Unprecedented Trump,Sinatra and Cronkite's Ghost IV by Ken Gigliotti retired news photographer
Bono described it best speaking to the Americana in Frank Sinatra. Bono's words might just as well been talking about Donald Trump an American original with “swagger and attitude” ... “he's got what we want”... “talking in headlines”... “the chairman of bad (attitude)”... he “walks like an American”... “left brain and right brain , hardly talking...” and “...living proof that God is Catholic.” (Christian)
With the passing of the another month and the media hand ringing on how it was so wrong about it's coverage of Donald Trump's rise come a few personal observations. This is opinion not fake news.
It was a new non-fiction election ,like near beer . A near fiction event. Like a novel ,this election was a work of fiction containing more truth in the most surreal way. One thing for sure, Donald Trump means what he said, when he said it. And he loved being in front of a big crowd too much. Thanks cable news for those visuals.
Almost 62 million Americans (and a hand full of Russkies) voted for the winner Donald Trump. One million seven hundred thousand more Americans voted for the second place finisher Hillary Clinton. Can the media be blamed?, 62 million is a big number. There is just no explanation for the Trump win but soft spots in media were exposed and exploited.
There is no going back to the time of Cronkite ,but he offered The Greatest Generation's best wisdom born from an ethos of the Great Depression, fallowed by WW2, the rebuilding ,then Korea,Vietnam and super power status. The most recent ethos of this current Boomer generation is Black Friday shopping.This election had a retail feel to it.
This is my third time writing this as I had to go through the seven stages of grief and several stages of bad spelling and then adding another one last fourth try . (Did you know Steven can be spelled with a “ph”).Alarm bells kept going off as this retired old news photographer spent the last ten years watching newspaper journalism's decline. The last two years of which I watched the monetized and intense coverage of the 2016 US Presidential Election on cable TV. Media under estimated the value and powerful forces in play during this 2016 presidential election. Journalism blew it. They knew they had him, then he got away.
There would be nothing like the 2016 Presidential Election featuring Hillary Clinton with a vast political resume vs first time politician, billionaire business man Donald Trump. This time would be different. Traditional media of newspapers were cash starved and weakened , TV media could be bypassed. Anonymous digital media competed and quietly found clear paths for political messaging strategies that included enemy states. What makes people wonder about mainstream news coverage, with all that going on? Sarcasm .
The commercial media dog was well wagged ,chasing the deflections and daily outrage. How could news media be taken seriously. Self inflicted.
It is clear the American voters are the most recent example of people reacting in the only legal way they have left. They reacted to a decades long depression. The definition of depression not commonly used is the one that seems to be in use. It goes like this, When my neighbor looses their job it is a recession. When I loose my job it is a DEPRESSION. Too many voters see themselves in the latter category. This had to cross all lines in America.
When looking just under the water line, journalism is dealing with the diminished public view of the information it sees everyday. The internet has caused a devolution of information. Big media is trying to operate in a traditional fashion.The idea of comments has being underestimated and bias has been accepted as an entitlement. Both lead to a misread of the public.
The new term “content” has never really been defined causing it to be confuses with news in the public's eye. Some content may be news. Most journalists take the word as a slur ,a regression, a watering down of the work they do everyday. Eyes and clicks on websites managed by “grocery clerks”( multi media editors). Borrowed from Apocalypse Now, referring to the retail nature of the war in Vietnam run by grocery chain and car company CEO's. This was early push back inside the newspaper camp.
A few years ago a old school news editor working the early morning news website for the paper (I once worked for) was reluctant to report breaking news. He wanted to wait until the reporter knew what was going on, quoting some official sources like a police spokesperson. The situation was that something was happening but the reporter did not know what .This caused a lot of friction when multi media editor saw vague information on other websites that we had not matched. In these conditions ,reporting needed to be vague or wrong , it was not news but it was content. This was a common occurrence for reporters and photographers dealing with early web page news. The news became a traffic report, because a street was blocked by police and emergency vehicles. Matching became a keyword.
