American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS (Archive)

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by MRCboicgy

Also, check out this poll from the Trump team...

https://action.donaldjtrump.com/main...bility-survey/

O.o

That's a ridiculous "poll", if it can even be called that.

My point is to advance the idea that journalism is no longer about finding the truth and getting information, its like a form of question period you would find in congress or parliament, with agendas everywhere.

I'm not defending Trump. I have variously referred to him as a jackass or a buffoon. I'm suggesting agendas are everywhere, its the media also, not just the administration. The reporting environment is itself toxic.

[savemedrzaius]

Originally Posted by Delgar

While I will agree this press conference was a complete mess, consider this, from reporters there to "report" the news:

-A black lady asks a question about whether trump will include a black congress group in discussions on an issue
-A jewish guy advocates on behalf of jewish people before he even gets to his question

Now, while Trump's responses to both are deplorable, there is something else to consider here that in some ways supports his underlying frustration: In US journalism there is a problem with reporters not gathering facts and reporting. The questions they pose come with a political purpose.

Its easy to pick on the black lady asking a question about the black congress and a jewish guy asking about anti-semitism, but its clear what they are trying to do-- which is to get the president on record saying he will advocate for something or pick a position.

That is not journalism. This problem is one of the reasons Trump is now the president. The US needs real journalists.

Trump is not the right guy to rail against this and I'll agree he's a buffoon, but at some point the media has to take responsibility for the fact that they act more like politicians in question period than journalists.

I don't understand the problem concerning a reporter from a newspaper whose readers are mainly black or mainly jewish asking a question that their readership has concerns/questions on.

Just like if a reporter from the National Post or The Star was to ask Trump a question you would expect it to have some relation to Canada and Canadians.

And isn't that how reporters gather facts and report? They have to ask questions to get answers. What do you think a "real" journalist should do?

Also, that bit by Meyers is better than anything I have seen on the Daily Show in years.

[burn_this_city]

If people can't see past this blatant stuff they are too far gone at this point.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Delgar

While I will agree this press conference was a complete mess, consider this, from reporters there to "report" the news:

I'm sorry, but this is the worst interpretation of any press conference or the whole concept of journalism I have ever seen. I've considered it, like you asked, and I have to call you out.

Do you know what advocates means? Do you know what a journalists role is? Do you know anything about the issues they were talking about, the news outlets they work for, or the organizations they were talking about?

Originally Posted by Delgar

-A black lady asks a question about whether trump will include a black congress group in discussions on an issue

That 'black' reporter, a member of the American Urban Radio Network, who asked Trump if he was going to include the Congressional Black Caucus on "an issue" (which was Trump's promise to help African Americans who live in inner cities, and fix inner cities themselves). The CBC isn't some random group, there are 2 senators and 45 representatives on it.

It's some getting Trump to advocate for something or pick a position by asking him if he's going to consult members of congress who have dedicated a huge portion of their time to dealing with inner city issues... on the issue of inner cities?

Originally Posted by Delgar

-A jewish guy advocates on behalf of jewish people before he even gets to his question

Advocates on behalf of jewish people? By responding to Trump's question: "Are you friendly?" with "Trump, I want you to know that I'm not aware of anyone in the community saying you're anti-Semitic." and then following it up with his question: "There is a rise in anti-Semitic violence and threats lately, including the following, are you going to..." and then cutting cut off? He works for a Hasidic newspaper, but he shouldn't ask a question that primarily jewish citizens would be concerned about knowing the answer to?

Where did he advocate for jewish people? "We don't think you hate us?" ... strong...

Originally Posted by Delgar

In US journalism there is a problem with reporters not gathering facts and reporting. The questions they pose come with a political purpose.

That is not journalism. This problem is one of the reasons Trump is now the president. The US needs real journalists.

Trump is not the right guy to rail against this and I'll agree he's a buffoon, but at some point the media has to take responsibility for the fact that they act more like politicians in question period than journalists.

I just don't think you understand the purpose of journalism. Journalism serves the public, it's their job to report on facts, events, ideas, etc. Their job isn't to be partisan, but it is to gather information by asking the right questions.

Asking Trump if he's going to consult knowledgeable people in the formation of a policy, or if he's going to respond to a rise in anti-Semitic violence isn't advocating, it's gathering facts and reporting them.

The US has real journalists. Those two people, along with the others who you didn't mention for whatever reason, were doing the exact job a journalist is supposed to do: serving the people.

I have to ask: do you get fed up when a reporter asks Trudeau about oilsands? It mostly impacts Albertans, so should the reporter be barred from advocating for Alberta and asking questions about Canadian policy that impacts Alberta? That's plain nonsense.

