The German Press unloads on ours

[DFW]

My wife told me I messed a great program yesterday, where the German press blasted the American press for doing not only a lousy job of reporting during the General Election season, but actually what seemed like deliberately letting the Republicans lead them around like they were obedient dogs on a leash.

She was in the States for a while earlier this year, and saw it for herself, but never thought they'd be SO complicit in favoring one party over the either during the general election. The German program said the American press neglected facts, repeated innuendo without verification, and generally ignored substance in favor of sensation, whether backed up by facts or not--in short, they all became either greater or lesser versions of Fox "News."

Not that the current American parody that passes for journalism will care, but outside of the USA, they are fooling nobody, and the Germans definitely have them pegged.

[truebluegreen]

1. And the Germans would know, wouldn't they? nt

[DFW]

2. They sure as hell would

They know what it means to have their press manipulated for propaganda purposes. They experienced it first hand.

[malaise]

3. +1,000

Just the truth

[DFW]

6. A tall order these days back home, it would seem

How did we ever reach this point?

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Bush was a test case.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that any standard that allowed a Bush presidency would allow other morons the same.
Including stolen elections.

[Chasstev365]

4. Thank You Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton!

Fairness Doctrine and Deregulating the telecommunications industry = Goebellsvision!

[tecelote]

13. +1

[Perseus]

19. You can blame it on anything, anyone you want but

the case is that too many people in the USA have become to accept lies as a way of life, and no one questions any of the lies politicians continuously throw to the media, everyone seems to be afraid to call a lie a lie, and to question the TV, or the Internet. They want to call them "untruths", "misspoke", "does not match the facts", etc...why not just say "that person is lying", and then explain, with details why the person is lying. Nothing wrong to tell someone in their face "you are lying and I am going to prove it", of course that you have to be able to prove it, but with Trump and many republicans that is very easy.

I think citizens are as guilty as the media, if people stopped watching so much trash on TV that would force the producers to change the themes of their programs. How many comedy shows out there repeat the same jokes over and over, and people react like they have heard the joke for the first time. How many shows glorify bad manners, and luck of ethics? I have seen two movies with Jenniffer Aniston where she plays the role of a cheater, on one she is getting ready to marry this guy, she then has an affair with an older guy who had had sex with her grandmother and everyone in her class, the boyfriend finds her at a party kissing the older guy, and at the end forgives her, and as a joke he makes her promise "no more of this guy"...are you kidding me? How many kid movies use burping as a joke? Just start counting and you will be surprised, even cartoons use burp as something funny.

So, stop supporting the media, stop supporting these kind of movies and the producers will change their shows, the "news" outlets will start demanding the truth from the people they interview, and stop blaming other people. Bad people will try to get away with whatever they can, and if you let them they will, but if you don't they won't.

[radical noodle]

22. Also most of the stupid reality shows

which seem to promote being ignorant. Honey Boo Boo for God's sake. All those wives of wherever. There was one short-lived one in the hills of southern Indiana very near where I used to live. It was full of "isn't ignorance funny" stuff.

What first brought Donald Trump to our attention many years ago? Marla Maples affair with him while married to Ivana. And so it goes.

Media seems to show us what people want to see. That scares me more than anything... people actually enjoy watching this trash.

[get the red out]

29. Don't know

I've been known to watch some pretty bad TV for entertainment, but I can't watch the mainstream news, with all their sensationalism and chasing the shiny object, while investigating nothing. Most of TV entertainment has been fairly stupid forever, lots of sit-coms, soap operas...The news media now chooses to push shit as news though, they are probably saving money on actual reporting by doing so, and yes, a lot of people don't even know how they are being manipulated by this.

[DK504]

32. Since there is no laws on the books

about monopolies any longer we have 6 companies owning all media outlets. Until we come back to an FDR style country we are finished.

I do place this at the feet of the media, they also have become infotainment and nothing more. Even PBS is tainted by the Bush admin.

We will have to turn everything off to make them hurt financially. Do you think even 10% of Americans would even attempt this?

[radical noodle]

39. Maybe if we stop buying the products

that advertise on those shows? Write letters praising people like Joy Reid, who does a good job of filtering out the BS, while writing letters condemning the ones who don't. Let them know. Not watching may help us but does it change anything? I don't know.

[SammyWinstonJack]

37. +1000000!

[Missn-Hitch]

47. Proof? Ha.

The orange menace said, on television, that he "could go out on 5th avenue, shoot someone in the head and not lose any votes".

