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Joe Biden decision surprised most US TV news networks: How CBS, MSNBC and more scrambled to cover bombshell
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- Authors
- Brian Steinberg
- Published
- Jul 21 2024
- Word count
- 248 words
I'm posting this NOT because I want to talk about the Biden decision, but because I'm hoping to read discussion about the deficiencies about current mainstream media and how biased everything seems.
It's really weird that everyone's been focusing on Biden's age and stuttering problems when it kinda feels like Trump has the same issues, and then some, but for some reason the media seems to only want to talk about Biden.
I see where Biden comes from for this one, the media's been shitting on him for the last couple of weeks, why would he want to give them the scoop?
I'm sure this will sound biased, and I'm open to being told that I'm wrong, but it seems to me like they focused on Biden's flaws because Democrats and left-wing voters care about that sort of thing, and Republicans don't. Trump has always been a rambling, incoherent mess. Demonstrating that further doesn't change anything. In the same way that he could "shoot someone on 5th Avenue" without loosing any votes, he can tell a rambling nonsense story about something utterly unrelated to what he was asked, and his supporters don't care. He did that plenty of times in 2016. It gets a few laughs from people who already didn't like him, but we've got much larger, more important criticisms, so the attention dries up quickly.
Biden supporters (resigned or not) do care about that sort of thing. Some - myself included - would still have voted for Biden if he was already dead and that was the only realistic option other than Trump, but we still wanted to know exactly how bad of a time we were in for. More concern, more attention, more clicks.
It's worth adding that the media did report heavily on Trump's deficiencies during the 2016 election, and it seemingly helped him get elected. I'm glad there is less focus on him now.
Completely agreed. That's how we know that Republicans don't care about that sort of thing. It's not news, it's the continuation of a widely publicized situation that voters and consumers of the news have already taken into account. The voters that it was going to lose him, like my mom, already made that decision back in 2016. The people who didn't care then still don't care.
This really is the core of it. It is the job of the media to report news, i.e. new developments. Trump's blabbering has no consequences, while Biden's gaffes caused an intra-party revolt. Sure, you can argue that the media exacerbated the issue by amplifying the voices of defectors, but when Democratic politicians are calling for a President to step aside, how could that not be newsworthy? And it's not as if the media doesn't cover Trump's nonsensical statements -- remember when he extemporized about sharks last month? But ultimately if there's no fallout, there's nothing to follow-up on.
Right. If his supporters don't even care about obvious fake things, don't care about covfefe, boasting about a nonexistent wall, boasting about sexual assault or his numerous felonies, then "Trump said dumb thing and looked incompetent" has been worn out for 8 years.
It has no shock value for friend nor for for him to be named as incoherent and out of touch with reality. To borrow a phrase from a kid, "It's not news, it's olds."
Trump blathers on, but I feel like Biden seems significantly more senile.
Another thing that I think creates this media bias is that when Trump goes on some sort of nonsense rant, its hard to show how nonsense it is without actually listening to the whole thing (doesn't fit in a sound bite) and without really thinking about what was said.
You’re right! Biden’s aging is shown much more easily: He talks slowly, zones out, makes gaffs and walks like an old man.
Trump appears strong because he just keeps talking. Even though it’s nonsense. It’s a firehose of nonsense and lies.
And the worst thing is, the media makes something sensical out of his nonsense. Some claimed he went for unity at his RNC speech, even though he showed his worst once he went off script. That’s just poor reporting.
Fortune cookies, astrology, tea leaves and natural path remedy labels have this in common: drone on and on about many different topics endlessly, but keep it extremely vague and trail off..... and people can read whatever they want out of the text.
Trump’s “tan” also helps him look younger. The few pictures I’ve seen of him without it make him look much older.
At least for the last few weeks, it was a big story because a coalition of Democratic politicians (and others) were trying to get Biden to drop out. This was going on since some time after the debate, and reporters knew it.
The Republican party isn't doing anything like that for Trump.
(Also, I'd guess that many reporters privately agreed with what those Democratic politicians were doing. It was news regardless, but that probably had an effect on how much coverage it got.)
Let’s be honest… the media wants Trump to win because they want the daily dose of dumbass they got for the last 4 years. People aren’t interested in Joe Biden’s boring brand of politics so, although they were pretending to care about his mental state and his health (which, by all accounts is fine but also still that of an 81 year old man), the media wants Trump for the sensationalism and stories that he brings to the table every day. It keeps people engaged and it keeps people tuning into their channels every day to find out what’s happening now.
If you had no knowledge of either man and couldn't speak or understand English and watched the Biden / Trump debate I think you would quite clearly mark one person as noticeably less suitable for any sort of high pressure job. Biden gets talked about more because quite simply the perception he projects is one that anyone who has dealt with elderly people will instantly recognize, Trump doesn't.
I’ve long gone from expecting news to be factual or investigative reporting. These days I consider them to be nicely produced “react” content - especially if it’s using video as its medium. They do not want to tell you things as they are because those stories are boring and expensive. Why would they produce them when the things that make them the most money is the stuff that they paraphrase off of the AP feeds and spend 90% of their time with commentary?
