Commentary: Newspapers don't help themselves by coordinating against Trump
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If you are a Trump voter who thinks that much of the press is reflexively hostile to the president, 300 of America's leading newspapers want you to know that you might be on to something.
In a self-defeating act of journalistic groupthink, America's editorial pages launched a coordinated protest against President Trump on Thursday, all running negative editorials attacking the president over his #FakeNews rhetoric.The Boston Globe, who organized the effort, calls it "educating readers" about "an attack on the First Amendment." But to the average American, seeing an editorial in their local paper trashing Trump is called "A day that ends in 'y.'"
Seriously—Who's going to be persuaded by this effort, or be impressed that a few hundred newspapers can hum the same tune? Who's even going to notice?
Well, the newspapers will notice, of course. There's a run on pain pills from all the muscle injuries inflicted by self-indulgent media back-patting. "A Free Press Needs You," a New York Times editorial headline blared on Wednesday, praising themselves for "answering the call" of the Boston Globe and courageously facing the threat that is Donald Trump.
#FakeNews? That phrase is "dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy," the Times intoned. "And calling journalists the 'enemy of the people' is dangerous, period."
And to prove we aren't the enemy, we in the media are going to band together and go after the guy who keeps saying we are! The same guy we attack every day, seemingly no matter what he does, and in ways we've never attacked a politician before!
That might be an unfair characterization, but it's easy to understand why Trump supporters would see it that way. They remember the Obama administration spying on reporters. They remember Obama White House attempts to have Fox News de-legitimized and removed from traditional media opportunities over its viewpoint. President Obama called out the network by name repeatedly.
How many "Days Of Editorial Rage" did that inspire?
The real danger to the media isn't Trump's attacks—it's his departure. Trump, and the hatred he inspires among the left-of-center, media-consuming public, is a massive fiscal boon to these newspapers.
The New York Times picked up 41,000 subscribers in just the first week after Trump was elected. They made more that $1 billion in subscription revenue in 2017. The impact of Trump on media revenue has been so huge they call it the "Trump Bump."
Yes, yes, Trump's attacks on the media are over-the-top and wrongheaded. Yes, in some small way he's undermining the credibility of legitimate journalism.
But here's the headline the Boston Globe missed: The media had largely done that to themselves before he showed up. Believe it or not, the percentage of Americans who say they have a "great deal" of trust in newspapers is actually up since Trump took office.
Or rather it's up from 8 percent to 12 percent. The percentage of Americans with a great deal or quite a lot of trust in newspapers hasn't hit 30 percent since 2006, according to Gallup. The percent that have little or no trust in them whatsoever hasn't been below 30 percent since 2008.
So what's the point of the editorial-page protest? This avalanche of invective won't move Trump supporters. The Globe, Times, Chronicle, etc. made it clear months ago that these readers weren't valuable to them. And how much self-indulgent virtue signaling can the media do before it loses its charm?
Media critic Jack Shafer at Politico predicts that this act of editorial grandstanding will backfire.
"It will provide Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose him. When the editorials roll off the press, all singing from the same script, Trump will reap enough fresh material to whale on the media for at least a month," Shafer wrote.
And when Trump does, these same editorial pages will rage against it. Subscriptions start at just .99 cents a month.
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This is a well thought out piece by Michael Graham of CBS News. Never thought of the boosting subscriptions angle.
What he's saying is that well, Trump says we're all ganging up against him, so let's gain up against Trump. Whether it is correct or not, it is the image they are promoting with this 'act of educating readers' (sub type would be 'becuase they are too stupid to educate themselves' and that, my friends, is one of the reasons so many people don't trust the news.....88 to 92% of them.....hmmmm....seems like there's a bunch form all walks of life that don't trust the press.
Is that snake in the photo for this piece supposed to represent Donald Rump?
Ah just as I thought. It represents the Rump though I view the snake as a higher life form than that piece of shit Rump
do you think, since journalists/reporters/etc are being "attacked", that they shouldn't fight back ?
So, many people assume that they are conspiring to 'shape' the news, when called out on it, the Boston Globe leads the way conspiring to have a newspapers all report anti-Trump rhetoric on a specific day. Yeah, that will allay everyon'e fears........
What they could do instead is get off their asses and go out and investigate and report the news, without editorial/opinion input-aren't you smart enough to make a decision based on unbiased reporting of the news?