When the issue was clarified and corrected, the false conclusions were sometimes drawn by early reports ,the old school editor began running traditional newspaper corrections.
More friction ensued,because competition from radio and TV websites did not have a history of corrections but just ran updated stories as time went on , as if the incorrect reporting did not exist. It became common practice to see web page reporting as “a work in progress”to justify any vague or wrong reporting.
News became “content.” Newspapers and other media became fast content providers. Correct stories would run eventually on web sites ,traditional news casts and printed newspapers that the public often did not see as new content broke out on web pages. Photographs were the only un-vague evidence for sure..
Content became a thing in media.
Just as web content caused confusion for people who thought they were reading news ,false news has caused more confusion and eroded the credibility of news reporting on a “just in time” or just the wrong time of political deadlines such as elections, or votes on major initiatives. Just as the right soldier at the right time in history could change the world, fake news at the right time could do the same. In any case perceived bias by the public went unchallenged by liberal/left/progressive news organizations over decades ,played into the distrust.
Because journalism lives in a forest, it could not see the trees. The idea that news was being separated into finer and finer slices of truth was not perceptible especially when reporting on subjects that offended reporters core values and declared bias. There is no room for bias. Bias is a form of institutional colonialism that protects the status quo. That is why things never seem to change, we do the same stories,people are tired and are always seeking change.
To the public ,reporters were just supposed to report the news. Digital reporting became more and more speculative. Distrust was created by the speed of digital reporting. This distrust blossomed into right leaning news organizations , populism ,and opportunistic fake news. News organization have to see news the way Malcolm Gladwell's book , “What the Dog Saw” .News as seen the way news is perceived by the public. Gladwell's books could be a template for a rebuilt newspaper business.
The third thing is that globalism is rubbing up against the quiet power of a rising digital infrastructure. This dependence in global business has not ever existed before. This is more digital intrusion, hacking, shaming, surveillance and upgrade dependence.
Environmental concerns are infringing on the Globalist's stateless outlaw freedom , empowerment and mobility. Globalism is being confined by digital dependence and digitally led push back to return jobs to countries of origin.
Donald Trump saw his place in that space. This is the new secret reality defense. In hockey it would be a Left Wing Lock or trap defense. Modern democracies can be easily manipulated by the spectacle of wealth driven exceptional-ism. Left leaning media can be ignored. Left leaning media traps itself.
Things were not always that clear during a never ending US domestic election cycle. Donald Trump against two years of expert media opinion, Russian hacking and false online news, becomes president, second in the popular vote. All media could do was watch. Shocked and awed.
Could this be result of print's botched business plan. This newspaper business had democracy's back for over two hundred years now sits uncomfortably waiting six months to ask a question to the new president elect of the United States.
Cable TV made the the election into a sporting event because audiences couldn't bare any more politics. So give'em sports in the form of politics. This election coverage was like a World Series run with many teams,lots of games, wins and losses and errors eliminated all but two along the way from the playoffs.
Newspapers, God love them,covering the thing like it was still politics ,still throwing cabbages from the press box cheap seats . The public sickened by politics ,racism ,media and religion turn to sports by default. With drugs ,crime and racism always in the headline,and in the details ,sports allows people to celebrate themselves together on one team. The Cubs win ,Cubs win!
Possibly there is a play for newspapers to make a resurgence if the business has any fight left in it. A play is possible if they don't take the bait of an amnesia reboot ,a post election reset. The idea that the election was a bad dream and everyone gets to start over by coming together for the good of the worlds largest democracy seems absurd. Did anyone read their own stories? Is there no condition left where resignation is an option in this new order because it should have already happened. The business of news has already asked for way too many empty apologies.