That's 100% on them not being prepared with things to air to fill time until the regular big anchors can dial in.
They've been reporting on party backstabbing for weeks. It's about a super old guy who recently got COVID.
In house, they should have a thick stack of interviews and hot takes ready for if either Trump of Biden succumbed to old people stuff: what if either broke a hip, or need knee surgery, or is seen making a mess of eating soup, or is hospitalized for mild stroke etc.
What we talked about here yesterday: legal challenges, passing on the war chest, what do donors think, advantages that Harris has over Biden and Trump, disadvantages, track record as a Senator/VP....these should have been ready at a button reach to hit Publish.
The article is more about being surprised personnel-wise, signalling a snub. But maybe that's a good calculated move: at least one of you could have been given a huge scoop but y'all have been jerks who have taken this relationship for granted.
People, the public, like to think of "the media" as this adversarial truth seeking establishment. That media is waging this honorable, determined cold war against government and leadership, against businesses and important figures, against all the bad things and bad people, to Find Truth and Inform The People.
Which isn't at all how it works.
Mainstream media values "access" and "privilege" more than truth or information. Politically, this means the reporters basically play ball. All the time. They don't make waves, they don't upset sources, they don't rock the vote or upset the key figures.
You see movies, where some reporter is determined to find the truth and share it, against heavy opposition trying to silence those inconvenient truths. That doesn't happen in reality. Sure, "the media" will run with some embarrassing story, but only collectively. They all use each other as cover.
"Well, we have to lead with this story and talk about it, even though it makes you and your candidate look like a complete fool, because they are too." That's what a reporter, or more likely the newsroom director, will tell the candidate's or senator's, governor's, president's, mayor's, whomever's, representative when they call trying to quash a story.
Once something's somehow broken wide (these days often by an insider leaking it to social media), only then the gloves can come off and it's now officially a story. Until then, it's nudge-nudge, wink-wink, what have you done for me lately? Access and Privilege is a strong motivator to keep reporters toeing the line the way their subjects want it toed.
Politicians, their campaigns, their parties, dangle A&P constantly at the media. If a reporter or a media outlet pisses a principal off, that media source is frozen out. The candidate (and their campaign, party) stops taking calls, stops answering questions, doesn't give quotes, and won't give them exclusives or background briefings or off-the-record comments or anything else. No more "here's what's about to happen, so you can be the first" or "tomorrow X will happen so prep for it now." Complete cold shoulder.
And the media, or at the very least their corporate masters, don't want that. Why? It makes their process (being a media source) harder, meaning more expensive.
Beat work, aka being a reporter, can be expensive. In time and resources. Look at any media character in most movies and shows, and what do they depict? The reporter tirelessly pounding the streets, working the phones. Dropping in on buddies and contacts, conducting interviews, digging through libraries and archives for old documents, running down facts and figuring out how they puzzle piece together, and so on. You know, working.
That work takes time. Which costs money since the reporter is on their media source's payroll, and further is probably racking up expenses like phone bills, archive fees, travel and lodging, and so on.
Much, much cheaper to just call the campaign's press agent, and get a quote. Never mind that quote will, of course, be designed to only say exactly what the campaign wants said, in the way the campaign wants it said. Cheap and easy carries the day. And if they don't say what it says how it should be said, they're frozen out. Can't have that.
Used to be, every reporter was a reporter. Even with TV news involved, the lion's share of news happened at the newspaper level. Locally. Even national news originated locally, which is why papers like the New York Times and Washington Post became elevated to where they eventually did; they were ground zero in Important Cities where Big Shots Did Stuff.
Then politicians began to realize image mattered more than substance. So did media. Especially TV news. Broadcasts began to realize that who audiences wanted "reporting" the news (aka, reading it out to them on TV screens) wasn't a tireless hardcore reporter, but someone good on TV.
Now that's not necessarily wrong or bad, so long as the content that talking head reads is generated by actual reporters. But there's no real news anymore. It takes reporters to do reporting, and that's unnecessary expense that's been cut. Newsrooms have been slashed, reporters fired.
They all just lean on A&P, on frictionless and effortless social media, for their "news". They see a tweet drop, and call the campaign or the company's press office. Brief phone call, maybe some emails are traded, and then they've got "a story" they run with. No verification, no pushback, no cross-checking, no investigation, no second or third sources.
Now, my understanding is even though Biden was apparently being leaned on hard behind the scenes to withdraw, he was keeping his own council. There are quotes scattered around where mere minutes before (and I think even minutes after) Biden's tweet, campaign staffers were working the phone lists contacting Big Donors asking for campaign donations. So even "his own people" didn't know.
But actual newswork would have revealed most of what presumably led to Biden then deciding to announce his resignation from the race. Now that there's a story to chase, a bunch of mainstream media has been calling around to various Bigwigs on the Democratic side and finding out a lot of closed door meetings were happening. Quiet conversations, back room conversations, behind the curtain conversations.
That's the kind of thing most ordinary people just assume reporters are doing all the damn time. But they're not. They wait for the call. Or wait for a feeding frenzy.