What "proof" are you going to provide?

2+2 = 5, don't ya know?

[bdamomma]

53. I like your last comment

correct, they (M$M) is just feeding the people with crap, and it's rotting out their minds. Also no one reads anymore, look at Trump tweeting what crap is that. But leave him, better leave him with that then to give him the "codes" I hope he never gets them.

You can see we are going by the Soviet hand book and Putin is in his glory. Dumb down the citizenry and they will fall into place.

We can beat this it will get ugly but we can beat them.

[cab67]

26. This is a point I try to make in my undergraduate science classes.

Many things are presented as legitimate "debates," even though from a scientific perspective, they're not - evolution (it's real), anthropogenic global warming (it's happening), vaccines (they don't cause autism), etc. Because the media are compelled to present "both sides," they make a group of crackpots look like a legitimate "side."

That Republicans use this to their advantage goes without saying.

[Mr. Evil]

43. Exactly!

Focksnooze should be known as The Joseph Goebbels Memorial Network.

[Angry Dragon]

63. +1,679

[libtodeath]

5. Our press is bought and paid for by the repukes.

[DFW]

7. It does seem so at times

I'm glad I don't have to rely on it over here.

[smirkymonkey]

27. It's so depressing. I am speechless these days.

I have just been shocked into silence by this travesty.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. Ye$$$$$$ indeed. N/T

[jaxind]

9. Moonves

Well, just remember what the head of CBS, Les Moonves, said..."Trump ain't good for the country, but he sure is good for ratings!" Hate what our media did to us!!

[barbtries]

10. that's reassuring.

i'm glad the rest of the world sees through the joke our country has become. the presidency is a reality tv show. it's all bullshit, but the consequences will be real, and dire.

[Missn-Hitch]

49. Bingo. "Consequences will be real"

That is what MUST happen.

[progressoid]

11. Our media clearly didn't learn anything from the Bush years.

[salster]

72. Our media?

Never mind our media, what did voters learn from this? Protest vote? Write-in candidates? If Gore had won, no Iraq war. Think of all those lives saved, all those dollars saved. This election, everyone saw this train wreck headed our way and yet, here we are and everyone is looking for someone to blame. The Russians, the media, ...It was everyone who voted for Trump, everyone who didn't vote, and all those who voted for someone other than HRC that helped to get us here. WTF did everyone think was going to happen if you wrote in Bernie Sanders or voted for Jill Stein? Broken record, perhaps, but the simple truth. Florida, all over again.

[pangaia]

14. Believe me, it is not just the German press...

same with the press and friends of mine in Finland, Norway. Netherlands, UK, Georgia, Spain, Portugal, just to cover Europe...

[DFW]

23. I should hope not!

The German press should not be some isolated island of sanity in Europe, but rather one group out of many who saw what our so-called "free" press was doing and was appalled as we were..

[Paladin]

15. The U.S. media deserve every bit of the criticism they're getting.

A responsible mainstream media failed to show up for the campaign process, this time around. They gave Trump a hands-off walk, because his excesses were easy to report on, and the media, in their infinite wisdom, never figured he had a chance at winning. Fuck them all.

[Missn-Hitch]

50. Hear, hear!!

[cwydro]

16. I can barely watch CNN or MSNBC anymore.

And I used to be a news junkie.

I can't stand how complicit they were in this debacle.

And I can't tolerate that orange face.

[spooky3]

21. Ditto. Joy Reid and Lawrence O are all I can stand.

And I record Samantha Bee, now playing the role established by Jon Stewart of being a better informed truth teller than the news media. She has been incredible from the beginning.

[cwydro]

30. When is Reid on? I seem to miss that show.

What I've seen, I like.

[Wounded Bear]

35. Weekend mornings at 7am Pacific time...

10 am Eastern, I guess.

Called AM Joy on MSNBC

[radical noodle]

41. Yes... two hours ET 10-noon n/t

[maxrandb]

54. Please don't watch Reid or Maddow either

The only way the MSM will get the message is if they start losing viewers and money. Sorry, but that's it! They don't give a fuck that we have Russia influencing our elections. They don't give a flying fuck about science or climate change.

