lead one to conclude that his public acts had the effect of pleasing and protecting the "Malefactors of Great Wealth", (Timothy Geithner, anyone?) and this action is consistent with his behavior while in office.^*

The revolving door, and people cashing in after their time in his administration, were a fixture in his two terms of office, and this, along with his policies, are entirely consistent with his paid speaking gig.

I agree with Yglesias that it's sleazy as hell, but I tend to find it consistent with his actual behavior, and not at odds with what he did as President.

^*Note the difference between Yglesias comment and mine.  I talk about the effects, and do not imply that I know the the inner dialogue of Obama and his Evil Minions^™.

Risking a Schadenfreude Overdose Here

I just heard that, after millions of dollars of sexual harrassment settlements over the past 2 decades, Fox News has finally fired Bill O'Reilly:

Bill O’Reilly’s reign as the top-rated host in cable news came to an abrupt and embarrassing end on Wednesday as Fox News forced him out after the disclosure of a series of sexual harassment allegations against him and an internal investigation that turned up even more.

Mr. O’Reilly and his employers came under intense pressure after an article by The New York Times on April 1 revealed how Fox News and its parent company, 21st Century Fox, had repeatedly stood by him even as he and the company reached settlements with five women who had complained about sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior by him. The agreements totaled about $13 million.

Since then, more than 50 advertisers had abandoned his show, and women’s rights groups had called for him to be fired. Inside the company, women expressed outrage and questioned whether top executives were serious about maintaining a culture based on “trust and respect,” as they had promised last summer when another sexual harassment scandal led to the ouster of Roger E. Ailes as chairman of Fox News.

There are a number of reports that a contributing factor in "Billo's"  firing was the fact he was a complete asshole to those around him, and so when he his behavior finally caught up with him, he had no support within the network.

I'm wondering when he will replace Sean Spicer as press secretary in the Trump administration.

Headline of the Day

Andrew Sullivan Is Still Racist After All These Years

—Nathan Robinson in Current Affairs

The former editor of The New Republic, who devoted an issue to promoting Charles Murray's racist screed The Bell Curve, an act that was breath takingly racist even in comparison to the disgraceful history of that magazine under the ownership of bigot Marty Peretz.

Tweet of the Day

It's true. pic.twitter.com/D0oocPcR4i

— PORP (@TheOfficialPORP) April 9, 2017

I know that the original tweet is about a year old, but it is brilliant.

This is as true ... as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them.

Headline of the Day

Bill O’Reilly’s New Book About ‘American Values’ Grabs NY Times Bestseller List Right By The Pussy

—Wonkette

The underlying story is that falafel boy's latest "book shaped object" debuted at the top of the Times best seller list, which of course shows that our society is degenerate, and doomed.

Not Enough Bullets………

I don't mean the fictitious family^* profiled, I am reserving my opprobrium for the reporter who has asked us to feel the pain and deprivation of a family getting by on just $½ million a year.

You see, they only have about 7½ grand a year free and clear after:

• Putting $36,000 a year in their 401(K) plans.
• Contributing $18,000 a year to charity.
• Spending $5000/month on a mortgage in the City.
• Spending $18,000/year on 3 vacations.
• Spending $42,000/year on childcare.
• Spending $9,500/year on two cars ……… In New York City.
• Spending $23,000/year on food, including regular jaunts to New York restaurants.
• $10,000/year for "stuff that comes up".

Let's also note that the reporter ignores The deductiblity of:

• Charitable donations.
• Mortgage interest
• Child care

Which would lower their tax burden by something on the order of $40K/year.

Also, their biggest expense, the mortgage would likely be half that if we stopped letting mobsters and corrupt politicians launder their money through real estate deals, which inflates real estate prices.

Still, even after all that fiscal incompetence, this fictional family has $140 a week mad money.

Not so bad.

To quote Marie Antoinette's last words, "I'm sorry operator, I've been cut off."

^*We need to have sympathy for this family, because they are fictitious, a condition effecting thousands of families around the world.^†
†Please give generously to the Fictitious Family Relief Fund. They are funding research on making the sufferers of this condition real.^‡
‡At this point, they can only exist in virtual reality.

