Hillary Clinton: Political journalists "can't bear to face their own role in helping elect Trump"

[kpete]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Madam45for2923]

1. Man, can this book be more awesome! Let's confront everybody.

Everyone on the spot.

Hell, yeah!

Hillary Clinton: Political journalists "can't bear to face their own role in helping elect Trump"

[calimary]

79. Andrea "but her emails..." Mitchell - are you listening?

One of the worst offenders!!!

[WhiteTara]

2. Say it out loud!

Thanks Hillary.

[sharedvalues]

3. Oh yes preach it sister!!!!

Thank you Hillary for saying this.

Cilizza deserves blame. That 50-story tweet shows it clearly.

Don't let Haberman and Thrush at NYT off the hook either. NYT has a ton of influence with liberals. My guess is that Haberman is the single journalist who bears the most blame for electing Trump - she wrote a ton of email stories and her audience is people whose discouragement from voting had a huge effect.

[DURHAM D]

9. Mag the Hab was repeatedly interviewed during the

campaign as a "friend" of Hillary Clinton making it even worse. Absolutely hate her.

[sharedvalues]

11. I think Haberman means well

And I hesitate to say this, but I think Haberman is just dimwitted. Either that or she's lived in such a bubble her whole life she doesn't know the effect she had, and how important it is that news reflects the truth and that news reflects issues important to America. The NYT isn't People, for God's sake.

[brush]

13. Don't forget Morning Joe and Mika. They gave him tons of free air time.

They're trying to make up for it by turning on trump 180 degrees by mocking his actions now that he's president.

[CTyankee]

86. I say this every time I watch the show and hear their "outrage" about Trump...

the two of them should be ashamed of themselves. But that won't happen...

[OnDoutside]

17. Cillizza is a snake. Do you remember the Hot Mike conversation between Trump and Mika&Joe ?

On it Joe said to Trump that Cilizza was "On board".

[Bradical79]

4. 100% right

Lots of people know this, but most in that sector are ignoring it hoping people forget. Its been the elephant in the room for a long time. Those that weren't explicitly trying to get him elected wanted to create a close race for ratings. Trump did nothing to help his popularity, but cable news led the way in attacking Clinton's integrity at every step, along with some other outlets and Russian propagandists.

[dalton99a]

6. +1

[iluvtennis]

48. Well said...the media wanted a "horse race" for their fking ratings.

[gratuitous]

49. Les Moonves of CBS said just that

As long as Trump was good for ratings, CBS handled everything out of him with kid gloves. The future of the nation didn't matter to Moonves as long as CBS could charge premium prices for ads.

[SusanaMontana41]

77. Reprehensible. Disgusting. Why he doesn't have to answer for that I haven't a clue. eom

[calimary]

80. That would be YOU, Steve Kornacki!

I swear - he did everything but wear a damn bib!

[dalton99a]

5. No truer words.

[NewJeffCT]

12. the problem was

that the emails were a BS issue. Her private server was following in the footsteps of Colin Powell doing the same, and following his advice to do just that.

Meanwhile, while Trump had plenty of coverage for negatives, they came and went away a day or two later and almost never returned. The email issue kept going and going and going despite it being a non-scandal.

Why was the BS Clinton Foundation scandal a big ongoing issue during the campaign, but the real scandals of the Trump Foundation were gone in maybe a day or two and barely mentioned again? How about the Trump University scandals? The Tax Returns? "Grab 'em by the pussy" was gone in a few days. How about all the bankruptcies?

[Kentonio]

15. Colin Powell, the guy who stood up in front of the UN and lied us into a war?

That's our standard of 'it must be ok then'?

The email thing kept returning, because those assholes at Wikileaks kept leaking provocative stories whenever they felt it would hurt us the most. Insiders described it in Shattered as an endless drip drip drip that ruined any good days coverage. They knew it was being done deliberately to hurt the campaign, but what are the media supposed to do when a story is leaked? Just ignore it because it might not help one of the candidates?

As for 'grab em by the pussy' and countless other Trump scandals, they really weren't gone in a few days, they were all over the news endlessly, but the shit coming from that vile bastard was so relentless and so shocking, that new stories overshadowed the old. The real question for me is still how the hell didn't those stories kill his campaign? It's not like they were hidden from the public, the public just didn't seem to care.

