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TIME: Don't Dismiss President Trump's Attacks on the Media as Mere Stupidity
Time Magazine ^ | 2/18/2017 | Bret Stephens

Posted on 02/21/2017 9:06:30 AM PST by T-Bird45

SNIP to the meat:

The President routinely describes reporting he dislikes as FAKE NEWS. The Administration calls the press “the opposition party,” ridicules news organizations it doesn’t like as business failures, and calls for journalists to be fired. Mr. Trump has called for rewriting libel laws in order to more easily sue the press.

This isn’t unprecedented in U.S. history, though you might have to go back to the Administration of John Adams to see something quite like it. And so far the rhetorical salvos haven’t been matched by legal or regulatory action. Maybe they never will be.

But the question of what Mr. Trump might yet do by political methods against the media matters a great deal less than what he is attempting to do by ideological and philosophical methods.

Ideologically, the president is trying to depose so-called mainstream media in favor of the media he likes — Breitbart News and the rest. Another way of making this point is to say that he’s trying to substitute news for propaganda, information for boosterism.

END SNIP

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: fakeconservative; fakenews; lecture; nevertrump; pulitzer; pussyhatparty; trumpmedia; wsj
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To: T-Bird45

Dear Mr Stephens,

It is not so much President Trump, holding this position, it is we, those darn deplorables. I do think you understand it however. the truth of it creeps into your writing even if it is meant as hyperbole. You write, “... is to say that he’s trying to substitute news for propaganda, information for boosterism.” and that is indeed what we would do.

The media had bias, as many groups do, but became a leftist propaganda machine. The broadcast and written journalist was unfailingly into leftist boosterism and destruction of our county. We want it stopped and will support our President.

Thanks for the exchange,

KC Burke


21 posted on 02/21/2017 9:33:02 AM PST by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: T-Bird45
Another way of making this point is to say that he’s trying to substitute news for propaganda, information for boosterism.

More like substituting propaganda for news and past boosterism for information.

22 posted on 02/21/2017 9:43:33 AM PST by capydick (“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.)
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To: T-Bird45

“The President routinely describes reporting he dislikes as FAKE NEWS.”

SLIME MAGAZINE does it again!

No, no, no!

It’s NOT that Trump calls news he dislikes as FAKE NEWS. Rather, it’s DISHONEST news Trump calls FAKE news.

When will these so-called journalists get it?

Did they even listen to Trump’s great speech last week when he gave the media a full dressing down?

He said specifically that he doesn’t mind news that he disagrees with but he does mind dishonesty in reporting. End of story.

GO back to the drawing board, SLIME MAG!!!!


23 posted on 02/21/2017 9:47:54 AM PST by AlanGreenSpam (Obama: The First 'American IDOL' President - sponsored by Chicago NeoCom Thugs)
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To: AlanGreenSpam

“When will these so-called journalists get it?”

It’s almost like they do it on purpose.
Like when they repeatedly say we want to deport legal immigrants when they no full well we mean illegal criminal immigrants.


24 posted on 02/21/2017 9:55:23 AM PST by Leep (Cyclops Network News (CNN). The Most Trusted Source Of Fake News.)
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To: T-Bird45

The author of the article eschews the tenets of responsible journalism. What he forgets is that as long as humans have been walking the face of this Earth, lying has been as fundamental to our existence as breathing air.

We can speak of high standards, but it’s in the following of those standards that well-meant axioms sound like fantasies.

Another point.

The same author was mocking President Trump, going so far to say that he prefers Breitbart to mainstream media.

Wrong.

Donald Trump and those of us who voted for him just want a fair, unbiased level of reporting. Better said, we want the adolescent malcontents in the media to stop prostituting their profession in the furtherance of their social and political agenda.


