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The Media's Portrayal of Trump and His Presidency


Nanker

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WaPo's groping for bad news about Trump stumbles into the double vinc.

 
This is the top headline at WaPo right now, and I don't think it's even news. At best, it's a clumsy sketch for an opinion column:

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I say it's not news because what is it saying just happened? The call, which we heard about days ago, is just evidence, lying there. The action verb is "points," but it's not as though the thing we already knew stood up and extended an index finger directing us to the complete abstraction of Trump's assessment of his own powers. And it's not as though WaPo just learned that Trump has this particular belief about himself. It doesn't even know that he does. It's just that the call suggests that Trump has this belief. The top news story of the day, according to The Washington Post, is a guess about what a piece of evidence might mean about how things look from the inside of the President's head.

But what points to a newspaper that has lost its bearings is the utter badness of writing "convinced" and then "invincibility."

The double vinc! 
 
 
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MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Media Corruption On Perfect Display In One Washington Post Paragraph. 

 

“What are Philip Rucker, Bob Costa, and Rachel Bade smoking?”

 

 

 

ABC News’ White House correspondent Karen Travers approvingly tweeted out a paragraph of a front-page Washington Post rant written by Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, and Rachel Bade. The paragraph comes from their cri de coeur headlined “Trump’s Ukraine Call Reveals A President Convinced Of His Own Invincibility.”

 

While the article matches the headline in its extreme bias and shrill outpouring of opinion — seemingly written by the Democratic National Committee’s newest batch of enthusiastic interns — it is presented as if it’s news, a common problem with our current media culture. Here’s the paragraph:

 

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Every single assertion of this paragraph isn’t just wrong, but the opposite of right. In each sentence, Trump is being blamed for things his political opponents have done. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Trump’s sense of himself as above the law has been reinforced throughout his time in office.

In fact, the main problem during the Trump administration has been the way the self-annointed “Resistance” in the media, unelected bureaucracy, and political institutions have treated Trump as if he were below the law. Traditionally, hard-fought losses are usually followed by an acceptance of the reality of election results, even if grudgingly.

 

{snip}

 

 

As detailed in the Mueller report, he received help from a foreign adversary in 2016 without legal consequence.

What in the world? What are Philip Rucker, Bob Costa, and Rachel Bade smoking? This was not “detailed” in the Mueller report. This is not even a remotely accurate summation of that report, even while acknowledging how partisan of a report it was.

 

In fact, the report found that the entire basis for the investigation — supposed treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election — had no evidence in support of it. Not only did Trump not conspire with Russia to steal the 2016 election, not a single American was found to have done so. Are they trying to elevate the significance of Russia’s 100-year-old practice of meddling in U.S. elections, and falsely characterize those efforts as unidirectional in favor of Trump?

 

 

 

MORE AT THE LINK

 

 

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