Brian Stelter, the MSM, and the power of words
Here a tweet from CNN’s Brian Stelter:
"The media of our country is laughed at all over the world now," Trump says, looking straight at the White House press pool and saying "You're a joke." What a disappointing use of presidential power.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 20, 2019
Most of the responses I’ve seen on Twitter are to point out that Trump’s telling the truth, and to mock Stelter in various ways. Richly deserved, I’d say, because – among other things – Stelter seems to have no sense of how ludicrous he sounds, particularly in view of the exceptionally low esteem in which the MSM is held by so many people of all political persuasions at present.
Stelter is 34 years old, one of the young reporters that seem to dominate the news these days (I first wrote about the phenomenon nine years ago). Not only that, but like most of these young folks who shape (or try to shape, or think they should be able to shape) Americans’ views of the world, Stelter has done virtually nothing but be some sort of reporter. He was hired right out of college by the NY Times:
He attended Damascus High School, graduating in 2003, followed by Towson University where he served as editor-in-chief of The Towerlight from 2005 to 2007. While still a student, he created TVNewser, a blog about television and cable news which he later sold to Mediabistro. He graduated from Towson in May 2007, and joined The New York Times as a media reporter later in July of that year, aged 22.
In November 2013, he became the new host of CNN’s Reliable Sources[5] and also chief media correspondent.
So he’s not just a reporter, he’s a media reporter, which I’m going to assume is a reporter who reports not only in the media but on the media. As such, I would guess he’s really really really invested in the reputation of the media (if you’re interested in how he got noticed as a news-about-the-newsbusiness blogger back in college – Brian Williams, of all people, seems to have been a fan – see this article that appeared in USA Today in 2006).
No wonder Stelter, like so many people in the MSM, takes it really really personally when Trump calls him and the others “a joke.” But what interests me the most is that Stelter called Trump’s words a “disappointing use of presidential power.”
Now, words do have a certain power. As a media person, Stelter knows that. But that is not what is usually meant by presidential power. Presidents have many other powers as the chief executive, and if they want to flaunt it they have a tremendous number of ways to do it.
Calling a press who has hounded him, lied about him repeatedly, ignored the things he’s done that are good, and gotten almost every major story of the past few years wrong “a joke” is just an exercise of the right to call something exactly what it is. No action was threatened and no specifically presidential power exercised.
Why am I even paying attention to this, or to Stelter? I think he is expressing something that’s common among those in the MSM today, and I’m not just talking about their youth. His remark points out how much those in the MSM value words as power, and also that they think that they and their allies are the only ones entitled to use words to shape ideas or even to describe something, particularly if that “something” happens to be the poor performance of the MSM. Stelter also reflects, I believe, the MSM’s expectation that Republican presidents will just sit back and take it like a gentleman.
Trump is no gentleman, although he can be one when he wants to. With the press, he doesn’t want to, nor should he want to. And the Stelters of the world are not just disappointed, they are shocked and outraged and angry.
Stelter is almost up there with Greta Thunberg in terms of knowing what he is talking about. At least he doesn’t have a pigtail.
Stelter is completely vacuous, a thoroughly unimpressive person all too typical of today’s media personalities, but he recently provided Tucker Carlson with the opportunity to deride him as a eunuch, a term not commonly heard on television.
Trump has driven the msm to out themselves as the 5th column.
The fact Trump fights is a big plus for me. I was so disappointed that Bush didn’t. He let the Dems and the press walk all over him. That was his big fatal flaw.
LYNN HARGROVE
The fact Trump fights is a big plus for me.
For me also, and also for millions more.
If Mr. Stelter is upset about Trump’s scorn for the media, I wonder what his reaction is to what Ben Rhodes,Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor, said about the press. Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru Boasts of How the Administration Lied to Sell the Iran Deal.
Both sides of the aisle despise the press. Some Demos like Ben Rhodes laugh at the press for being their ignorant lapdogs- what maroons! Republicans likewise despise the press for being ignorant lapdogs of the Demos.
parker on September 21, 2019 at 6:18 pm said:
Trump has driven the msm to out themselves as the 5th column.
