2018 U.S election

[Samson]

Jeffery Toobin finally said that outright a couple days back... something along the lines of "We need to stop covering his rants and lies and distractions, it only feeds the troll."

But then you get the typical retort (from Wolf Blitzer IIRC) of "But we HAVE TO cover him don't we?! He's the POTUS! So everything he says is newsworthy by definition!" So then Toobin backed down and said something like "I guess so... I don't have the answer..."

So do they really have to cover him? Or can they just say "Nope, we're done... not covering him anymore... not letting him control the narrative or the media cycle anymore" Can they?

CAN THEY??

It seems to me that there is the world of difference between covering what he does, and covering his statements at proper events (the state of the union is one, I guess there are other times where he addresses congress or the UN or something) and covering every tweet and rally he produces. The former seems reasonable, the latter should be easy to ignore.

The problem is that his more controversial statements sells copy, both with supporters who love it and with everyone else who is disgusted by it.

 

[Zkribbler]

The media should stop covering the WH press briefings. All Sarah Huckabee does is lie. No need to repeat those lies.

 

[Hrothbern]

It seems to me that there is the world of difference between covering what he does, and covering his statements at proper events (the state of the union is one, I guess there are other times where he addresses congress or the UN or something) and covering every tweet and rally he produces. The former seems reasonable, the latter should be easy to ignore.

The problem is that his more controversial statements sells copy, both with supporters who love it and with everyone else who is disgusted by it.

On the national TV news here, if it really happens that attention is given to Trump, it is either Trump blablabla soundless on the screen with sensible summary comment of our news people, or a short shot where we can listen to what Trump says, which is mostly done when it is important or totally idiotic.

 

[Samson]

On the national TV news here, if it really happens that attention is given to Trump, it is either Trump blablabla soundless on the screen with sensible summary comment of our news people, or a short shot where we can listen to what Trump says, which is mostly done when it is important or totally idiotic.

On BBC news 24 in the UK they have pretty much built the prime evening slot around him. After his inauguration they put on "100 days" at 7 - 8pm. They must have got such good ratings that they carried it on, as "Beyond 100 days", and it is still going.

 

[Hrothbern]

On BBC news 24 in the UK they have pretty much built the prime evening slot around him. After his inauguration they put on "100 days" at 7 - 8pm. They must have got such good ratings that they carried it on, as "Beyond 100 days", and it is still going.

Is BBC news 24 under pressure to have good ratings ?

 

[rah]

That's the nature of 24 hour news, you eventually run out of news to report if you ignore all the stupid stuff.
[old man rant] back in the days where the US was covered by only three networks that only ran about an hour of news a day, only the really important stuff would make the news. [/old man rant] Today it's different.

 

[metalhead]

Jeffery Toobin finally said that outright a couple days back... something along the lines of "We need to stop covering his rants and lies and distractions, it only feeds the troll."

But then you get the typical retort (from Wolf Blitzer IIRC) of "But we HAVE TO cover him don't we?! He's the POTUS! So everything he says is newsworthy by definition!" So then Toobin backed down and said something like "I guess so... I don't have the answer..."

So do they really have to cover him? Or can they just say "Nope, we're done... not covering him anymore... not letting him control the narrative or the media cycle anymore" Can they?

CAN THEY??

They can cover him without having to breathlessly track a caravan of refugees just because he talked about it. They don't have to seize on the obvious narrative he's trying to set, and do the business of setting it for him.

 

[Hrothbern]

That's the nature of 24 hour news, you eventually run out of news to report if you ignore all the stupid stuff.
[old man rant] back in the days where the US was covered by only three networks that only ran about an hour of news a day, only the really important stuff would make the news. [/old man rant] Today it's different.

Another old man here, remembering we had in total only two TV channels.
24 hour news is one way to do it.... 24 hour repeating your last two news broadcasts and an in-depth news program on a channel another way, which we do here. I really do not miss something, and can look whenever I want.

I checked how many Dutch channels we have now and that's 11, with on top 13 or so regional channels.
Of which 3 national non-profit channels, one with for the evening the 18.00 news (short), 20.00 news (25 minutes), 24.00 news (short) and that in-depth background news 22.00 (1 hour).
The other two national non-profit during the evening a mix of human interest, documentary like stuff, non-hollywood like entertainment, quizes and a movie.
Boring... boring... but: the 20.00 news has 33% of all people looking TV at 20.00, which increases during the news to 50% of all people looking TV, in time for the last part of the news: the weather forecast.

 

[rah]

Yeah, weather and sports are always big ratings grabbers. Which is usually why the come later in the broadcast.

 

[Hrothbern]

Yeah, weather and sports are always big ratings grabbers. Which is usually why the come later in the broadcast.

ahhh, I should have mentioned that. Sports is hardly part of the normal news broadcast, perhaps 1 minute. The weather around 1-2 minutes in the long news.

 

[rah]

Sports is only big in the local broadcasts. Nationally it's non existent unless there's a world series or something similar happening.

 

[Oerdin]

Pretty sure caravans like this happen annually. It's only with Trump's open pandering to racists that it became a huge deal. It doesn't help that he claims they are all ISIS sleeper cell agents and rapers of white women instead of economic and political refugees.

He's turned it into a burning race issue and the media is aiding and abetting it by giving more than equal time to his crazed rants. They cover the caravan largely along the lines that Trump projects rather than outright rejecting his false reality and reporting on who these refugees are and how a passionate nation would want to help rather than send troops.

Virtually none of them are refugees and they are all just economic migrants (which mean they don't get covered by asylum laws and instead must use the normal immigration system). Last year's caravan of several thousand had just four, count it four, people accepted as refugees. Mostly, they just want to abuse the asylum system to get into the US then never show up for their hearing and instead just live illegally here. That is just abuse and should not be allowed, they need to be held until the hearing is completed then immediately deported as soon as they lose their hearing.

 

[metalhead]

Over 60% of asylum seekers show up to their court dates, so you are wrong about that.

They also have a right to present at the border and ask for asylum, so you're wrong about that too.

 

[Lexicus]

CAN THEY??

Find out on next week's episode of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire!

 

[Lexicus]

Last year's caravan of several thousand had just four, count it four, people accepted as refugees.

So the funny thing here is that under Trump (and to a lesser extent under previous administrations) it's guys like Oerdin who are judging the asylum claims.

Does anyone here trust guys like Oerdin to fairly judge asylum claims?

 

[Dachs]

But then you get the typical retort (from Wolf Blitzer IIRC) of "But we HAVE TO cover him don't we?! He's the POTUS! So everything he says is newsworthy by definition!" So then Toobin backed down and said something like "I guess so... I don't have the answer..."

Blitzer was being tremendously disingenuous here, and Toobin backed down too easily. Not everything that Obama or Bush said was newsworthy by definition. Their comments did not receive the sort of endless re-airing that Trump's do.

 

[Arwon]

Also they should cover Trump in foreign correspondent mode. Reporting on him as they might any other deranged demagogue.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Find out on next week's episode of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire!

Sounds like a great name for a 5 star Civ scenario.

 

[Takhisis]

With an actual gibbon in charge.

 

[Lexicus]

With an actual gibbon in charge.

The gibbon's fur is spray-painted a disgusting orange color and he's wearing a bad toupe.