And have they not been atttacking him since before the election? Why did the New York Times leadership apologize publicly and promise to tell the truth after the bungled the election reporting?
or they could just not fight back and bow down to anyone that criticizes them , right ?
do you do the same thing when someone " attacks " you ?
so now you want journalists/reporters/etc to not have an opinion or to be restricted from sharing their opinion - and just get rid of the editorial/opinion columns altogether just because they are critical of Trump ?
let's pretend Trump is the first person a newspaper ever attacked and we'll also pretend that Trump is the very first president that the media attacked as well, ok ? since we're now pretending that - we'll also pretend that if you work in the media that you are no longer allowed to have an opinion on anything. sound good ?
bottom line - people will have an opinion, always have had opinions and will always continue having opinions, including in the media . Newspapers even have sections devoted to people's opinions - so why are we trying to shut them down now ? oh.. that's right.. it's because of Trump . So we shouldn't allow opinions anymore on Trump , is this correct ? ( sure, seems like an exaggeration right ? but shutting down opinions now will only cascade - look ahead... i may not always agree with the media and their opinions etc, but we have them for a reason and "freedom of press" for a reason as well )
“News reporters and editors are human, and make mistakes,” the New York Times said . “Correcting them is core to our job. But insisting that truths you don’t like are ‘fake news’ is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people’ is dangerous, period.”
While plenty of national newspapers took part in the project, many were local, and from states that voted for Trump in 2016.
“We aren’t the enemy of the people,” the North Little Rock (Ark.) Times wrote . “We are the people. We aren’t fake news. We are your news and we struggle night and day to get the facts right.”
Some prominent newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, declined to participate.
“This is not because we don’t believe that President Trump has been engaged in a cynical, demagogic and unfair assault on our industry. He has, and we have written about it on numerous occasions,” Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Nicholas Goldberg explained . “The editorial board decided not to write about the subject on this particular Thursday because we cherish our independence.”
Goldberg predicted Trump would accuse newspapers of collusion.
“The president himself already treats the media as a cabal,” Goldberg wrote, “suggesting over and over that we’re in cahoots to do damage to the country. The idea of joining together to protest him seems almost to encourage that kind of conspiracy thinking by the president and his loyalists. Why give them ammunition to scream about ‘collusion’?”
John Diaz, the Chronicle’s editorial page editor, was equally prescient .
“It plays into Trump’s narrative that the media are aligned against him,” Diaz wrote. “I can just anticipate his Thursday morning tweets accusing the ‘FAKE NEWS MEDIA’ of ‘COLLUSION!’”
As you know, no one is trying to shut down the editorial/Opinion page. When it becomes the entire newspaper, that is something different altogether.
I'm glad some chose to hold on to their independence.
Phoenix, I thought you were smarter than that.......either that or you are trying to bleed over what I wrote into other things. Report the news. Period. If you have an opinion, save it for the editorial/opinion page. Plain enough?
oh ? well that's a good thing - so why are people complaining again since it's all editorial/opinion pages ?
yea, all in the editorial/opinion pages , correct ? if they are allowed to have their own opinion - what's the complaint again ?
( btw, personal insults aren't really appreciated by me unless i make them at you first and you are just defending yourself ) which is great and the article states :
did you notice the word " editorial " in there ? so this isn't about the news necessarily , it's about the editorial/opinion pages !
If I were to guess at this point I think the obvious reason is being overlooked. It appears some don't know what "editorial" means. If they see it on t.v. or read it (if they read......wink, wink) they automatically assume it's what is being reported as fact rather than understanding it's an opinion. Their fearless leader has the same misunderstanding.
Another example of the poor shape our educational system is in.
you definitely might be on to something considering many of the comments about "fake news"
umm.. yea... Trump is exposing editorials and opinion pages as... biased ... .. yea.. since they are ... opinions ..
That is exactly what they are.
they are exactly opinions since we're discussing editorials... did you read the article yet ?
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My interpretation was it was their way to unite and rally each other. To refocus on the importance of staying the course. Our country is going through tumultuous times under the leadership of this man. We are being held hostage by a small minority of people. Each day that passes I find it harder and harder to find anything positive to say about them. Let them have their 15 minutes. Good always triumphs.
Commentary: Newspapers don't help themselves by coordinating against Trump
All they did was prove he was right.
Right about what?
Maybe I should have said we instead of he, since we already knew there has been a concerted effort by the newspapers of coordinating against Trump. Most all of the newspapers are Liberal, especially those who have a large distribution in this country and they don't have to know anything at all, except some anonymous person or people have this information to publish it like it is the gospel and everything they post is collusion against Trump.
Take the big deal about the American vet whose wife was being sent back to Mexico. This news was everywhere, like it was unheard of before such a thing was happening to a lady who evidently was illegal or didn't follow up with her court dates and had lived in the USA for two decades. These newspapers and Liberal sites attacked Trump ignoring the over 500,000 people just like her with children had been exported from the USA from January 2009 through September 2015 when the Washington Post article came out.