They throw out Reid, Maddow and O'Donnel, in the hopes that we will forget the fact that

- For every one Reid, there are a dozen Chucky Todds
- For every one Maddow, there are a dozen Bill Halperins
- For every one O'Donnel, there are a dozen Andrea "Crypt Keeper" Mitchels

The only way to fix this shit is to hurt them in their wallet. I mean, I guess the protesters could get smart and realize it's not that far from Trump Tower to Rockefeller Plaza and storm the MSNBC Studio, but short of that...it's all "bread and circuses"

[Hortensis]

60. Agree. Their ratings are fantastic, and we're paying for

the next year's installments.

[mwooldri]

70. Nowadays there's plenty of non-US news media to binge on.

BBC World News, France 24, DW, Euronews, NHK World, CCTV, RT, NDTV, Al Jazeera... and each of them will have coverage of major US events and a different slant. Which one is most impartial? Which one is closer to the truth? Many of this is on cable/satellite subscriptions, those that are missing can be easily got online. Being who I am, I prefer my news in English without commercials and with a healthy dose of impartiality. Even if it is uncomfortable.

[madokie]

17. Many of us here have them pegged too

[Hekate]

18. KnR

[spooky3]

20. What I don't get...

Is that Fox's demographics skew older, over 65. In no other realm of TV do you see networks competing for this demographic, which tends to buy less stuff that advertisers are pushing. And certainly it was not necessary (and definitely was not ethical) to attract viewers to be so anti Clinton. So I have a very hard time accepting that only attracting viewers is driving this.

I think that the owners' and top managers' own political views lean right and that factor influenced their actions as much as the economics did.

[DFW]

25. I quite agree. The tone was set at the managerial level

That filtered directly down to the editorial level, and from there to those who appeared on screen.

We weren't seeing a story. We were watching a script.

[crosinski]

33. I think we're seeing the Plutocracy takeover all tv news now.

Just as the right wing took over most am radio, now we're seeing people with VASTS amounts of money take over TV news too. The right wing bias was just so damned blatant this year that we stopped watching at our house. We get our news from online/print journalists, and here at DU, now.

I feel unexpectedly sad writing this. A part of American Culture is dead.

[Hulk]

68. Out of the country....Mexico, Argentina, England, italy, etc...

..they don't even have commercials. When the greedy geriatrics in the States see a break in the propagantanistas, they go to boner medicine, disease pharmacy advertisers...play directly to their viewing audience. And I should say, as we saw at the dRumpf rallies, there are plenty of brain dead, butt-ignorant, shit scared haters of ALL ages who are played to by the advertizers on fox.

But outside the country, at commercial times, it goes to some bull shit called "fox extra", and they have hillbillies singing in front of the fox studeos, or health tips, or some other interesting tidbits that keep their audience glued to the tube until the get back with more distorted information to stuff in to our empty heads.

It's a masterful scheme to " not lose the lazy ass audience", and IT WORKS! So we get ZERO commercials down here in Mexico, and the fox lemmings LOVE IT! I even had one total stranger in a US airport share with me how much she loves watching fox down here in Mexico, because she learns so much (bull shit) from the "fox extra" tricks.

Fox is NOT stupid. They saceifice advertising revenue outside the country to keep their viewers "glued".

There is NO MSNBC here. Only fox and CNN, and there is often little difference between the two. We have LOST the media war....long ago. Take a drive across AmeriKKA sometime and listen to talk radio. If you can survive that without becoming a right wing fruit cake, you are a stronger person than me.

[Martin Eden]

24. The Press (especially TV infotainment) played like a reality TV show, which greatly benefited Trump

Notwithstanding his condemnation of the media as being unfair to him.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

28. The press had no idea how to handle the Trump avalanche of lies and crazy

shit. They never pulled it all together to recap it all, just reacted to each event and then forgot about it. Trump counted on this - since he knows how to manipulate the media and he knows, his base, the low-information people would never research and follow-up on the truth.

Trump is continuing this pattern today - bombardment of incremental idiocy.

It is up to the press to learn from their mistakes during the election and pull this all together and recap it all.

Start with the crazy hypocrisy of him calling foreign leaders on an unsecure cell phone and considering Petraeus for SOS....both demonstrate the topic he continually bashed Hillary for as a danger to the world.

Add in the idiocy of appointing Rick Perry to the department he can't remember he wanted to get rid of. Appointing a woman who knows zero about foreign policy to the UN.

And many more

[lillypaddle]

31. We've become an embarrassment

all the way around.

[Zambero]

34. Quite a stunning role reversal from 80 years ago

Germany as an exemplary European democracy with competent and focused leadership now laments an emerging Fascist state and the enabling media that willingly abetted it.

