"What I Saw at the 2024 DNC Inflamed My Hatred of the 'Media Elite'"

[Nevilledog]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/dnc-2024-media-elite-harris-trump-1235089053/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/Hevw2

DEMOCRATS’ CONVENTION IN Chicago undoubtedly provided a contrast of sorts with the nominating convention I had covered in Milwaukee the month prior, where Donald Trump and his champagne-vomit-belching cultists were promising — in their own pornographically violent words — a version of Homer Simpson’s line about how his “campaign is a disaster… I hate the public so much. If only they’d elect me — I’d make them pay!”

Now, with the two party conventions in the rearview mirror, the general election between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump has kicked off in earnest. There are about two months left until Election Day in November and the stakes are — as everyone is likely dead-tired of repeating — insurmountably high. The fact that this has become a cliche to say doesn’t make it any less true. But roaming the halls of the Democratic National Convention last week, there was another feeling I found myself unable to escape. It has continued gnawing at me.

Much of what I witnessed and heard about during my time in Chicago reinforced my preexisting beliefs that far too many so-called elite members of my profession — national political media scribes who fancy themselves as speaking truth to power, but more often just speak words to financially destructive Google algorithms — are mollycoddled hogs who are doing everything they can to fail to meet the enormity of this moment.

There was the bristling levels of “traditional” media resentment towards the access and treatment the Democratic organizers and the Harris campaign afforded to social media influencers. There were times when I thought I had been teleported back to 2010, when we as an industry were debating how to treat bloggers. The presence of an army of influencers or online personas made perfect sense in that that the stated priority was “media access,” and influencers are objectively part of the media — and many of these social media stars have significantly larger audiences than dozens of egghead reporters combined. Though many of these influencers do not maintain the august fact-finding standards of publications that helped justify the Iraq War, they should individually qualify for media credentials.

*snip*

[unblock]

1. "the august fact-finding standards of publications that helped justify the Iraq War"

Ouch

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Resonated With Me, Too

That's quite a sharp hook.

[Sympthsical]

3. This article is hilarious

Set aside the objective for a moment.

This writer spun seeing someone being a dick to an usher into a nearly 2,000 word article.

It then took them until the 15th paragraph to get to their point. The point, btw:

much of the mainstream political press has been (correctly) programming its audience to believe this year’s race is not a normal presidential election, and then too many in that media elite get upset when the public points out that they’re covering it like a normal presidential election, armed with the exact same petty obsessions and pathologies.

15 paragraphs of table setting!

It's a really good point, but I am in awe of this writer's ability to wheel spin at that kind of length in a professional publication. Bravo.

I really need to be a professional writer. I have missed my calling. I can go on for days.

However!

I should conclude these 2,000 words of disgruntled navel-gazing with an admission that I am, very likely, part of the problem — given that I, too, am an Elite Media Shithead.

Serious points for self-awareness.

Note: And for those of you playing at home who - quite understandably - did not make it to paragraph 16, they take a hard swing at Harris and call the Democratic party incompetent and morally criminal. So. There's that.

[unblock]

4. As for para 16, "through incompetence and morally criminal passivity, allowed Trump..."

The article doesn't tag the Democratic Party as being generally incompetent or morally criminal, it's "merely" blaming them, harshly, for not doing enough to stop Donnie.

That said, we did impeach him twice and get more votes than him twice, even if the electoral college screwed that up once.

Meanwhile, in an article that otherwise finds fault with the media, it fails to take its share of blame for promoting Donnie from the days of the birther fraud and continuing to this day, where they downplay many things that they would have used to kill any democrat's career.

If felony convictions and blatant disregard for classified information doesn't disqualify a candidate, how the hell do they justify the relentless obsession with Hillary's emails?

But yeah, it's an amusing article, even if it only serves to prove he is, as he said, an elite media shithead.

[Sympthsical]

7. I generally enjoyed it

Because it felt like the writer knew exactly what he was doing.

I don't know if self-awareness absolves it entirely, but the journey was amusing in a meta kind of way.

[betsuni]

8. Democrats allowed/let/didn't stop bad things (in this case Trump). I hate that accusation.

At least include specific ways Democrats could've stopped Trump. Usually it's the spineless, incompetent, naive, don't know what's going and similar insults, or blaming the candidate for not being a perfect superhero with mesmerizing powers forcing Republicans to vote for them and stop being crazy (article says if Harris/Walz lose they have no-one to blame but themselves). .

People who blame Democrats for not stopping Trump must also believe there really is an all-powerful Establishment which could easily stop bad things if they wanted to so they must not want to.

[Boomerproud]

5. Can I get an AMEN church.

I, and many other posters predicted exactly what would happen at both conventions. No one needs to be a Nostradamus.

[Uncle Joe]

6. The corporate media has been ambivalent about the rise of the instant mass two way communication

of the Internet at least since the days of them stating in every way possible except truthfully that "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet!" instead of actually giving him credit for his legislative and profound achievements in this endeavor of magnifying the 1st Amendment and in turn democracy.

Their mass one way dictates was the power of fire and they lived in Olympus with the other gods.

When fire was stolen and given to mere mortals; shivering in the cold and dark by Prometheus allowing the rise of philosophy and science to threaten religion and in turn their power, he had to pay the price and so it was with Al.

Now if anyone saves our democratic republic from the threat of fascism it will be up to the mortals.

Thanks for the thread Nevilledog

[RidinWithHarris]

9. "if VP Harris, Gov. Tim Walz & Democrats faceplant in this election, they will have no one to blame but themselves"

After getting so much right in this article about the terrible media coverage, the author is still unwilling to blame the media he's rightly castigating for greatly influencing the final outcome of our elections.

In another part of the article, he essentially blames Democrats for Trump being elected the first time, as if it was absolutely and entirely up to Democrats to counteract the way press normalzed Trump so much back then, for making the comparatively petty issue of "HER EMAILS!!!" loom just as large as Trump's hatefulness and ignorance and nascent authoritarianism.

Yes, we Democrats have an obligation to work hard, very hard, to defeat Trump. But we damned well aren't to blame for the media putting a very heavy thumb on the scale in favor of Trump, and not figuring out how to convince an unserious press, who should understand this on their own, how devastatingly critical it is not to fuck up this election by failing to rise to the seriousness of the moment.