Cable News Must Pull The Plug On Trump Live Before He Pulls The Plug On America
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Cable News Must Pull The Plug On Trump Live Before He Pulls The Plug On America
It's time for the networks to stop airing Trump's racism and authoritarianism unfilitered.
Donald Trump's South Lawn rant on Monday, where he interrupted a planned gathering while reporters were yards away to address his weekend racist attacks on four freshman female Democratic Congressmen turned into a scene straight out of his awful Charlottesville comments. You may recall that he claimed there were very fine Nazis at an anti-Semitic rally where they shouted "Jews will not replace us!"
That moment shook up his administration and most of America. It also informed us all as to who Donald Trump is and what he believes. At that moment, there was no doubt that his sympathies lay with the neo-Nazis and not the dead and injured one of them left behind.
Monday was Trump's Charlottesville 2.0.
Trump not only defended his racist attacks by using white nationalist's terms even though three of the Congresswomen were born in America, and the other became a naturalized U,S. citizen and was elected to office by the people in her district. Nevertheless, he continued to smear and vilify Rep. Omar by lying about her praising Al Qaeda. That is the kind of rhetoric that could result in her facing physical harm, or death. And that would be just fine with Donald Trump.
Cable TV networks (I wish I could include include Fox "News") need to start thinking more critically on how to handle Trump's hate speech, now that the 2020 general election season has begun.
Trump is unlike any other President of this country. He spews an unparalleled amount of lies, hateful rhetoric, racism, outright bigotry and xenophobia on a daily basis and the news networks know that about him, even if they do coat their descriptions in unhelpful euphemisms ( except for CNN recently ).
The presidency is called the bully pulpit for a good reason, but Trump has redefined it into a megaphone to promote racism, white nationalism, neo-Nazism, and anti-democratic values on a massive scale while ignoring the U.S. Constitution and its core values. This is not new.
Trump desperately tried to win the 2018 midterm elections by claiming America was being invaded by dirty, filthy migrants who were bringing diseases, gang members drugs, sex traffickers and terrorists. The strategy failed miserably, but once again, cable networks understood exactly what he was doing and why. That didn't stop them from streaming his lies, whether they came from a pool spray in the Oval Office, one of his Marine One shouty press conferences on the South Lawn, or a press opportunity with foreign leaders.
If Trump is in front of a microphone and cameras, he will lie, verbally assault people of color, women, and others who represent the Democratic party. When the cameras are on, it is as if they were actual terrorists attacking America. And again, the cable networks know this . He has shown us this over and over.
Trump's conduct since his inaugural is a first in my lifetime, it is deviant behavior, and the media needs to address how they deal with it immediately.
His behavior cannot be broadcast unfiltered any longer as if it is the new normal, lies and all.
America's media has a responsibility to its viewers to act responsibly and not help perpetuate hatred throughout the country. That means no more unflltered unedited streams. This country did fine for well over 200 years without real time, stream of consciousness live video streams. Networks have a responsibility to capture the moment on video, fact check it, and broadcast the fact check ahead of the lie . There is no need to put the lie out there and then scramble to unring the bell. DO NOT RING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Normally I wouldn't be this outspoken about the press covering a sitting U.S. president and asking them to act responsibly since they have a duty to the American people, but Trump is abnormal. He will hold political rally after rally, shrugging the office of the presidency aside in an effort to upstage the Democratic primaries and every candidate there even before Super Tuesday in 2020.
When he was a presidential candidate in 2016 Trump received millions upon millions of free advertising dollars from all cable networks who slavishly live-streamed everything he did, including empty podiums.
That is not ethical.
He has shown us who he is. He is a liar, a racist, an autocrat, and an authoritarian. There is no need for any cable news or news radio network to let him set the narrative and the agenda with his lies. It's time for them to do their job and report news, not the ravings of a pissed off old man.
Karoli Kuns contributed to this article
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Cable news should definitely stop covering Trump's every blowhard utterance. And certainly never show his rallies.
But where, oh where, would you get your inspiration from if they suddenly stopped talking about Trump 24/7?
Cable News Must Pull The Plug On Trump Live Before He Pulls The Plug On America
Sorry John 1st Amendment.
Nice thought though.
Does someone have the first amendment right to be shown on television?
I've never heard that.
Cable Television
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
ANNOTATIONS
The Court has recognized that cable television “implicates First Amendment interests,” because a cable operator communicates ideas through selection of original programming and through exercise of editorial discretion in determining which stations to include in its offering. 1172 Moreover, “settled principles of . . . First Amendment jurisprudence” govern review of cable regulation; cable is not limited by “scarce” broadcast frequencies and does not require the same less rigorous standard of review that the Court applies to regulation of broadcasting. 1173 Cable does, however, have unique characteristics that justify regulations that single out cable for special treatment. 1174 The Court in Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC 1175 upheld federal statutory requirements that cable systems carry local commercial and public television stations. Although these “must-carry” requirements “distinguish between speakers in the television programming market,” they do so based on the manner of transmission and not on the content the messages conveyed, and hence are content-neutral. 1176 The regulations could therefore be measured by the “intermediate level of scrutiny” set forth in United States v. O’Brien . 1177 Two years later, however, a splintered Court could not agree on what standard of review to apply to content-based restrictions of cable broadcasts. Striking down a requirement that cable operators must, in order to protect children, segregate and block programs with patently offensive sexual material, a Court majority in Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium v. FCC , 1178 found it unnecessary to determine whether strict scrutiny or some lesser standard applies, because it deemed the restriction invalid under any of the alternative tests. There was no opinion of the Court on the other two holdings in the case, 1179 and a plurality 1180 rejected assertions that public forum analysis, 1181 or a rule giving cable operators’ editorial rights “general primacy” over the rights of programmers and viewers, 1182 should govern.
Kind of asi, asi I suppose.
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling"
- Chicken Little
Again?
Sigh*
Yeah, i finally got my Acme Sky Shield ordered and it might not arrive in time.
Doh!
Sierra Sierra Delta Delta from the usual susoects
Had to ask one of my military friends what it meant. Will never use it on my boss, who is an ex Marine.
One other hint, never call a Marine, an "ex" Marine.
Once a Marine, always a Marine.
My bad. Really need to remember that.
I tend to not hang out with many marines. Never once have I been chastised by former Air Force, Navy, or Army members for dropping the "ex" in front of their service. Most of them tell me, "Damn straight I am ex; and don't forget it." Ok, maybe not the air force pilots; but the other vets claim pilots suffered vertigo once to often.
My Marine friends have told me that using "former Marine" is just fine - but "ex Marine" is not. They're the only branch who cares about that, as far as I know. For example, my officemate is an ex-Seal.
Bingo.
I have no problem being called a "former active duty Marine", but ex-Marine? No.
Lol .... it's a Marine thing.
And i'm with Frosty. "Former" is okay, "ex" is not. I've had some younger Marines say that even "former" was not acceptable but i don't agree with that. For my era it's always been "former" Marine once you were out. Unless you had a really bad experience, ate the big chicken dinner or such. Then it was "ex." The title of only "Marine" is for Marines still on active duty or reserves.
This stuff does tend to morph though. My Dad, a Korean era Marine asked me, what the hell do you guys yell OORAH for? They never had that back in his day. Not "oorah" anyways.
LOL ^5 Brother.