[Wormius]

Oh gees. Why doesn't he just resign already? Whatever the Russians have on him is not going to be as bad as the result of sticking this out any longer.

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

Yes, billionaire needs your money to squash the media and feed you HIS truth. Seems legit.

What did that one state senator call him...a loofah-faced, ####-gibbon. Its my favorite.

Pennsylvania state senator, it was the first time I was proud to be from Pennsylvania for a while now.

Originally Posted by GGG

I voted, though there are some tricky double negatives in there. I think even trump voters will screw it up.

Any of the awkward double negative questions I answered "other" with a scathing response to clarify it properly. It was therapeutic.

[MRCboicgy]

Question 22: Do you believe that if Republicans were obstructing Obama like Democrats are doing to President Trump, the mainstream media would attack Republicans?

I can't even...

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by MRCboicgy

Also, check out this poll from the Trump team...

https://action.donaldjtrump.com/main...bility-survey/

O.o

Question 5 is hilarious. 18 and 22 are up there as well.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Pennsylvania state senator, it was the first time I was proud to be from Pennsylvania for a while now.




Any of the awkward double negative questions I answered "other" with a scathing response to clarify it properly. It was therapeutic.

I also thought that people of faith were being persecuted by the media, mainly the Muslim faith.

I don't even think trump will use the results of those surveys. It's a pure graft operation.

[GGG]

10. Do you believe that the mainstream media does not do their due diligence fact-checking before publishing stories on the Trump administration?

Just so bad

[Kjesse]

A good rebuttal came from PepsiFree. But break it down a bit.

I agree entirely with this comment he made: "Journalism serves the public, it's their job to report on facts, events, ideas, etc. Their job isn't to be partisan, but it is to gather information by asking the right questions."

Journalism is about informing the public.

I made a post that was intentionally politically incorrect. I called out a black journalist for asking about black issues and a jewish journalist for asking about jewish issues. Actually, the jewish guy didn't even get to ask a question, he burnt his time advocating.

How can what they were doing not be considered advocacy?

The oilsands/Albertan comment is interesting, in many ways that's advocacy too, from what i've seen.

Hasn't journalism become more about positions than facts?

[Kjesse]

Here is an example related to oilsands where I think a journalist should not go to:

"Mr. Trudeau, The oilsands support millions of jobs in this country. Thousands of children depend upon their oilsands working parents to feed them every day. Mr. Trudeau, will you support a pipeline to coastal waters to ensure these children are fed?"

That is an extreme example, but the idea comes across. Be a journalist and inform. Don't hijack the agenda.

[JiriHrdina]

So yes using extreme examples proves your point that all media has an agenda. Jeepers.

[Drak]

Trump is getting his son in law to complain now to TIME Warner about CNN hosts being mean to him.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/litt...rump-coverage/

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

So yes using extreme examples proves your point that all media has an agenda. Jeepers.

I have said that two (2) journalists in the press conference showed an agenda. I have also extrapolated that and suggested the media needs to fix itself.

Why attack an alleged overstatement with an overstatement?

Edit: I've been working on the idea to write a paper to argue that the election of Trump is as much a failure of the media as it is of American democracy. It makes little sense that Trump is president. It is the mistrust of the media that allowed him to become elected and he is now exploiting that. I have floated this idea among quite a few people and its interesting how much push-back I have received. I'll keep plugging away and everyone feel free to attack the idea but let's not make it personal.

[savemedrzaius]

Originally Posted by Delgar

I have said that two (2) journalists in the press conference showed an agenda. I have also extrapolated that and suggested the media needs to fix itself.

Why attack an alleged overstatement with an overstatement?

Can you give us some examples of questions a good reporter should ask? If the media was reporting the way you think they should, give me an example of what some of their questions would be to Trump.

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Delgar

I have said that two (2) journalists in the press conference showed an agenda. I have also extrapolated that and suggested the media needs to fix itself.

Why attack an alleged overstatement with an overstatement?

Given that most of the press conference, the actual President himself had an obvious and clear agenda (to talk about how great he is and refuse to answer anything he deemed "unfair"), I don't have much issue with journalists asking pointed questions relating to the agenda of keeping their respective reader/viewer demographics safe in a very volatile political climate.

With this President, if you don't ask pointed questions, he meanders all over the place. Even if you do ask pointed questions, the answers usually come back to Electoral College or Fake News, because Republicans in general, and especially Trump, are completely incapable of answering a damn question. (This was on display pretty tremendously during the Sanders/Cruz debate on healthcare. Cruz did the same meandering talk around a question without ever offering a response that Trump does, only his was full of "I've talked to voters in [random place] who are really concerned about the cost of their healthcare..." Also on display when Chaffetz had his town hall last week and never actually answered questions, just rambled about how he knew people who had cancer and how his wife works with cancer survivors. Republicans really good at "talking" without actually saying anything.)