Anyway I am getting used to the new reality. This will be my point. No matter what politicians say during campaign everyone will hit a reset back to zero. Warren Buffet had a reset during the Dot-com stock market crash (1995-2001) because even he did not understand the market forces in play.
Cronkite wouldn't have reset, he would have taken the high road. The high road suggests there was some sort of road to start with. A reset implies otherwise. The newspapers best writers should have been covering the thing with novelists/poets and humorists. Journalists needed to step back. It was satire from the very beginning.
The first underlying power point to journalism core is double edged. There is a deep seeded recognition when people offer their stories, they have an agenda,or something to gain. The deal is that the journalist also has something to gain and it includes personal ,professional and value to daily commercial ratings or circulation. True information may be the goal ,but three days of bluster helps pay the bills. Two years of bluster seals the bottom line. Newspapers need to pay bills to.
This is the dark art of reporting. Good journalism has benefits for everyone. When the source gains the advantage, the journalist will always feel that the story can run and gain momentum over a several day cycle. A commercial success. After a time of mutual benefit, the source can be reeled in and taken back. Journalism builds them up, then takes them down. The art in artistic success.
Electronic and web journalism rarely looses, rarely retracts and almost never apologies. Everyday starts with an empty space to fill. This election may be one of those times when everyone looses everything. It may hit bottom and pivot to a better place under new rules AND ,it will be good for the internals of journalism to take a good look back at itself.
Political machines aim to create reasonable doubt , and Trumps campaign succeeded in creating distrust of media and his opponent. The extravagance of declining corporate media and aging story formulas over decades places much of the blame squarely on themselves. Where is critical thinking? Where was the smart news?
The winning presidential candidate did not need Big Media. Donald Trump did it his way. He self financed and did it with bad attitude,a black jet, no ground game and a ball cap. Trumps vs the Clinton's and made for TV people hate. Swamp people vs the Washington swamp.
Was it an Ali Rope-a-Dope strategy or the sheer brass of it's loud leader? Could Donald Trump ,a shoot from the lip capitalist be compared to a modern day Frank Sinatra, channeling the under world and doing it his way? Early morning tweets began a repeating cycle causing peak numbness by noon, and dreary acceptance by 6pm.
Donald Trump an American original, a feud, one family vs another. Personal. Totally American. Digital media enabling him to bypass not only heritage print and network media but also side step the next to last media of cable TV.
Just win ,baby. The idea was to just create jobs that could not be exported. The only US jobs that cannot be exported are resource jobs. Dig, Baby,Dig! Add a few cars and air conditioners, simple.
There is nothing more dishonest than intentionally repeating anther's lie , not once but thousands of times. It may have started with ,Bill Clinton's denial, or weapons of mass destruction speech by George W. Bush,or any modern home run king denying the use of steroids, Repeating what one says is the corner stone of journalism. Journalism has no fail safe when the source is not being truthful. Saying anything to win is the cornerstone of election strategy.
This is the “lying” media conundrum , repeating lies. Catch 22. Was cable media protesting too much? Making statements in question form exposes bias is an old trick of print media. Did they blow it for everyone?
When President Lyndon Johnson lost CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite , he lost middle America and the Vietnam War. How times have changed .The relationship between candidates and media has always been tenuous. Trump never had the media and still won.
John F. Kennedy used the emerging visual media of television to win the presidency. Franklin Roosevelt used the emerging sound media of radio for his fireside talks. Donald Trump scorned traditional media calling it crooked.
Stories told and ratings sold. The big sellout wrapped in closing speed ,wrapped in a weakened journalism trying to make sense of it. A reeling journalism was in full view election night on CNN. The next days of hangover and realization that the news media was expertly wrong at every stage for a long two years. Many new experts arrive to cable news in this New Year.
Event promotion and self interest won out over unbiased reporting for an unknown result.
Trump surrogates took daily head shots and crushing body blows from TV and print media panels and somehow ended up in the White House.