We could go on and on with examples, but it is very clear, if there was any possibility Trump was guilty of something, proof has not been a necessity it publishing their attack articles on Trump, while making it appear to the American public this is a first time and it is terrible, while ignoring such things as the facts above.
They are not coordinating, about 300 publications of all political perspectives, ALL political perspectives, from Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, and others, united in a public statement that they are not the "enemy of the people.
For God's sake, the UNANIMOUS decision in a startling show of bipartisanship when McConnell read the statement about passing a formal declaration that the press is not the "enemy of the people" in the same spirit of solidarity in showing the public every member whether it was a Democrat or a Republican stands up against the attack against our Constitution and our right to a free press.
You are either for the Constitution or you aren't and every newspaper of all political viewpoints that made that editorial commentary and every member of our own government who stood up and spoke out in support of our Constitution did the right thing.
For anyone, anywhere to attack our freedom protected by the Constitution is a direct assault on democracy in this country.
Nothing says the press is under attack like a big coordinated effort that has been done with absolutely no govt interference or attempted shut down. I'd like to see a list of all news sites that have been shut down by order of the govt or journalists detained indefinitely. And the left wing media has the gall to do this while their own reporters are under physical attack by the left wing groups. The only threat to the First Amendment that is real is the media trying to away Trumps right to free speech.
A little girl was leaning into a lion's cage.
Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the collar of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, all under the eyes of her screaming parents.
A biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.
Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl and the biker brings the girl to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.
A reporter has watched the whole event.
The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, "Sir, this was the most gallant and bravest thing I've seen a man do in my whole life."
The Harley rider replies, "Why, it was nothing, really. The lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right."
The reporter says, "Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page. So, what do you do for a living, and what political affiliation do you have?"
The biker replies "I'm a U.S. Marine, a Republican and I voted for Trump".
The journalist leaves.
The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:
** U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT & ROBS HIS LUNCH **
And THAT pretty much sums up the media's approach to the news these days.
LOL Yep. Funny story Great punchline. I'm still chuckling. But one of the thoughts that ran thru my head after reading the story was, "Yep that's for damn sure" Then, Why ? Why are so many people so hateful towards this president ? Is it that they hate him personally ? His policies ? Because hes not hillary ? Yep all of the above for some probably much more.
Personally I dont hate president trump, I dont care for his personality or even his means and ways of accomplishment much at all and I think he's basically a bully. But mainly I fear presidents trumps method of governing. It seems to me he would prefer absolute control over way more that I prefer a president has.
Frankly I think he would too ( and really that probably could be said of most if not all presidents). That is one reason I would not be surprised that he will not run for term two . I think he has been finding that he doesn't have the freedom and control he had as the head of his business.
I did vote for him and support much of what he is doing. If I was given the same choice as I had in November 8,2016 I would make the same choice.
I think he will run again. He has to much of an ego.
True but as much as he has gotten done already and depending on the outcomes of these next elections it wouldn't surprise me if he wants and even feels he needs to continue for another term.
I did vote for him and support much of what he is doing. If I was given the same choice as I had in November 8,2016 I would make the same choice.
I most reluctantly voted for the one and only candidate we went into this last election that I was saying I wouldn't vote for, hilldabeast. and Please !!! NO Redos on the choice of 2016..
I voted on what I learned, knew and felt about the only two candidates I did not want to face off.
After my analyzation of the two I thought and felt hildabeast was slightly less mental. As I said, "mainly I fear presidents trumps method of governing."
( and really that probably could be said of most if not all presidents).
Good point, somehow it wasn't as much of a concern to me with the presidents of before, perhaps it's president trump's personality that amplifies my concern. Reinforced by some of his actions.
Maybe but being president isn't what it's cracked up to be and one doesn't really have the power we are leading to believe . I think that the stress if the job (Trump will be what 75, or 76 years old in 2020) and not having the freedom and control he had as corporate CEO/business owner may just have him stop after one term.
Like I said I am closer to being psychotic rather that psychic but it would not surprise me in the least.
I think one of the things being overlooked is the diminishing number of daily newspapers in the country. In 2014, the estimate was close to 1400 dailies, and just 2 years later, the number decreased to just over 1200.
What this says is that very few Americans rely on newspapers today for their news. There are thousands of other sources online for us to get almost real time news. Newspapers are usually a day behind.
Just because 2 or 3 hundred newspapers write a coordinated attack on the President doesn't mean anyone reads them. Their message is mostly ignored.
True. Most people here quit subscribing to our local paper when it became part of the Scripps Howard chain and instead of long time local editors they send one after another who delights in offending the conservative majority in their subscriber area.