This Must Have Been What It Was Like to Watch Mort Sahl Implode in the 1960s

Stephen Colbert Opens Up a Can of Whup Ass on Rachel Maddow

I haven't watched Rachel Maddow since she gleefully revealed the straw poll of super delegates just before the California primary.

It wasn't the revelation per se, all of NBC clearly had orders to push the story, it was the glee with which she was telling California voters that that didn't matter.

Lately though, she has been going tinfoil hat in a way reminiscent of Mort Sahl's decidedly unfunny fixation on the Kennedy assassination and the Warren Commission report, which wrecked the career of what had been the most promising comedian of the late 1950s.

It's been Russophobic baiting that would be worthy of the late, and unlamented, Roy Cohn.

Now she's completely jumped the shark in revealing Donald Trump's 2005 1040 form, both pages, no details, and it reveals that he paid about 25% of his income in taxes.

It's been described as a, "Cynical, self-defeating spectacle," and the reporter who obtained the document, David Cay Johnston, said that he could not be sure that Trump hadn't leaked the tax returns himself.

Think about it:  After over a year of allegations that he was basically broke, and that he paid no taxes, we discover, at least in 2005, he earned over $150 million, proving that he's really rich, not fake rich, and that he actually paid a tax rate that makes him look honest.

It really is pathetic, as Stephen Colbert's devastating parody of her clearly shows.

My theory is that Hillary supporters know that the f%$#ed up, but are unable to admit their guilt, and it's driving them cray-cray, but I'm an engineer, not a psychiatrist, dammit!<sup>*

*</sup>I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

I Certainly Hope So

In the annals of White House press corps(e) there has been a lot of whining.

Now it appears that some of this "august" assemblage is wonder if Donald Trump is just f%$#ing with them.

If this is the case, I cannot conceive of a more deserving group of  dissolute reprobates.

It appears that the administration is not respecting the sacred seating chart:

………

The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, in the West Wing, has seven rows of seven seats. The Associated Press, Reuters, and the biggest TV networks have reserved seats in the front row; blogs like Politico and Real Clear Politics are near the middle; BuzzFeed and the BBC are in the back. The seating chart is the purview of the White House Correspondents’ Association, an independent board of journalists who, with the sombre secrecy of a papal conclave, assess news organizations according to factors such as regularity of coverage and centrality to the national discourse.

There are also correspondents who might be called floaters—those who have White House credentials but no assigned seat. Some floaters work for outlets that are too new to have been included in the most recent seating chart; others work for outlets that are marginal or disreputable. When press briefings are half empty, floaters can find vacant seats. In the early days of the Trump Administration, when each day’s briefing is oversubscribed, floaters pack the aisles, angling for a spot visible from the podium. The paradigmatic example of a floater is Raghubir Goyal, an amiable, somewhat absent-minded man in his sixties. Goyal claims to represent the India Globe, a newspaper that, as far as anyone can tell, is defunct. Nevertheless, he has attended briefings since the Carter Administration, and has asked so many questions about Indo-American relations that his name has become a verb. “To Goyal”: to seek out a reporter who is likely to provide a friendly question, or a moment of comic relief. All press secretaries get cornered, and all have, on occasion, Goyaled their way out. But no one Goyals like Spicer.

Until recently, the more established White House correspondents have regarded floaters as a harmless distraction—the equivalent of letting a batboy sit in the dugout. Now they are starting to see the floaters as an existential threat. “It’s becoming a form of court-packing,” one White House correspondent told me. Outlets that have become newly visible under the Trump Administration include One America News Network, which was founded in 2013 as a right-wing alternative to Fox News; LifeZette, a Web tabloid founded in 2015 by Laura Ingraham, the radio commentator and Trump ally; Townhall, a conservative blog started by the Heritage Foundation; the Daily Caller, co-founded in 2010 by Tucker Carlson, now a Fox News host; and the enormously popular and openly pro-Trump Breitbart News Network. Most of the White House correspondents from these outlets are younger than thirty. “At best, they don’t know what they’re doing,” a radio correspondent told me. “At worst, you wonder whether someone is actually feeding them softball questions.” He added, “You can’t just have a parade of people asking, ‘When and how do you plan to make America great again?’ ”

