Also not addressed by any of the media folks whining about ABC’s capitulation: what was the news value in Stephanopolous’s constant haranguing of Mace on this one thing? What was newsworthy about pursuing that thread ceaselessly, for the entire interview? Was there nothing else newsworthy he could have asked about her? Was Mace’s feelings about Trump being “liable for rape” the only newsworthy thing worth asking her about?
Had Stephanopolous not been lying I still see zero news value for the public in that line of questioning.
"Walter Kirn: But that ship has sailed, I guess. Yeah, it had to come to an end. And again, what is Todd talking about when he says, “We’ll never get out from under this,” or, “It’ll be so hard to get out from under”? What does he think is going to be the effect?
Matt Taibbi: So when I hear that, what I’m hearing is a complaint, which it’s funny because it’s probably true. Essentially, I think what a lot of journalists and a lot of these on-air people are thinking, and podcasters, we should mention that too, we have to create all this content. We got to go on, we have to compete, we have to get eyeballs, and we got to stay in business. How can we stay in business if we can’t cross this line? And I think that’s the subtext to a lot of this outcry, whereas..."
Journalists haven't changed in 200 years. Their "job" is court sycophant, reassuring the Correct King or the Real Pope that he is supreme and Jesus Personified, while the Pretender To The Throne is the antichrist.
The journalists who try to claim objectivity always quote Watergate as an example of objectivity. In fact it was just another sycophant stunt. Nixon's dirty tricks were a continuation of LBJ's dirty tricks, but the press never touched LBJ. Nixon was the Pretender To The Throne, who had to be demonized while deifying the Correct King.
Declining to apply the doctrine of substantial truth as Judge Kaplan had done in a different context. So in a different context, Judge Kaplan said, well, if you're just talking and say, yeah, Trump committed rape, then that's a plausible summary of the fact that he had been found liable for sexual abuse. But if you're tying it specifically to jury findings and judicial findings, if you're making it very factual and legally specific and saying, a jury found that he had committed a rape, that's not right, because the jury actually specifically declined to do that. It said he committed sexual abuse. And so that was a plausible ruling by the judge because it would've been different if Stephanopoulos had spoken in a more colloquial way or not been making factual allegations about precisely what a jury did, but since he used those precise terms and tied it to specific jury findings that made it plausibly defamatory."
This seems exactly right to me. Stephanopoulos was quite specifically attempting to use the authority of a legal verdict to give his questioning more force. Which is why he kept using the specifically legalistic framing "liable for".
Did anybody in the media that criticized ABC for this repeat what Stephanopolous said about Trump? Because if they didn’t that’s the tell, that it was all performance.
Also not addressed by any of the media folks whining about ABC’s capitulation: what was the news value in Stephanopolous’s constant haranguing of Mace on this one thing? What was newsworthy about pursuing that thread ceaselessly, for the entire interview? Was there nothing else newsworthy he could have asked about her? Was Mace’s feelings about Trump being “liable for rape” the only newsworthy thing worth asking her about?
Had Stephanopolous not been lying I still see zero news value for the public in that line of questioning.
Taibbi & Kirn on this:
"Walter Kirn: But that ship has sailed, I guess. Yeah, it had to come to an end. And again, what is Todd talking about when he says, “We’ll never get out from under this,” or, “It’ll be so hard to get out from under”? What does he think is going to be the effect?
Matt Taibbi: So when I hear that, what I’m hearing is a complaint, which it’s funny because it’s probably true. Essentially, I think what a lot of journalists and a lot of these on-air people are thinking, and podcasters, we should mention that too, we have to create all this content. We got to go on, we have to compete, we have to get eyeballs, and we got to stay in business. How can we stay in business if we can’t cross this line? And I think that’s the subtext to a lot of this outcry, whereas..."
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-dec-be1
Journalists haven't changed in 200 years. Their "job" is court sycophant, reassuring the Correct King or the Real Pope that he is supreme and Jesus Personified, while the Pretender To The Throne is the antichrist.
The journalists who try to claim objectivity always quote Watergate as an example of objectivity. In fact it was just another sycophant stunt. Nixon's dirty tricks were a continuation of LBJ's dirty tricks, but the press never touched LBJ. Nixon was the Pretender To The Throne, who had to be demonized while deifying the Correct King.
It’s telling that Deep Throat was Mark Felt, an Associate Director at the FBI who was butt-hurt at Nixon for not getting the top job.
Popehat on this:
"Ken White (14:25):
Declining to apply the doctrine of substantial truth as Judge Kaplan had done in a different context. So in a different context, Judge Kaplan said, well, if you're just talking and say, yeah, Trump committed rape, then that's a plausible summary of the fact that he had been found liable for sexual abuse. But if you're tying it specifically to jury findings and judicial findings, if you're making it very factual and legally specific and saying, a jury found that he had committed a rape, that's not right, because the jury actually specifically declined to do that. It said he committed sexual abuse. And so that was a plausible ruling by the judge because it would've been different if Stephanopoulos had spoken in a more colloquial way or not been making factual allegations about precisely what a jury did, but since he used those precise terms and tied it to specific jury findings that made it plausibly defamatory."
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/an-expensive-settlement
This seems exactly right to me. Stephanopoulos was quite specifically attempting to use the authority of a legal verdict to give his questioning more force. Which is why he kept using the specifically legalistic framing "liable for".
Did anybody in the media that criticized ABC for this repeat what Stephanopolous said about Trump? Because if they didn’t that’s the tell, that it was all performance.
That's a great point. I have yet to see any of them do so, which is telling.