[emulatorloo]

27. Maybe they should have reported about it accurately rather than taking their cues from Breitbart

And Trump apologist Chuck Grassley.

Definitely see Progressoid's chart below.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9585044

On Edit: ah never mind you say it is a big lie.

And perhaps DU'ers should have stopped slobbering over every lying word uttered by "Fox News Legal Expert" Joe DiGenova. One of the most egregious rightwing hacks out there, yet posted and recc'd to the max.

[NewJeffCT]

75. Powell

is more credible in the eyes of most of America than almost every other politician out there. Unfortunately, the story of him telling Clinton to set up the private server didn't make much news... doesn't excuse his involvement in the Iraq War, but he didn't lose nearly as much as Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld did in terms of credibility.

[True_Blue]

81. It was a BS issue

Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice all had private servers and no one ever said squat about it.

[dsc]

14. Were they more important than not only every single issue in the campaign

but all of the rest of the issues put together, because that is the amount of coverage they got. Also on your other point. Take one issue, charities. Both Clinton and Trump had charities. Clinton's charity had a book written about it, had that book excerpted on the Times editorial page despite the fact the book was by a man who was known to be a dishonest, Clinton hater, and after all was said and done, the charity was an A rated charity that had no scandal. In comparison, Trump had a charity that has been shut down due to being so scandal ridden, had a reporter (literally the sole reporter who wrote about it) win a Pulitzer, that reporter wasn't excerpted on the Times editorial page, the Times wrote one story about it. Go ahead, tell me that was equal coverage.

[Kentonio]

16. Bear in mind they weren't just one story that never went away

It was a story that was deliberately and regularly fed by Wikileaks and pro-Russia actors to ensure it stayed in the news. We have a very clear enemy to blame for this, and its not the media.

[dsc]

31. again, they got more coverage than the sum total of all the issues she raised

in comparison, Trump often got coverage of his issues, even if it was at times negative.

[Kentonio]

35. Of course he did.

Be realistic, which is going to be more featured on the news, a major party nominee calling Mexican rapists, or talking about banning Muslims from the country, or building a giant wall, or a major party nominee talking about quite complex policy issues? Does anyone seriously thing the latter is going to get the bulk of press time?

The issue here is that that news coverage didn't destroy him, and might even have strengthened him. Can we really put that at the feet of the media? That tens of millions of Americans voted for a man they knew was a rampant racist, misogynist and bigot?

[LanternWaste]

45. Yes, of course we can.

"Can we really put that at the feet of the media?"

Yes, of course we can. It's not as though there is only one direction in which blame can point. There are numerous reasons, the media being one of them.

Her point yet stands.



"Be realistic..."
Yes, please.

[Hekate]

47. Be realistic: the press (aka "media") has a special place in the Constitution for a REASON...

That reason being to tell the TRUTH ("quite complex policy issues" ) not bury it because the liar is more ENTERTAINING.

The media failed, bigly. They failed the entire nation.

[gratuitous]

50. You're saying the media couldn't make its own news judgment?

That their assignment editor was Wikileaks and pro-Russia actors? I tend to ascribe more agency to the news media than that. They eagerly and willfully parroted misinformation, knew it was such, and didn't care. The ad revenues were irresistible.

[brush]

19. Come on, the email issue was a fake scandal milked and milked by repugs and some journalists...

like Andrea Mitchell who was so obvious in her hate for Hillary.

Benghazi was another fake scandal that they milked through out the campaign while they showed trump rallies over and over and over — sometimes just the crowd at the rallies while waiting for trump to show.

[progressoid]

21. Data says otherwise...

Donald Trump succeeded in shaping the election agenda. Coverage of Trump overwhelmingly outperformed coverage of Clinton. Clinton’s coverage was focused on scandals, while Trump’s coverage focused on his core issues.



Attempts by the Clinton campaign to define her campaign on competence, experience, and policy positions were drowned out by coverage of alleged improprieties associated with the Clinton Foundation and emails. Coverage of Trump associated with immigration, jobs, and trade was greater than that on his personal scandals.