Either way, none of the "reporters" were closely monitoring the DNC and Democrats in the weeks leading up to Biden's announcement. If they had been, they probably would have stood a chance to start putting pieces together. As random examples, perhaps Pelosi and other senior Democrats were meeting with Biden a lot more after the debate than they were before. Perhaps Biden Campaign staffers, or other people known to be close to Biden, were voicing concerns and having meetings about "what if". Perhaps big donors were declining to continue donating.
That last one is apparently only now coming out. Which just underscores my point. What the fuck are "reporters" doing if they're not chasing that kind of thing?
Yesterday I followed some recommendation chains through and ended up on a NYTimes podcast about the aftermath of Biden's announcement. The podcaster had someone who's a member of Biden's "donor council", whatever they called it. A group of rich people who regularly donate, and help solicit and coordinate donations, to Biden's campaign. One of the things they covered on the podcast really pissed me off, in so many ways.
The donor talked about how, in the past few weeks, donors were increasingly becoming angry and upset with Biden, and withdrawing financial support. The donor took the position that this, more than anything else, convinced Biden to withdraw. In plain words, rich people didn't support him anymore, so of course he had no choice but to withdraw.
Now, Biden withdrawing needed to happen. It needed to have happened more than a year ago, for him to have said in a more orderly fashion "find a 2024 candidate because it won't be me" but that's neither here nor there at this point. But that donor pointing out how much leverage money had over the decision, more than politics, more than the realities of the country and where it'll be headed if Project2025 is allowed to begin happening, really pisses me off. Even though it's not a surprise, that he was so comfortable discussing how much outside influence money (his money) had over the process, it's still angering for that in itself, along with the fact that it works that way in the first place.
And it also underscores my point here; that media is lazy as hell and doesn't seem to do anything we'd consider reporting. They could've been talking to donors. Political donors are often open donors. Sure backroom bullshit happens, but a lot of it does happen above board and openly. The names are known, people know who's giving money, when, and how much. Did any reporters start working the phones checking with the donors as part of a proper investigation to determine if Biden was or wasn't planning on withdrawing?
Nope, because that would be work. And work is expensive. They just did what they always do these days. They called the handful of "senior figures" inside the campaigns and politicians' offices, and took those quotes as the sum total of their "reporting". Those "sources" are used to fill out 35-40 minute chunks of content per hour (gotta have room for commercials obviously) where they just blather mindlessly without actual information to fill the time.
Which is why media was "blindsided". Along with how Biden staffers were calling for donations even after the tweet, various media sources had been in phone conversation with senior Biden staffers even minutes before the tweet. Communications directors, senior aides, the usual insider sources; who didn't know because Biden hadn't told them. So they were telling their media contacts "no, President Biden is committed to the election and saving the country from the scourge of Trump" only to minutes later see that tweet scroll up on their phones the same as everyone else.
None of the media were doing their jobs. They were, instead, playing the modern media game where you don't piss principals off so they keep letting you take at bats. T-ball at bats, swinging against a wiffle ball. Because if a media source goes "hard hitting" and "digs deep" then they have to do that all the time, every time, and that's just too much bother. They'd rather just trade some phone calls and then have an intern stretch a non answer, a nothing burger statement, into some empty bullet points a talking head will use to fill an empty segment for TV where they just say nothing in many more words in between commercials.
Media isn't news anymore. It's entertainment. It's like sports for all intents and purposes. "Live" every day, so you feel like you have to keep tuning in. Which drives their ratings, and they keep selling ad time to advertisers whose checks always clear.
And we wonder how we've ended up on the brink of national chaos and violent historic events. Guess it's a mystery. We'll never know. Anyway, after these messages we'll discuss how surprised we all were at Biden's withdrawal from the race and ask the question why didn't he tell all of us 48 hours before you plebeians in the general public learned of it.
I love this super long rant at the media landscape, thank for taking the time.
I do want to push back only tiny bit to say that reporters absolutely still exist and are trying their damnedest to be an actual reporter like in the old days. But they are also human beings who need food and shelter, and like the teaching profession they've been starved out of doing the job they love for the most part, or at least kept busy with bullshit nothing burger work and kept busy meeting KPIs. So. Individual journalists I believe still exist in a hostile landscape all about access and privilege, just barely.
As a complete aside, I was watching a modern cartoon with my kid, called My Adventures With Superman. In it, Clark Kent is a very junior nearly intern level grunt who is more like to be bringing coffee than a scoop. And yeah, realistically even when Peter Parker or Clark Kent find something the media they work for would take it to the principals and trade for some lesser and publishable exclusive instead of risking being frozen out thereafter.
Do state owned/backed media still somewhat work, at least with regards to stories not about the government?
Yeah, at best the media have been doing a staggeringly incompetent job of reporting this campaign. I’m personally quite gratified that Biden’s announcement caught them flatfooted. It shows just how lazy and entitled they have become.
If something big at your work falls apart at about two on a Sunday afternoon how quickly do you usually take to get there? More than an hour or two even if you live within spitting distance I’d imagine. Let the people who are there deal with it.
What the hell is crap purporting as journalism? Wolf has a life I’d imagine, you can’t just go over to his on-site storage and get him out of stasis.