Fucking Worthless, Gaslighting Media...my fucking God NO!

[calimary]

37. All these complaints are legitimate - but THIS one in particular might be first.

I used to fume about the whoring for "access" during bush/cheney. MAN-OH-MAN did the cheney people muscle that one in, deep. You did not get "access" with the administration folks who counted, unless you gave them the constant benefit of the doubt. dubya even yowled about it once, as I recall. "Well, just gimme the benefit of the doubt!"

I used to tear my hair about the "anything for access" mentality - to do what? Hear more of the same lies, distortions, and manipulative bullshit you heard last time one of 'em went on TV?

I kept fuming - "okay, so you piss off the White House because you tell the truth? That's a bad thing? Telling the truth is a bad thing now?" Or maybe "not expedient" or "we HAVE TO compete! If we take a stand, nobody will talk to us and they'll just go on our competition all the time!"

To which I'd growl - "so you're too lazy to develop interesting/relevant/provocative sources? You know nobody in poly-sci circles? International policy/diplomacy circles? Nobody who's experienced or a recognized constitutional expert, historian, respected authors or academics? How 'bout FORMER government officials who still remember how it was done right/ethically/legally? You can't start NOW, to cultivate new people as talking heads? Rachel Maddow's done that multiple times. She brought Joyce Vance in. Chuck Rosenberg. Barbara McQuade. They and others have become familiar names on-camera, showcased in marquee-name editorials and commentaries in the NYTimes and Washington Post. And thus they become noteworthy (or more noteworthy) by this exposure. Heck, I went through a Google search, and saw a four-way split-screen shot of Vance AND McQuade both testifying in Congress before the House Judiciary Committee looking into "presidential obstruction." One of the other four in the blocks was famed Watergate penitent and now media gadfly John Dean. These folks have stature of their own. And credibility. Name-recognition. Audience familiarity. They're now quite well-established as experts in their field, and most of 'em have highly-respectable resumes. I wouldn't even be surprised if one of them eventually got a show of his/her own maybe on Saturday mornings or something. They're already semi-regulars on other MSNBC shows by now.

Shit, THAT'S how you do it. Counter-programming! Grow, cultivate, develop YOUR OWN experts and VIPs and reliable sources! Showcase them! Make THEM into household names! Who needs those other assholes who won't talk to you and are trying to boycott you and thereby decrease your relevance. Fuck 'em! They're blocking the road? Find another road! Or get a catapult. Or a boat. Or one of those personal flying machines. Or a BIG megaphone and a stage with a lot of glitter and lights and metallic streamers and other eye/camera catching elements and fireworks in the background, right at the edge of their boycott. Or SOMETHING!

DON'T CEDE THE STAGE!!! If you can't use the one they're hogging, FOR PETE'S SAKE, build one of your own that competes and make sure it generates lots of stuff that's splashy and attention-getting - audio AND visual! ESPECIALLY visual.