...https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/08/mediacloud

[mountain grammy]

28. All true!

The American media, for the most part, worthless. Even the president they elected hates them. Ha, what irony. Wonder if the'll write about this from their prison cells?
But there's Bannon, looking all human, telling America he's a fighter (almost wet my pants on that one) and will be the con's "wing man." Yeah, that's right, CBS, let's give them an even larger forum..

[maddiemom]

37. So true that presidents they help elect are, at least, more LIKELY to hate them.

Trump is the only one who obviously hates them and started the "fake media" thing (pure self defense). Before that they were the "liberal media." In that respect, the Republicans played them for years, leading them to bend over backwards not to seem liberal. I really miss the late Helen Thomas.

[mountain grammy]

56. Yes, exacty! They were played, and played and played.

[lostnfound]

39. Calling them worthless probably misses the mark

They were worth quite a lot to their owners and advertisers. I don't personally believe it was solely errors in judgment OR sensationalism. WE HAVE A "managed democracy", and there are some billionaires that wanted this outcome who have both influence and strings to pull.

[Hekate]

52. So there's Ol' Gin Blossom yakking it up with Charlie Rose but HOW DARE HILLARY

Pardon me while I vomit

[mountain grammy]

57. Yes, "the boys" get their time.

[yardwork]

76. Typical. We know it. All women are used to this double standard.

[LenaBaby61]

82. "The American media, for the most part, worthless."

Couldn't agree with you MORE.

As others have said, media types like Andrea Mitchell took real GLEE in reporting on Hillary's alleged "scandalous" emails. Meanwhile, tRumpurin was lying like a rug almost daily and not much was made of his pathological lying, and for the most part the media STILL isn't calling that tReasonous, mentally-deteriorating pig out enough on his continuing lies.

Happy to see that this past August, the Washington Post has gone Fact Checker on tReasonous tRump:

"We have been tracking President Trump’s false or misleading claims for more than seven months. Somewhere around Aug. 4 or Aug. 5, he broke 1,000 claims, and the tally now stands at 1,057."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/22/president-trumps-list-of-false-and-misleading-claims-tops-1000/?utm_term=.ea6492ef26d8

Unfortunately, too many in the press are still trying to normalize that POS and in some cases give him props and a cookie when he doesn't act out as crazily as he usually does

[Kentonio]

29. That's wildly deceptive and you should be embarrased to post it.

What they call 'Trump-Immigration' and you call one of his 'core issues' includes the mass coverage of his racism and calls for muslims to be banned from the country and calling Mexicans rapists. Oh and not to forget about his fucking wall. Are you suggesting the media shouldn't have raised hell over that stuff?

As for that huge spike for Clinton-Emails, that includes the entire campaign from Wikileaks-Russia leaking out endless stories from the email cache to keep hitting her campaign and stop it gaining momentum.

[emulatorloo]

34. See Gallup's "word clouds" re "What Have You Heard/Read/Seen about Trump or Clinton"

You are correct that Wikileaks/Russia played a big part in this. However you are wrong that media didn't play a big part in it. Media coverage focused on ginned up Clinton "scandals".

It is typical of media for a long time now.. Wide-eyed wonder at all things Republican, steely eyed
Skepticism (or worse) about Democrats.






What Americans said they'd heard about the candidates may hold the key to Donald Trump's big upset

http://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-candidate-word-clouds-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-emails-2016-11

"Americans interviewed by Gallup associated Trump most with the words "speech," "president," and "immigration." Meanwhile, the most dominant word associated with Clinton was "emails," "lie," and "scandal," suggesting voters had heard the most about the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

It's worth noting the FBI cleared Clinton in July, and the lewd 2005 tape of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women hadn't surfaced yet, so the word clouds may have been different closer to Election Day. But exit polls suggest that three-quarters of voters had decided which presidential candidate they were going to vote for before September."

[progressoid]

62. Yaa shure

I'm embarrassed.

[SusanaMontana41]

78. That's my point, too.

The press EXPOSED him. Good people everywhere were appalled.

[mcar]

60. 600 days newsworthy?

Yes, the issue deserved coverage. It also deserved perspective.

600 days of email coverage vs 20 of Access Hollywood. Tell me there's not something wrong with that fact.

