It has taken a pandemic and dying this end of 2020 for anyone to face the vile yellow journalism of CNN. Below you will find one of my blogs on this from 2018. But first, The Washington Post’s article.
The question by CNN’s Jake Tapper was something to the effect of, he asked with a bit of an arrogant looking smirk, ‘does anyone really think that bad press can be used for gain’. Of course it can, and someone like the former star of The Apprentice and his, at the time, NBC producer? Jeff Zucker (was he the producer? what – an executive then? a coffee boy?) would tell you bad press is vital, you have to have all press. Bad and good press are used and was used and will continue to be used expertly by President Trump and Fox and CNN.
I can tell my antecedents (when I get there), and leave the record for my descendants, I did voice my complaint for the side of right and good – yes, right and good in my belief. I went straight to Jake Tapper’s page on Facebook and “voiced” the day he voiced on air his amusement about Trump using bad press. It was like Tapper was laughing at the mere idea. In my post on the page at the time, I indicated I found that hard to believe, so I believed and thought badly of Tapper’s motives. I am still embarrassed to say, Trump talk had my goat and me biting the hook with line and sinker to protest – he involved, campaign. No more. The riling of the public is what Trump and the media for ratings wish. This week we saw the tragedy that some people are riled in a terrifying way. “Voicing” on news Facebook pages lasted a short while for a handful of posts, I might have bit Trump’s rile – but I do not have to chew and I certainly won’t swallow.
I never found the proof that Jeff Zucker said, that Trump could not win without CNN but being a longtime viewer of CNN, one had to be checked out to not notice the change in CNN when Zucker took over the News. I believe Trump was like his former acquaintance who was on one of those shark shows, who said he would not do something he could not win, and if he did something he was going to win.
In 2008 he knew he could not win. He also knew he likely could not win in 2012 but in hindsight I believe every tweet was setting up what ever year he knew was his time. His associate Michael Cohen had interviews in his own office on occasion and you could see the “Trump for 2012″ posters, but Trump is nobody’s fool and running then was too risky – it was not a sure thing, I suppose he thought.
Whether Zucker and Trump openly conspired to win the presidency or not, Zucker certainly and conveniently arrived to take over the news in 2013, if I have my googles straight and so the day Trump went down the escalator in June 2015 to announce his plans, the rating hounds were ready. And not one day have they let up. 24 hours a day of Trump everything and anything.
In the last week with the questions about giving Trump’s hate speech air time, one of the CNN voices, Jeffrey Toobin, ?heroically? asked about their (CNN’s) own complicity in giving the Trump hate speech air time. Something to the effect of media complicity? The longtime co-conspirator Wolf Blitzer said, ‘But he is the president of the United States, we have to cover him.” The talking head tried again to answer, ‘do we’? And Wolf Blitzer waved Toobin down with his hands, dismissing him when he was going to say, why cover this evil talk?
I wanted to ask Mr Blitzer what his excuse was in in 2015 and 2016, he was not president then. And, Blitzer said then, something to the effect of, the news was what Trump was saying. His excuse of why there was not as much coverage of Sanders and Kasich, Blitzer once remarked something to the effect of, they were less interesting or not as newsworthy as Trump’s excitement. Blitzer excusing the one-sided coverage with the excuse they did extend invitations to the other contenders and they did not accept.
Bernie Sanders would have people chanting in thrill of his thoughts and plans and CNN would cut to Trump. John Kasich would have them cheering and us moderates being thrilled we had a wonderful choice for American voting this time around and boom CNN cuts to Trump.
And it did not stop, has never stopped – every day pounding Trump’s message home – every ugly word pounded and re-run for ratings and thinking what?
That is the question. Did CNN and others pound his message to make people hate him? Or did they play and replay the message so Trump’s message was being shilled on the left networks as well as the right networks and Trump laughed all the way home to the White House.
Like the last White House Correspondents Dinner comedian, Michelle Wolf, said of the media’s responsibility about Trump – ‘You made this monster”. And then the media in charge of that dinner threw her under the bus for speaking the truth.
I could only be defined as a left-wing bleeding heart liberal that has devotedly watched and defended CNN for ages, and now they’ve lost me. Look at how many Trump followers CNN had, and has on the payroll.
If any news workers now have second thoughts about covering hate, isn’t it a bit late? If CNN employees no longer like being shills for Trump, maybe they should have thought of that before.
If a tape of CNN archives could be made of everything from July 2015 that has every ugly word said by him and every word said by talking heads about him saying ugly words it would be almost all the minutes of CNN’s airtime since that time.
CNN taught America, drilled into America every ugly shred of the story for ratings.
My 15 minutes of working in the news industry began in the early 1980s, so I remember when CNN was laughed at in some circles, but the vision was beautiful – all the world would have all the news, all the time. And it was, too – world news – all news and all corners of the earth. Now there is no news accessible in the United States there is only the Trump talk.
Now we have either smirking anchors, or dead-faced anchors or others with arrogant faces too frightening to believe. They all took and take Trump’s bait for whatever reason and in doing so get his message across for him – on every channel. Of course Fox does and did all this, but CNN did and does and likely will continue to do Trump’s bidding – talk about him.
I can’t prove Zucker saying, something to the effect of, “Trump needs CNN’. I should google it and add the link. I say, Trump knows that CNN knows that Trump knows that CNN knows that Trump has been feasting at the CNN platter for years now. Bad press is just as good as good press if you know how to use it and only a dumb ass doesn’t know that Trump can use bad press just as easily as he can use good. So since CNNers and Foxers etc are not dumbasses then they are whores for ratings.
Now we find ourselves with bomb threats and shooters galore and no matter it feels scarier. These are horrible, heartbreaking events. My heart screams for prayers of help. As viewers of course we fear for the lives of our beloved news heroes, leaders, and neighbors, but did any of the media, particularly CNN since that was who I watched, ever realize that the wall to wall message of this terrifying story has us all now believing the worst about everyone? Um? Isn’t that Trump’s message? Yes, I believe it too now – be afraid, be very afraid. And I am afraid. I am not joking.
I guess it depends on your meaning of ‘CNN sucks’. Sucking up?
Thanks to the great photographer Tiffany Nicole for the feature photo of me!
Marionetta Strung-Out 