Even though media should not show favor it sure did not shy away from showing it's disfavor with D. Trump. It is generally accepted that mainstream media are largely left leaning. This accusation no one seems to ever dispute. The problem is that media has great influence in the subtleties of coverage , the words and images used and the body language of disproving expression. During elections voters are highly tuned to the appearance of bias. The people are usually listening at least in the final weeks. This time they were hooked early and stayed till the end.
Some candidates like former prime minister Stephen Harper and president elect Donald Trump offend those in the press who's core values transcend weakened journalism. I have met reporters who feel their religion or politics trumps the job , others would put feminism ahead of their status as a reporter. On the job should have meant being unbiased. Conscience,ecology ,religion ,race and gender were on a collision course. Unbiased journalism came in last in an automatic default. Reporters feeling that traditional journalism is sinking into quick sand are moving their alliances to what they think is firmer ground. The next paying job.
Stop Harper and Strategic voting became a decisive story line in the final days. (bias shaped the anti Harper narrative for two years prior to the election)The (Harper appointee) Mike Duffy affair lost media interest after Stephen Harper lost the election. National reporters had to admit it had more to do with Harper and the election than Duffy. And the timing fit. The rabid mean spirited and over the top media feeding frenzy over Toronto Mayor Rob Ford had the same undertones. A sad day for media. Rob Ford was a nasty full blown event. Addictions never an issue until the very end.
Hillary Clinton also ignored traditional media and her email blunder for most of the election by holding no news conferences. Trump would do the same toward the end , but his prime weapon was to just attack and confuse with messages that made no sense. Casey Stengel “the Old Professor”manager of the New York Yankees in 1949 was said to have employed the same technique when talking to reporters he didn't like. Or George Steinbrenner. During a World Series game he paid a clown to sit next to newspaper reporter he didn't like in the press box. It just might be a New York thing.
Donald Trump knew he lost mainstream media but his internal gut analytic and rapid late night messaging turned media's fatal flaws against itself resulting in self strangulation. The more “crooked”news media ,lambasted Donald Trump the more the media looked crooked and biased. ( only the bias went unchallenged)
The relentless day and night attacks also looked like it was piling on , it could not have looked fair to the undecided ,underdog loving public. Another media pressure point was showing. Fairness or unfairness might be the issue to the undecided.
News media becoming entangled , strangled and upended by a news story formula of reporting spoken words. The old newspaper trick of the trade, lede with the most controversial words was not going to work this time. Trump, “talked in headlines” and his most egregious comments were neutralized ,sounded normal by the end of a day of ridicule and off set by surrogates saying anything on CNN and other media. The parsing and repetition wore the edge off the comment by the end of the work day. The next day was another tempest ,then another. “Left brain and right brain, hardly talking” , big ratings , the world could not take it's eyes off him. Money was being made and Trump knew it. He knew it the way Regis Philbin said he had saved TV. Trump alone would save America. Philbin born in the Bronx ,was known as the hardest working person on TV.
Modern news coverage began to be altered less that thirty years ago with mass migrations of people from the far east. The white demographic in Canada and the US noticed and were startled. Political Correctness in media gave a single layer of cover to this cultural change. It had good intentions. Hell, the American public never got over the Civil War. For Canadians it was quiet racism and treaties with aboriginal first nations. Half of every story disappeared and was replaced with code.
No one admits to know when political correctness started in modern media or what rules are fallowed for it's correct application.
Subsequent change created more and more layers that altered political messaging. Communications departments were formed to deal with media and messaging. The layer upon layer of PC has made news reporting unrecognizable to the public who needed a code book just to understand what was being said.
News in code. Words like optics and potential became a modern day test for witches. Openness, transparency , robust ,challenging had no specific meaning to the public with regards to social issues and all were often used in the same sentence. Everything in worst case scenarios. Even the weather offers 30% chance of rain but never a 70% chance of sun. Was the average person being played, government programs gamed, the system rigged?