[bettyellen]

61. Have you seen the word clouds and charts? They're off the hook crazy....

Especially since the email thing was actually deliberately conflated and confused with the hacks of the DNC emails which should have been a big strike against the GOP.
Since it wasn't anything exceptional -Powell and everyone else used private email before her- it was just a ton of innuendo and false accusations being reported.
They ignored important policy statements and blatant lies from Trump al the time to cover it. I've never seen something blown out of proportion so badly.

[niyad]

64. kindly remember that her private email server was NOT illegal.

[Kentonio]

65. No, just stupid.

Not to mention that it probably cost us an election.

[niyad]

66. righhhht--because the hacking, the voter suppression, the russian interference, the

third-way voters, none of that mattered.

[Kentonio]

67. Sorry, I forgot that because that stuff all happened that she gets a free pass on everything

Or maybe without things like the email server, big money speeches and the rest it would never have been even remotely close enough for the hacking, Russians etc to have made a difference.

[niyad]

68. oooookay, got it.

[LonePirate]

8. She definitely hit the nail on the head here.

[DURHAM D]

10. Not fair, Sleez was just doing what Andrea told him to do. nt

[MarianJack]

18. Do you mean that the constant fawning over Donald Trump made the media compliceit?

Well, YEAH.

The media denying their own responsibility? Well, YEAH again!

But the big story on tonight's news...WATER IS WET!!!

PEACE!

[NurseJackie]

20. Amen to that!! (Andrea Mitchell... I'm looking at you.)

[progressoid]

22. They didn't learn their lesson with W and their complicity in the Iraq war.

[hibbing]

36. Times a thousand

Took years for a few of them to admit that. Then they would have the gall to invite these Bush criminals on their shows to discuss foreign policy. Thankfully, most have them have slithered away, but none of them will admit the war was a mistake.

Peace

[GusBob]

71. This is literally the most important point of the thread

They sold us that bullshit war with their constant WMD lies

They then basically forced Trump down our throats

Why? Ratings They are literally feasting on Trumps presidency now

[haveahart]

23. And that is a fact!

[QC]

24. She's absolutely right.

This is a result of the market-driven nature of corporate media. Trump gave good ratings, and ratings are the be-all and end-all of the market model of news media.

Maybe it's time to consider that the market model doesn't necessarily work best for everything. Maybe it's fine for toasters and cars but not for journalism, medicine, education, etc.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to turn away from market fundamentalism.

[Honeycombe8]

25. I'm afraid she's right. But that's the state of the media these days.

They have so much air time to fill, and ratings matter. So they harp repeatedly on the high-ratings story of the day or week.

It cuts both ways, though. Now that Trump has proven very unpopular and turned out to be incompetent and possibly unstable, this is hit on every single day. It's a ratings-upper and a popular topic. Is it valid? Well, I think so, but that's me. I think Trump is scary dangerous and unstable. I have thought so since before the election.

But that's the way it is. If only someone had leaked about the investigation into Trump's team's collusion with Russia...that would have taken precedence to the Clinton email story.

[nycbos]

26. AMEN

[Cracklin Charlie]

30. Thank you, Hillary!

The media will finally have to report their own culpability.

Long time coming.

[Hekate]

58. No they won't. They will simply continue the Hillary Narrative...

They will continue to use misogynistic language to describe her every utterance.

[underpants]

32. Bam!

[leftstreet]

33. She's right. But I don't think they care

They're gleefully turning on Trump now...because ratings

[Paladin]

38. Are you listening, Joe/Mika? Chucky Todd? Andrea Mitchell?

Plenty of blame to go around, for a lazy mass media that helped put an inept madman in the White House. Unforgivable.

[ananda]

40. Exactly right!

All the whiny pundits and anchors these days
should realize that they helped elect 45.

It was Clinton emails 24/7 for awhile.

[treestar]

41. Truth

They did not cover the issues.

[Orsino]

42. Best quote yet.

Media propped up Trump, possibly in part because they just didn't know how to report on a candidate without accomplishments or clear policy, and tore down Hillary throughout the campaign.

[tblue37]

43. K&R for visibility. nt

[TexasBushwhacker]

44. While I do think the media is to blame

I blame the heads of the networks more than individual journalists. Les Moonves of CBS just said it outright.

"It May Not Be Good for America, but It's Damn Good for CBS."