[niyad]

36. I remember what you said a while back about your mother-in-law and her friends thought

about the election.

pity that people in this country are so damned stupid.

[DFW]

42. Europeans are skeptical about politicians in general

They find the gullibility of the American voter to be so great as to defy all belief.

[niyad]

44. and that is putting it mildly

[mopinko]

38. i dont think the rest of the world is going to accept this dog and pony show.

what is going to happen?
we worried for our standing under w, but jeebus. this is whole nuther ball of wax.
suppose they just refuse to deal w him? i know i f'ing would. i'd call em up and ask him if he has hillary's cell if i had a problem.
i'd sooner talk to mitch mc connell.

if they get away w this, democracy dies not just here, but in the modern world. hopefully to be resurrected one day as we did athens'.

the whole world is watching.
what are we going to do?

[niyad]

45. he is already trying to give orders to NATO--this should go really well.

[bdamomma]

52. China isn't that is for sure.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/13/china-state-media-warn-donald-trump-pride-goes-before-a-fall

[Madam45for2923]

40. Yeah Media complicit in the electing of HoneyBooBoo President

[harun]

46. Germany's become the top bastion for Democracy and America the top Corpo-Fascist state

[bdamomma]

48. BBC will be reporting on our American media also

the MSM is doing this filthy man's binding. All for money and greed, hit them in the pocketbook and stop your cable subscriptions and get your news somewhere else. Give donations to Free speech TV and Democracy Now, Media Matters.



http://www.bbc.com/news/world

here is another article it is starting already there are people out who disagree.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world

[Silent3]

51. Do you know where I could find a link to a story about this?

Preferably a story written in English? That would be much appreciated if such an article about the program you mention exists.

[DFW]

56. That would be difficult

The German electronic media, unlike their print media, does not often provide English (or any other) translations for its programs, even when they do archive them. Yesterday, I had to work down in Bavaria, and so did not hear the story. It was on the ZDF, which is one of the two national TV stations, on Monday morning.

Here is the original: https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute-journal

*My wife also noted that our two daughters, one living in New York, one in Frankfurt, don't even read newspapers. They get everything they know from the internet. Case in point--I got the same fake post about the childhood of Thomas Edison from my dentist in Dallas and a Hillary Hater in the north. They both believed it lock, stock and barrel, although a quick look in Snopes would have disproved it in ten seconds.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

55. We DUers know it, but so many amurkins have no idea.

It's horrible here.

[KatyBR]

57. They did it so Trump will remove net neutrality for them giving them huge econ power

Trump has promised to remove net neutrality and put Jeff Eisenbach (well known Verizon federal lobbyist) in control of the FCC transition team. JE has for years ranted against Net Neutrality for the industry. With those FCC protections removed, the big telcos and cable cos are going to have enormous economic and political power to control what we see, learn, buy (no one puts up with buffering these days). They'll throttle our usage to only the websites they support (commercial & political); they'll data cap even more.

https://www.benton.org/headlines/trump-fcc-adviser-says-net-neutrality-target-next-administration

[Spitfire of ATJ]

58. Every media outlet pushes their "business version" too....

And it's automatically a given in that world that Republicans are good for business.

Michael Moore was right in his book "Stupid White Men".

[C Moon]

59. I believe we can expect to see our internet rights diminish in the coming years, as well.

Maybe DU will still be here, but it will load a slug's pace.

[moondust]

61. Deutsche Welle

showed a hard-hitting documentary last month on Putin and the Litvinenko polonium poisoning, bringing up Putin's background with organized crime in St. Petersburg. I'm not sure U.S. media would even show something like that, much less produce it. Recommended viewing if available.

[SunSeeker]

62. "repeated innuendo without verification, and generally ignored substance in favor of sensation"

That's our press in a nutshell.

[tblue37]

64. The MSM, including major cable networks, are owned by the oligarchs, too. nt

[War Horse]

65. Sad thing is that many would paint this as anti-American

We on this side of the pond do *not* want the U.S. to fail. Quite the contracy, where would we be without you?

[DFW]

66. Your "many" would be 180 degrees wrong

All Germans know whose ideals replaced those of the Nazis, and press freedom (with the exception of forbidding Nazi propaganda) was an American concept they embraced here as one of the greatest gifts we ever gave them. They looked up to us and our press with nothing but glowing admiration.