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by savemedrzaius

Can you give us some examples of questions a good reporter should ask? If the media was reporting the way you think they should, give me an example of what some of their questions would be to Trump.

Gladly. And it means boring news, but would not turn the question and answer period into a political exercise where the reporter becomes the subject. Editorialism can come afterwards.

Instead of the trumped-up question I mentioned above:

"Mr. Trudeau, The oilsands support millions of jobs in this country. Thousands of children depend upon their oilsands working parents to feed them every day. Mr. Trudeau, will you support a pipeline to coastal waters to ensure these children are fed?"

Instead ask:

"Mr. Trudeau, do you intend to support a pipeline to coastal waters in support of the oilsands, and why or why not?"

This prevents the reporter from becoming an advocate. Let them report, then let the columnists or the public or the politicians debate.

When reporting is morphed into advocacy, the public can not get unfiltered information. This leads to a distrust of news sources.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Delgar

How can what they were doing not be considered advocacy?

The oilsands/Albertan comment is interesting, in many ways that's advocacy too, from what i've seen.

Hasn't journalism become more about positions than facts?

I'm not sure what you mean by advocacy/positions. Nobody is saying he should do something, they're asking him if he's going to do something.

All journalists advocate for their readers, essentially. It's their job to inform their readers.

How would you re-word "Are you going to consult the CBC on your campaign promise to fix inner cities" and "Are you planning to do anything about the rise in anti-semitic violence?"?

Show me an example of a non-advocate version of those questions, because I'm not entirely sure where you think the journalistic integrity is being lost.

Originally Posted by Delgar

Here is an example related to oilsands where I think a journalist should not go to:

"Mr. Trudeau, The oilsands support millions of jobs in this country. Thousands of children depend upon their oilsands working parents to feed them every day. Mr. Trudeau, will you support a pipeline to coastal waters to ensure these children are fed?"

That is an extreme example, but the idea comes across. Be a journalist and inform. Don't hijack the agenda.

Don't hijack the agenda... yeah... I don't understand that. What do you mean?
Your example was a clear example of advocating for the oilsands, sure, but what line was similar to you in both the black or jewish reporters question lead-up? Because I honestly didn't hear one.

Here's April Ryan's question, tell me how it compares to your oilsands example:

TRUMP: Good, because I enjoy watching you on television. Go ahead.

REPORTER: Well, thank you so much. Mr. President, I need to find out from you, you said something as it relates to inner cities. That was one of your platforms during your campaign. Now you’re —

TRUMP: Fix the inner cities.

REPORTER: — president. Fixing the inner cities.

TRUMP: Yep.

REPORTER: What will be that fix and your urban agenda as well as your HBCU Executive Order that’s coming out this afternoon? See, it wasn’t bad, was it?

TRUMP: That was very professional and very good.

REPORTER: I’m very professional.

TRUMP: We’ll be announcing the order [cut for length]

REPORTER: Well, when you say the inner cities, are you going — are you going to include the CBC, Mr. President, in your conversations with your — your urban agenda, your inner city agenda, as well as —

TRUMP: Am I going to include who?

REPORTER: Are you going to include the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional —

Here's the jewish reporter's question:

TRUMP: Watch how friendly, he is. Go ahead.

REPORTER: So, first of all, my name is Jake [ inaudible ] magazine and, I, despite what so many colleagues might be reporting, I haven't seen anybody in my community accuse either yourself or anyone on your staff of being anti-semitic. However, what we are concerned about and what we haven't really heard you address is an uptick in anti-semitism and how in this climate you're going to take care of it. There have been reports out that 48 bomb threats have been made against Jewish centers all across the country in the last couple of weeks. There are people who are committing anti-semitic acts or threatening to --

Is advocating for the benefits of the oilsands and how important they are, followed by asked about a oilsands-related policy, the same as pointing out that anti-semitism is on the rise... and asking how he's going to take care of that rise?

A more comparable example would've been:
"The oilsands have an impact on the environment, how are you going to handle that impact?"

That doesn't seem like advocating or politics to me. In fact, none of it does. It seems like journalists asking questions they should be asking, and trying to provide answers to the people they're reporting to.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

With this President, if you don't ask pointed questions, he meanders all over the place. Even if you do ask pointed questions, the answers usually come back to Electoral College or Fake News,

This president is a charlatan. But its not the media's job to advocate positions within their questions to achieve an agenda. That's the basic point I'm trying to convey. I'm apparently not doing a good job.