The news business would look completely different without political correctness shutting down possibilities of natural consensus. PC was the parachute of lazy ,soft, steady decline for the newspaper business. People looked to newspapers for clarity not bias or guidance.
The only thing that made sense to voters was that words didn't matter. All election campaigns offer the same language to voters. They spoke the same empty promises and words that made no sense .The same neglected words spoken by Trump infuriated and confounded big media. The undecided herds took notice and cheered.
Has the media ever been this wrong before? They were wrong about Y2K, H1N1, Haley's Comet, Brexit and weapons of mass destruction. The spreading mess in the Middle East pivoted around one untruth repeated over and over again in one speech. The wrong words and wrong resource wars mattered as Europe is now flooded with migrants and far right populous parties rise.
Simple reporting narratives do not exist in real life. They leave out too many details. Real life news is messy.
The layers of political correctness, the weak economy, the digital age's desire to kill off the workforce , the unions pricing workers out of their jobs ,the desire of media to provide codes and happy endings to every sad event. This has a created a news product that is for all purposes genetically altered reality.
News is at times unrecognizable to the public.
During the 2016 US Election people thought they were hearing something different but familiar. Something they never heard before except freely in their own kitchens,work places ,coffee shops and local bars. Just what did they hear ,and what do they expect?
The Apprentice (politician) Donald Trump is a quick study. He was underestimated by all the powers that be. Many marginalized voters picked him as their champion. Politics became sport, blood sport. The Babe. A gladiator , a rock star, a stadium show. Does this make THE PEOPLE bad?
Trump even questioned the journalism of the New York Times. That's bold, he must not read newspapers ,but he does watch a lot of TV. Me to.
The best people available did not show up for public service was the result. Media demanded the perfect person leading a perfect life for public leaders and no one showed up. What showed up were two flawed and unlikable candidates in Clinton and Trump.
Before websites ,in Cronkite's time there was portioned commercial time with top of the hour radio headlines for the drive home. The afternoon paper made time for reading news of the day ,between the ads, written on the same day. Then there was the new media of TV, the Six o'clock News. News media was divvied up and it was presented dull, serious , real , and it took time. News was believable. It must have been the slow paced delivery and the men in gray suits. A lie could only be repeated once at six and then again at 11pm. A lie was emphatic.
Cronkite's News was steady and slow. It fit between entertainment programming at six and eleven pm. with long story segments and weather was only an after thought. News was delivered on tablets of stone by old men. TV cable news became commercial and entertainment at the same time. Young and beautiful , best and brightest and on script. Ear pieces and Google made everyone brilliant. Seizing a moment in time, the pet rock , a hula hoop ,Trumps gold woven hair was money in the bank.
Newspapers couldn't pick moments .
Spoken words began to matter sometime during the nineteen eighties. Before that words were just talk. Reporters talked of Kennedy's pain pills and affairs, Nixon's bad language, FDR's wheel chair was all talk. These were stories reporter told each other. Bloggers now tell those stories. You can't sue a blogger.
No one seems to know when political correctness started in modern media or what rules are fallowed for it's correct application.
Today media looked overwhelmed, confused , biased and therefore crooked. Candidates and media played into the fears of viewers. It did not look fair. Words would not matter to voters if they did not make any sense. None of it made sense was lost on journalists reporting conflicting stories that contradicted polls.
Words were just spoken. Bar talk , locker room talk, and coffee shop talk. Talk is cheap,talk. That's just so much talk, talk. So much talk. There was just no end to spoken words, talked over words, yelled words. It was all trash talk in the literal sense of the word.
It was as if a woolly mammoth broke through the old ice of political correctness,speaking in some ancient language everyone somehow still knew.