Coverage of Trump meant higher ratings than coverage of anyone else, in the primaries and the GE.

[onecaliberal]

46. Truth bomb, save for a few they're all sickening.

[aquamarina]

51. The absolute truth.

The media followed Trump around like love-struck puppies.

[PDittie]

53. So what can Democrats do to overcome this?

That's not a rhetorical question, by the way.

Personally I'm of the opinion that heaping blame on the media is a fool's errand. It makes me think of all the sports fans who blame the refs when they lose. It avoids responsibility for one's own mistakes -- which Hillary Clinton does not do, by the way -- and it suggests that there is nothing that can be done so long as there is a powerful media 'bias' against us.

Sorry, I'm not buying.

There is OF COURSE media bias. And candidates must be shrewd enough to overcome it, or use it to their advantage. So, again: how do we recognize and nominate candidates who are savvy enough to use the corporate media (which, as has been demonstrated repeatedly, only cares about eyeballs, ears, clicks, etc.) to engage potential supporters and voters, and not simply be used by the media as a pinata?

[stonecutter357]

54. K&R

[c-rational]

55. So True and obvious to all rational thinkers...the three biggest slayers of truth who should

go down as traitors are Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell (an ugly human being and I am not referring to her exterior visage) and Wolf Blitzer (founder of the school of the ugly voice), and why is it legal for a corporation to do something bad for the country.

[mcar]

59. She went there!

[niyad]

63. RIGHT ON MADAM PRESIDENT!!!!!

[radhika]

69. Neither MSNBC or CNN are touching this issue...

They've all had a lot of talking heads go into other issues mentioned in the book - like Comey, Russia, not visiting some states etc.

But at least while I was listening, no hint of media's role was allowed to surface.

[Gothmog]

70. K&R

[SunSeeker]

72. So fuckimg true.

Hillary's book is batting a 1000.

[DallasNE]

73. On This Hillary Clinton Is Exactly Right

Question, how did her immediate predecessors handle government email.
Answer, both Rice and Powell used private email accounts.
Comey showed no interest in going after either Rice or Powell - why?

Division of responsibility, the IT professional is responsible for the security of the system and the end user (Hillary) is responsible for the content. The one issue on content is the deletion of those 30,000 emails.

Comey and the IT professional, when Comey realized he would likely plead the 5th he granted him immunity. This has always baffled me because this was the logical end of the investigation into the security issue. He was the big fish.

Comey caught a break, when Anthony Weiner's computer he shared with his wife showed a back-up file of Hillary's email server and it was from before Hillary deleted any of her email. Comey did find some of the deleted email. Comey released a statement on one such email and it covered what the two women were going to wear to an event both were attending that evening. Apparently all of the "new" email was of a personal nature, as Hillary had claimed.

The whole episode was improperly framed. Comey did nothing to set the record straight. The media had no interest in setting the record straight. Both Comey and the media have this hanging over their heads and need to set the record straight, with an apology to Hillary Clinton. It was all very shameful.

[SusanaMontana41]

74. Les Moonves, CEO of CBS: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."

Despicable. Reprehensible. Reckless. Irresponsible.

But as for the pundits: Pundits give opinions. That's what they do. Some I like, others not so much. Should they be quashed? I hope we're not suggesting that.

On the larger question, as a journalist myself, what was the press supposed to do? Ignore him?

Decent people were appalled by what he was saying and doing. The press exposed him as much as it "propped him up." I supported Sanders during the primaries, but the danger of Trumpf convinced me that I had a moral responsibility to vote for the one person who could stop him, and that was Hillary Clinton.

[ecstatic]

83. Similar to Stein and/or non-voters, the MSM will never take responsibility

for the role they played in this nightmare. That being said, some excellent (print) journalists were sounding the alarm about Trump and his many conflicts, lies, fraud, etc. Unfortunately, only one or two cable news shows aired that type of reporting.

[DeminPennswoods]

84. Trump equalled ratings;

Hillary equalled dull and boring.

Add the "both sides do it" political standard most media stories us and there you have it.

The ironic email thing was that her private server address was hillaryclinton.COM. No one in gov't who would be sending her emails would think that's a secure email address.

[Mike Nelson]

85. LOL...

...she knows the media.