For years, the first question of each press briefing has usually gone to the Associated Press, whose reporters sit in the middle of the front row. In Spicer’s first briefing, on January 21st, which lasted five and a half minutes, he uttered several verifiable falsehoods—“This was the largest audience to ever witness an Inauguration, period”—then left without taking any questions. For the first question of his second briefing, he called on the New York Post, whose reporter, sitting in the fifth row, was clearly surprised. He asked, “When will you commence the building of the border wall?” In Spicer’s third briefing, his first question went to a reporter from LifeZette, who wondered why the Administration hadn’t taken a harder line on immigration. Many of Spicer’s early briefings were unusually short—about half an hour, with ten minutes of prepared remarks in the beginning. He often escapes from the podium without facing many tough questions from mainstream journalists. (This month, perhaps hoping to foreclose public scrutiny, or to starve “Saturday Night Live” of material, Spicer did his briefings off-camera for a week.)

Major Garrett, the chief White House correspondent for CBS News, sits in the front row. “Historically, the way the briefing room has been organized is, the closer you are, the farther you’ve come,” Garrett said. “And the person at the podium has tended to recognize that.” More experienced reporters, he said, “ask questions that are sharper, more informed. Not, ‘What’s your message today?’ Not, ‘Here’s a paintbrush—would you paint us a pretty picture?’ ” If established reporters got fewer questions relative to the floaters, I asked, would this be good or bad for democracy? “We’ll see,” Garrett said. “We’re engaged in a grand experiment.”

A TV correspondent told me that calling on front-row reporters first isn’t just about appealing to their egos: “It’s also about maintaining a sense of predictability, a sense that eventually the substantive questions will be answered. Throwing that into chaos—‘Maybe you’ll get a question, if you shout loud enough, who knows?’—makes everyone desperate and competitive and makes us look like a bunch of braying jackals. Which I don’t think is an accident.”

………

A longtime Washington reporter from a mainstream network echoed that sentiment. “I don’t mind them bringing in conservative voices that they feel have been underrepresented,” he said. “Personally, I don’t even mind them f%$#ing with the front-row guys, the Jonathan Karls of the world. Those guys are a smug little cartel, and it’s fun to watch them squirm, at least for a little while. But at what point does it start to delegitimize the whole idea of what happens in that room? When does it cross the line into pure trolling?”

(%$# mine)

I hope that Trump and his Evil Minions^™ are trolling the press.

It's long overdue, and it is an indication that perhaps those smug guys in the front to stop preening at press briefing, and return to shoe leather journalism.

It's clear that the Bob Woodward model of context free access journalism simply does not cut it these days.

It hasn't for decades.

Tweet of the Day

Remember when connecting factual dots without proving an explicit quid pro quo was considered unacceptable? That was only a few months ago.

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) March 13, 2017

Pretty much my take on the red baiting going on among the incompetents who want to avoid culpability for losing the Presidential election to an inverted traffic cone.

H/t naked capitalism

Sweet Irony

Breitbart News just came out against Trumpcare:

Donald Trump has been very good for the news business — and the news business has been very good for Donald Trump.

But no publication has had a more mutually beneficial relationship with our new president than Breitbart. Trump’s campaign brought the site’s brand of reactionary populism into the mainstream — and its former mastermind into the West Wing. By the time the ballots were cast, no other news outlet had grown its audience more over the 2016 cycle.

And Breitbart, of course, supplied Trump with a megaphone, a strategist, and relentlessly positive coverage — even when the mogul’s campaign manager low-key battered one of the site’s reporters.

So, Breitbart’s latest headline on the Trump-Ryan health-care plan is probably causing some consternation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Any heartburn being experienced by Steve Bannon, former editor-in-chief of Breitbart, is the source of much pleasure for me personally.