Cronkite's editorial commentator Eric Sevareid (see got his YouTube ,Farewell Nov. 30 1977)would have set him straight or young Barbara Walters would have given the thing little time and not taken most of what Trumps said seriously. (and should have made him cry)No non-fiction-fiction on their watch. The voters were repelled by many of Trump's musings. It wasn't worth repeating. Walters would have turned her head away with a sly smile a batted eye ,then refocus ,coming back with ,after the alpha dog's sexist remarks on the AH bus ,no one in his family would ever look at each other the same again. AND Yes his daughter would be at every meeting. She had to keep an eye on dad, Boss Trump.
Cronkite's pronouncement on Vietnam ended that generations version of television non-fiction-fiction reporting. Mourning Americans already new the authenticity of his words as journalism of the day lagged. He stated the obvious. Journalists state the obvious ,they may be the last to know.
They were the last to know with Trump to.
The big gamble paid off , journalism focused on words, “because (normally) words mattered”.Nothing would be normal ,this time. The media knew they created a monster but never once doubted that could take him down. A golden goose,that brought his own noose. On the day before the election polls reported a Clinton victory. A last ditch nudge,to counter the scalding FBI missive. Whoops!
Trumps in a baseball cap kept his hair in place.The same ball cap was worn by working class Americans , sports fans , rednecks and those drivers, in it for the long haul. Rally caps worn sideways by the hopeful or inner city hip-pop and alternative artists, gang bangers ,outlaws , posers and pretenders segregated and under employed. A cap for anyone with a chip on their shoulder and a cause to embrace. The Cubs in caps defeat their own sad history. The backwards ball caps were worn by camera operators , front leaners , storm chasers ,women and girls. Ball caps covered bad hair and the faces of robbers form surveillance cameras. A disguise and a uniform. Everyone a voter. A ball cap was on the head of a great woolly mammoth billionaire coming off his own private passenger jet. Things were going to be great again. Ball caps and big black jets a sight to behold. Nothing to loose.
WRONG. Everything about the election was so wrong. Everything was so wrong yet media covered it as if it was just like all the rest. Just like all the rest but ratings and adverting dollars were way up in January, re-run season, and carried through the summer doldrums. It carried through normally ignored first debates. One debate,featured the big stage of an Air Force One hanger with the presidents plane in the background. That wasn't normal. They even sold news papers. Trumps trash talk brought big crowds of supporters. He had his own jet already.
And wrong again in the eyes of the public after saying a misogynist and racist Trump was hated by women ,Hispanics and African Americans all the while reporting polls that said the race was even. That did not make sense. Fifty per cent of voters were women! Middle America was solid .
Common sense was the first casualty of Political Correctness. It wasn't always around,but it has grown out of control ,papering over many layers of cultural dysfunction. PC was an intelligence test that all media failed. A failing media is a failing democracy.
As thirty years of ice melted off correctness and language became a clear roar of many voices talking over each other. Words did not matter, clearly. Conversations became shouting matches as everyone talked at the same time. Speaking in tongues. Rapid fire words per second reached new highs when measured against pauses and Cronkite's measured tone . Fast talking , late night Twitter , an eight second world. “That's the way it is,” replaced by Dan Rather's “courage” replaced by the audience's “just shut up,” or “we are out of time.” Yelling may commence after this commercial break.
Midnight Central Time on election night a flummoxed CNN senior reporter was still doggedly trying to show Hillary Clinton's “path” to the White House ,totally ignoring the color of the electoral map in front of him. Was it a bias or California's big Clinton payday?
Did big journalism have it coming ? Did big journalism fail the biggest democracy in the world?
No, it did not , Big Journalism didn't even show up. To be fair media has to tread lightly during elections as not to appear biased.
The Donald will have his work cut out for him, for the first time expectations of him will be high. They are already saying he will be impeached by the summer. Mad Dogs and billionaires in the White House. Courage to America. Ken Gigliotti DEC. 2016 updated Jan 2017
Topic: Unprecedented Trump,Sinatra and Cronkite's Ghost IV (Read 939 times)