25 posted on 02/21/2017 10:01:43 AM PST by BoomerBill (Keep America beautiful - deport a liberal.)
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To: DoughtyOne

Thanks for reminding of that Rush segment. I happened to be driving and listening at that time so I think he expressed very well the central theme here. I’d add to that the dichotomy/bifurcation that occurred in times past between “reporter” and “journalist” has bearing on this discussion, too. The reporter was all about the 5Ws and an H while the journalist merely used those as tools to allow themselves to tell us what the story “really means” with their “news analysis” and “investigative reporting.” Thus, we get exploding pickups due to planted fireworks and time-travelling typewriters.


26 posted on 02/21/2017 10:03:58 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: All

President Trump does not “attack” the media, he COUNTER-attacks the Media.


27 posted on 02/21/2017 10:05:24 AM PST by Maverick68
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To: All

Bullies are always shocked when their victims get fed up and punch them in the mouth....same with the Media as they have been used to Conservatives bending over and simply taking it.


28 posted on 02/21/2017 10:19:01 AM PST by Maverick68
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To: T-Bird45

Hillary created the term “fake news”.
She owns it now.


29 posted on 02/21/2017 10:21:51 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: T-Bird45

Oh are the fragile little snowflakes still whining that Trump is telling the truth about their grotesque incompetence as “Journalists”?


30 posted on 02/21/2017 10:39:10 AM PST by MNJohnnie ("The political class is a bureaucracy designed to perpetuate itself" Rush Limbaugh)
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To: T-Bird45

“Mere stupidity” of whom? Of the MEDIA? Yes. The MEDIA is
doubling down on stupidity.

President Donald J. Trump, on the other hand, is BRILLIANT!
- See my tagline.


31 posted on 02/21/2017 10:40:07 AM PST by Twinkie (The MSM is DEAD. - John 3:16)
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To: Eddie01

Bret Stephens is a GOPe Neo-Con.


32 posted on 02/21/2017 10:48:00 AM PST by TTFlyer
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To: ClearCase_guy

“But the question of what Mr. Trump might yet do by political methods against the media matters....””

Love the Freudian slip on “media matters...” Trump should call out David Brock and his minions as the inventors of fake news. Has he trademarked the term for his 2020 reelection bid?


33 posted on 02/21/2017 10:51:11 AM PST by confederatecarpetbag
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To: T-Bird45
"Another way of making this point is to say that he’s trying to substitute news for propaganda, information for boosterism. "

Sounds good to me. I wonder if Time is too stupid to realize what they said here.

34 posted on 02/21/2017 10:52:42 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.)
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To: All

In 2016 speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Sunday afternoon, Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens said that it was important for Donald Trump to lose the general election so utterly that the Republican party and its voters “learn their lesson” and never nominate someone like him ever again.

Nuff said.

 


35 posted on 02/21/2017 10:52:45 AM PST by pluvmantelo (Boomer Presidents:The Grifter, The Midget & The Traitor. Hoping Trump is The Boss)
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To: pluvmantelo

Yup - that’s some real fair, objective, and unbiased journalism right there! Thanks for that. Would you happen to have a link handy?


36 posted on 02/21/2017 10:55:46 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: T-Bird45

The Fifth (and there is some humor there) Estate needs to grow some skin.


37 posted on 02/21/2017 11:03:49 AM PST by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: T-Bird45

No, I won’t dismiss them at all. Because they’re valid.

What’s stupid is the media establishment, which believes it can continue to tell the same old lies and keept getting away with them.


38 posted on 02/21/2017 11:18:11 AM PST by IronJack
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To: TigerClaws

They did this with Reagan too. One minute he was sleeping and drooling, but the next he was scheming to blow up the world, starve the homeless, and give AIDS to people. Depended on what day it was with the press.


39 posted on 02/21/2017 11:36:14 AM PST by Luke21
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To: T-Bird45

Bret Stephens is the stupid one. He doesn’t get it, still can’t get it into his thick, moronic head, that the media are corrupt, biased, and often incompetent. In five minutes of Google time, amateurs like us can find rebuttals to their false or distorted claims, and rebuttals to their “fact-checking.” We can catch errors that their own copy editors don’t catch.


40 posted on 02/21/2017 12:14:10 PM PST by Steve_Seattle
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