
A big Yo! for those in and around the legitimate media who are struggling with how to cover a Donald Trump presidency. With his labeling anything he doesn’t like “fake news,” we don’t know what he thinks real news is, unless it’s something positive about himself (hmm, mystery solved). But back to fake news in a second. What we all should be most concerned with is the strength and reputation of our mainstream media – be that your local paper, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or ABC, NBC and CBS. Re the cable stations, Fox does give a rightward view. MSNBC is left-leaning and CNN tries to be in the middle (at least I think they do). Media need to stay focused on doing their job – presenting the news in an unbiased fashion, even in the face of a President who calls them scum, garbage and worse. And they need to point out misinformation and lies coming from the White House. The media have just a bad enough standing with the general public that Trump actually gets away with his insults. But the more the media stick to a down the middle, fact-based approach, the better off they and, more importantly, we will be. To the news media for standing up and doing their jobs in the face of presidential insults and pressure five Yos: Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo!Yo!
A special five Yos! to Jake Tapper of CNN for his interview yesterday of chief White House propaganda meister Kellyanne Conway. If you haven’t heard about it here’s a link -- http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/politics/kellyanne-conway-jake-tapper-interview-cnntv/index.html. It’s 25 minutes of a fair yet aggressive interview by Tapper who pushes Conway on the lies that come from her and her boss and a strong defense of the media as not being the “scum” President Trump claims. Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo!.
Back to the fake news. My Facebook feed shows more truly fake news than real most times. They want you to click to get to their page and advertising. It’s about the dollars, not the facts. Facebook is working on fixing that and they deserve a yo or two for taking that on. Yo! Yo!
Back to Kellyanne Conway. She deserves a bunch of Oys! for her performances on television. She slipped up (twice) and said there was a Bowling Green massacre and the media didn’t cover it. She’s right. The media did not cover it. Because it didn’t happen, Kellyanne!! She did what she does, immediately pointed her finger at the legitimate media as also making mistakes. They do, they will. And so will you, Kellyanne, so point your finger inward and deal with that which you control. Oy! Oy! Oy! Oy!
I’m not sure if it’s an oy or a yo that Ms Conway deserves for introducing a new phrase into our language: “alternative facts.” But she did. Maybe she meant to say “other facts” that maybe the media wasn’t focused on? Or maybe she was speaking the truth while pointing to the fact that her colleague, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, gave “alternative facts” when trying to get to the size of Donald Trump’s, uh, inaugural crowd. I paid close attention to her. And her hands are about as small as her boss’. Oy! Oy! Oy! (Yo!)