* * *
Lee Smith’s conclusion is even more chilling than the part Gringo quoted:
No wonder Americans voted for Donald Trump over Hillary “third Obama term” Clinton.
The guy who really directs CNN from day to day is Jeff Zucker. I suspect that Stelter is largely a front for Zucker’s wishes.
The person at the very top of the food chain is Randall L. Stephenson the CEO of AT&T who acquired Time Warner 2 or 3 months ago. Being that Stephenson is conservative from Oklahoma, I was hoping that he would do a shakeup at CNN, but now the news is that he is stepping down as CEO and has a handpicked successor in mind. (Who I know nothing about.)
The additional news is that Elliot Capital Management owns 1% of AT&T and does not want Stephenson’s replacement but rather one of their guys named Cohn. The power player at Elliot is Paul Singer, who I believe is a Jewish conservative. My, my, my. This could get interesting.
Correction: The merger of Time Warner and AT&T began in mid 2018, but the final anti-trust appeals were over in late Feb., so that was a little over 7 months ago.
The media, with the exception of Fox, a portion of AM radio, and perhaps one or two other tiny outlets (Sinclair?) are the communications arm of the Democrat party. One of the few good things about the 2016 election is that the veneer of impartiality consistently cited by the media has been stripped bare; no one who follows this issue today can seriously state that the media are impartial, and that they are in fact partial to the left if not one and the same. Now that I have stated the obvious, I will express my concern that this is probably the biggest danger facing those of us who do not want the left wing agenda to make policy in this country. The media create the soundtrack that surrounds us and the bandwagon is an extraordinarily powerful marketing technique. It is difficult and perhaps impossible to combat a philosophy that is expounded upon by the lion’s share of social media outlets, TV, newsprint (electronic and ink), and so on. Our entertainment, music and news are all predominantly controlled by this point of view. Brian S is an excellent example. The only thing we can do is to try to maintain and increase our foothold in social media, which I believe is the key to the future.
VDH nails it again:
https://nypost.com/2019/09/19/the-left-despises-trump-because-he-fights-progressive-elite-on-every-front/
The woke enemedia, woke academia, and woke corporate elites are the worst malignancies we’ve yet seen. Trump stands against them despite their relentless withering attacks. God bless him.
Trump is pretty tough. He has accomplished a lot even with the gale force headwinds he has received. A friend of mine said ‘he shakes the the tree’ and that is why he likes him. Carlson’s nickname for Stelter is perfect. I can think of a lot of names for him, but simply put, Stelter is a thin skinned, creepy little human. It baffles me anyone could take Brian S. seriously. He is a perfect example of high school insecurities and ignorance that is hurting America these days. I thinking it is Presidential to call out the lies in media and compliment the truths.
The media just lies so comfortably and casually now. Nobody believes them anymore. It’s like the Rolling Stones story on the UV rape. One reporter said that we must not let the facts get in the way of a good narrative. So, lying for a good cause is evidently ok. Trump was way too easy on them.
“The media create the soundtrack that surrounds us and the bandwagon is an extraordinarily powerful marketing technique.” – quiet conservative
Nice metaphors.
If Trump’s successful in getting more conservatives to laugh at the media, that would be a GREAT use of presidential power.
They lie like clowns, they act like clowns, they lie like clowns, they throw temper tantrums like clowns, they like clowns.
Did I mention they lie like clowns?
Their lies make them the joke.
All normal folk should be laughing at them, constantly.
Democrat clowns, lying again.
How do you know a Democrat clown is lying?
-His mouth is moving and words are audible.
-She’s saying something bad about Trump.
-She’s accusing a Rep of something bad.
-He’s talking about male privilege.
-She’s talking about white privilege.
-He’s talking about global warming (or climate change).
-She’s talking about male-female equality.
…
The USA needs more jokes about the Dem-media.