Ian Reifowitz has a story about the despicable NYTs’ pathetic attempt to bothsiderize Biden’s covid response with Cheeto Mussolini’s non-panicking gently genocidal approach. They are so desperate for a “BUT HER EMAILS!!!!” headline to hydrolically put their thumb on the scales for Trump— in the interest of maintaining a “horserace”-- in the death throes of the election, they had to resort to this impotent waste of valuable front page column space……. with all that’s going on, yes, THAT is what they devoted their front page to. Seriously.
I am proposing that Markos contact every progressive/demorat leaning site and blog he can (obviously, delegates can largely carry this out for Markos, as I assume he’s very busy, but this would need to be between site admins and founders. I will help any way I can!) and invite them to join a Rapid Media Response Coalition of journalists/bloggers who will alert the group the moment an obnoxiously bad story or report is posted on ANY mainstream newspaper, tv or net site, so they can coordinate with each other to distill what the transgression is and what the response should be from the coalition, to then flood the net and Twitter/FB et al with a unified, relatively homogenized message of blunt, harsh-but-accurate criticism of exactly what/how they wrote or said.
The point is to embarrass the writer(s) and editors for sloppy and/or disengenuous and/or easily provably wrong reporting. Remember: EVERY person who thinks him/herself a journalist is emminently concerned— more accurately described as “fixated”-- with their reputation/image from minute to minute because every one of them wants to be the next Woodward or Frost or Walters.
If enough bloggers and journalists tweet (and post on FB and everywhere relevant) at about the same time, then their criticisms will overtake and out-trend the offending story and in fact would become the story, which would be highlighting the malfeasance of the NYT (or whatever outlet), inviting analysis and discussion that will, hopefully, at least cut down on the bothsiderism and false equivalence and egregious normalizing of despicable and often illegal behavior narratives that are rampant in the media writ large.
Seriously, reach out to all these others and help everyone realize that there are more of us than there are of them, and we know how to use Twitter and FB to pound these ChuckToadies to a pulpfiction with our words of righteous outrage.
The NYT, WAPO, NBC, CNN et al are ARROGANT and SMUG as hell. THEY DESERVE SO MUCH MORE SCORN THAN THEY GET for bringing us to where we are today. I put just as much blame on the MSM as I do the rethug party for Trump and everything that is wrong with America today….. recalling hours on end of cameras focused on empty podiums waiting for the dotard to spew word salad they could breathlessly declare presidential, and encouraging surrogate rethugs to lie to the camera uninterrupted and unchallenged on a daily basis, framing Frump’s declaring that he’ll steal the election as simply the reupblican strategy, tactic, chess move, clever. I have yet to hear ONE mainstream pundit characterize trump’s stated intentions as clearly a brazen attempt to steal the election, while pointing out that almost the entire rethug party has stated they are backing his coup with criminal intent, eager and ready to shred the Constitution with armies of lawyers and armies of heavily armed rightwing gangmembers at polling places (what could possibly go wrong?)…. with the implicit encouragement of the MSM, salivating at the prospect of political/race riots in the streets come the 3rd and beyond. THINK OF THE RATINGS!
PF: “There could be millions to an encore; we’re so happy we can hardly think!”
Seriously, if “we” (progressive bloggers and journalists) coordinate responses to the most egregious journalistic malfeasance as it happens, and if we enlist an army of citizens who ‘follow’ the Rapid Media Response Coalition, ready to add their likes and retweets for trend momentum, I think we could actually make a difference in the tone and quality of reporting over a short period of time— especially if we’re judicious about our targets, choosing the worst to respond to and not responding to every little transgression (that would be exhausting!). Calling out a reporter for saying the cop “allegedly” shot Blake in the back seven times when they just showed the film of it happening doesn’t warrant an alert; that’s just casual institutional stupidity by a reporter, not malfeasance.
Have you notied how Chuck Todd actually clapped back on a couple of blatant liars in the last week or so? That is ONLY because his bothsiderism was being blasted all over the net and some media after several particularly disgusting stenographic episodes of MTP.
Are there enough of us who agree with this concept? Please comment and offer any input you have to further this idea below.