As we have witnessed in this first week, this is not an ordinary administration, there is a delusional person occupying the Oval Office, and all governmental and diplomatic normalcy seems to have been exchanged for an alternate reality. It started out with a huge tantrum that the press had purposefully under reported attendance numbers at the inauguration. Later the press was attacked in the White House Press Room when it was accused of reporting fake news, and a once respected news agency was publicly insulted by an alleged president. That this was being presented as how things were to be was so outside the norm, it left many in the press scratching their heads.
It shouldn’t have been too surprising, since tweets, insults, 24/7 media coverage had become the standard in covering every utterance from the mouth of Trump and associates. Media over exposure came at the expense of higher quality candidates with higher attendance numbers at every rally, GOP candidates that while flawed would have been significantly better than what Hillary ran against in November, and was a result of Main Stream Media switching from real news, to entertainment for the purposes of ratings and increased revenue. Trump was an untapped gold mine from advertisers trying to buy time on Corporate Media airwaves, and so was given a free platform of which to spout his atrocities, thereby giving them the appearance of legitimacy.
The few reporters who were undoubtedly asking themselves the silent WTF’s, were drowned out in the cacophony of nonstop demagoguery spewing forth in diatribes against people of color, immigrants, refugees of Islamic belief, the entire LGBT community, and women’s rights. The warnings of the candidate and campaign having nationalist and fascist underpinnings or leanings were dismissed or ignored by most of the Corporate Media producers. It was not surprising Trump’s support was a base of course, rude white males who erroneously believed that this candidate was the medicine required to cure the illness perpetrated on the nation by a foreign born, Muslim, black man. Yet the media focused more on the newest inflammatory statements than on the past positions loudly postulated about President Obama by an obnoxious Trump. Instead of calling a lie as such, the inconvenient facts were glossed over and ignored for the simplistic phrase, Make America Great Again, which grabbed attention and headlines.
This last week we have received the proof of what we feared from this abortion of a leader. Insults to the press, alternative facts, being advised we should only get our news from the White House all confirmed what those who voted for Clinton suspected or feared. The problems are deeper than what is even being reported. No surprise since federal agencies have had their social media accounts shut down, been ordered to forward requests for information to higher administration officials, had entire web pages removed or shut down, or had agency heads dismissed. This news blackout is one prong of the all-out attack on the press and our right to be informed of what our government is doing.
The more disturbing aspect of this debacle is the screaming silence of the press on what is going on in the large cities and around the country. After the stupendous coverage of Saturday’s Women’s’ Marches, around the country and the world, yesterday it was as though the Corporate Media shuttered their doors, took the day off, or gave up any pretense of giving a damn. I saw the march in Philadelphia outside the GOP Retreat, live on TV. Even live it was being downplayed by a reporter as only a couple of hundred people on the streets.
I don’t live in a big city, but I know what a couple of hundred people look like; that is the normal side walk occupancy in the middle of a business day in San Francisco. At rush hour in New York, I would estimate the sidewalks are occupied by a thousand or more per block per side. What the TV displayed yesterday was more than 5 blocks of sidewalks and curb to curb protesters outside of the Republican Retreat and around the block. The significantly more than 10,000 people were there as shown in the photos of the Kos Diary by Billionaires for Wealthcare. www.dailykos.com/...
So what were we shown last night by Corporate Media? On CBS, Scott Pelley covered a lot of things including the administration, the tennis playing Williams sisters and Mary Tyler Moore dying, but not a word on the 10,000 Philadelphia patriots protesting in brotherhood. Due to this abrogation of responsibility in reporting, I used their website to send CBS a nastygram last night on their failure. ABC and David Muir talked about Trump and the wall tax we will pay, Air Force One, GOP not wanting to touch on CIA visit, election or inauguration crowd size, the State Dept. shakeup, visit by Britain’s leader, Fort Worth police abuse of power, tax season, Williams sisters and a viral YouTube story alleging “America Strong”, but nothing about the brotherhood of protesters in Philadelphia. Colbert failed to mention the protest in his opening monologue and I suspect NBC news and other late night hosts ignored the elephant in the room as well. I failed to find anything in the NY Times about this; only the Washington Post to my knowledge acted as I expect a national news source should.
So why the dearth of coverage when 10,000 or more Philadelphians took to the streets outside of the GOP retreat? Corporate Media has decided to collaborate with the administration instead of using their freedom of the press to expose the folly and stupidity of Trump and team. The reporters have become mercenaries in the war on information and are working for the highest paying party in sharing “human interest” and entertainment non-news in place of the information We the People need to ensure our rights are being observed and the best interest of ours are protected from those of the oligarchs. The press has already surrendered to the Bannon order of getting all news from the White House, or become the Free Press version of Vichy France.
In comments I’ve compared Steve Bannon to Joseph Goebbels, Kelly Ann Conway to Leni Riefenstahl, and the Trump administration to Nazi Germany in their attacks on minorities, actions in usurping Constitutional powers reserved for others, and general demeanor in addressing the population who voted against this regime. Make no mistake, we are in a war for the health of our country, the survival of our people and the maintenance of the Constitution as the rule of law. The press as we have known it seems to have turned traitor to the principles of the First Amendment, instead becoming the enabler of a nationalist and fascist movement.
When the dollar power of sponsors is used to steer Corporate Media to ignore real stories and focus on entertainment, we no longer have a free press. When reporters follow orders or leads to fluff stories and ignore the protest down the street, they are collaborating with the enemy of the free press. If we accept the issuance of propaganda in place of real journalism, we then have to also accept the consequences of what that surrender means. I am not willing to roll over and die while the administration rapes the country. Orange is not the new black.