They are confused and dismayed that their former role model is regressing into a sort of hybrid Soviet mode, where they all conform to varying degrees of self-repression, denial, and refusal to confront the bad guys for fear of getting on their bad side. They used to admire our press because they saw it as WILLING to get on the bad guys' bad side (think Woodward and Bernstein, 1972-74), and can't figure out why our "free" press would slink off into cowardice without even being threatened by a repressive political police.

[War Horse]

67. You said it better that I did n/t

[raging moderate]

69. Do they have any advice for us?

We are in such danger.

[DFW]

73. Bombard them with what you think

Frequently and in quantity. They must be made to understand that a return to the old ideals is not the wish of a lone crackpot but the wish of their viewers. Walter Cronkite was not an example of what should be rejected, but rather of what should be emulated. Remain silent, and they'll think they're doing everything right.

[mdbl]

78. Woodward certainly hasn't helped for the last 30 years

He's been doing this false equivalency BS since the Raygun administration.

[DFW]

79. True, he never disguised that he was a Republican

Not even during the Watergate investigation. What he discovered during Watergate, and the results of his reporting with Bernstein, must have disturbed him greatly. He certainly seems to have been trying to make amends with the Republican party ever since, but it is still undeniable that he, along with Bernstein, showed courage and daring in helping bring Nixon down. Even if he adopted a more cowardly stance since then, his actions during the Nixon era were exemplary of what the press should have been doing all along.

[mdbl]

80. which is why I don't credit him with good journalism since then

He knew better but still gave them a pass letting them get away with worse than anything Nixon has done.

[Jamaal510]

71. The bad reporting

from our news media (in addition to the electoral college) is the only thing that is keeping the GOP relevant. In any other country, that toxic, good-for-nothing party would be dead by now.

[DFW]

74. Their media is indeed a good part of their survival strategy

Their party is nowhere without false reporting to convince them that the detrimental actions undertaken by their party are "good for them (about as good a potassium cyanide, but they don't realize that until it's too late)". Fox Noise and National Hate Radio, along with the internet echo chambers keep telling them "libbruls" are responsible for their poor educations, toxic drinking water and Oklahoma earthquakes. They believe it and vote accordingly.

When Fox "News" was created, Roger Ailes, in a rare moment of truth, responded with a question about whether they intended to report news objectively or not. His answer was "we have an agenda." Coming from the guy who proposed (then unsuccessfully) that the Nixon White House have their own news service in order to counter truthful news reports about their actions, his comment should not have been taken lightly.

[Nevernose]

75. Greed in management and cowardice

In the rank and file. I feel like I shouldn't have to go to turn to "alternative" news for basic facts.

Plus, facts don't have opposing viewpoints at all, and not all "opposing views" are valid, especially if one opinion is based on demonstrable facts and the "let's hear from the other side's" opinion is based on emotion. Not even morality or ethics or reason, but pure emotion.

Of course, it looks like forty percent of Americans are primarily getting their news from Facebook, the same place I go to look at pictures of my coworker's appetizer and read the every-ten-minute updates my aunt gives us about her constipation.

Sometimes I feel like we've become a nation largely comprised of cowards and idiots, except we're generally to cowardly to say so or to stupid to understand it.

[DFW]

76. Ever since "smart" phones

Now people can carry their lives around with them. Pay bills, order meals, make travel arrangements, even make phone calls. We see whole cities walking around, not talking to each other, but with their noses buried in those things. That's why I refuse to get one. I am not yet interested in ceasing to interact with the world around me. I can sift through reports about appetizers in Nepal later. I have also seen people almost literally fall apart if their smart phone is damaged or lost. I get the feeling many of them would rather lose an eye or a leg if they had to make the choice. My outfit made me get one for use when I'm in the States. Fortunately, that is relatively seldom these days, and I usually only use it for something it apparently was only marginally intended for (i.e. a telephone).

Our daughters, both university graduates, are always using those things, although they both have jobs that require reading and math skills. They never read newspapers, which drives my wife nuts. As the son of a man who was a prominent Washington print journalist for fifty years and a past president of the Gridiron Club, I find it blasphemy, but not a process I am capable of reversing.

There are print newspapers with slanted agendas, too, of course, but these are easy to spot. No one reads "The Washington Times" who doesn't already know the rag is practically Fox Noise in print.

[AgadorSparticus]

77. We don't have a media. we have a propaganda machine.

That is owned by the right. This is the real issue facing the democratic partyand the future of democracy.