Mainstream media

Several high-priced journalists have begun experimenting with selling themselves instead of a corporate media brand. Chris Cillizza and Mark Halperin have both started Substack ventures without having the branding back-up of CNN or Bloomberg. The pair follow in the footsteps of Megyn Kelly, who has been enormously successful in launching her own brand. Don Lemon has been confined to social media as well.Last year, Washington Post tech reporter Taylor Lorenz left corporate media behind to create her own outlet, although I would argue her audience and branding were separate from that of the Post.

This time last week, America’s media was excruciatingly examining Joe Biden’s current health condition and fading campaign to Donald Trump, with leaks coming from White House and campaign Zoom calls. George Clooney, after hosting a Biden fundraiser, called for Biden to withdraw in the pages of the New York Times. Reports of a mysterious Covid diagnosis followed. But when Biden’s Twitter/X account posted his withdrawal letter on Sunday, the story instantly turned to Vice President Kamala Harris, a presumptive nominee in-waiting who has received more New York Times fluff profiles than she has primary votes (that number is zero, by the way). The media has dug a hole in the woods for Joe Biden.

Within twenty-four hours of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, several outlets were calling on his fellow Republicans to tone down their violent rhetoric. On ABC’s morning show, Martha Raddatz and George Stephanopoulos cited what they called “conspiracy theories going forward” and stated that “President Trump and his supporters have contributed to this rhetoric as well.” On CBS, Margaret Brennan grilled Steve Scalise, who himself narrowly survived the Alexandria, Virginia softball field mass shooting by a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer.

From almost the outset of Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, everyone — from his family to close aides to the White House comms shop — has engaged in careful stagecraft and clever editing to hide him away from the public. It’s all coming out now, though, thanks to Biden’s catastrophic debate performance that laid bare whatever condition he is suffering from for the entire country to see.Every carefully orchestrated step the White House took to shield Biden is now coming under a microscope. Whether it’s the president’s tire-tread tennis shoes, or using the small stairs on Air Force One — these tactics are just the beginning. Last February, the White House pulled out of a live Super Bowl interview, claiming it would not serve Biden to speak to that audience.

Uri Berliner, an economics and business reporter for NPR, resigned his position on Wednesday morning. His resignation comes after he was handed a suspension by NPR, five days without pay, for a piece he wrote last week citing how the publicly-funded radio and publishing news organization has become a vessel for ideologically driven progressive activism. He cited people he hears from who have abandoned NPR’s traditional programming, which has found itself consumed by gender and race theory, with a splash of climate panic. Yet what was eerily noticeable was how silent Berliner’s colleagues in the media have been, clearly retaliating against him for speaking his mind, independently. Neither the NPR union nor SAG-AFTRA released statements.

Most of the time, single posts on Twitter/X aren’t worth rebuking with an entire piece, but Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi laid out an absolute banger this weekend when he lamented the idea of “citizen journalists” not being as professional, trained or equipped as he or his colleagues at major news outlets like the Post, New York Times or CNN. The idea that citizen journalists are not every bit as capable as journalists employed by these outlets (and others) is ridiculous and should be rebuffed.Farhi posted, “Someone invented the phrase ‘citizen journalism’ a few years ago to describe amateurs doing the work of pros. Yes, it occasionally works, but probably no more often than ‘citizen cop,’ ‘citizen attorney’ or ‘citizen soldier.

For years, the Gaza Strip conflict has been as much about media optics as anything else. Hamas, the controlling party in Gaza, have become expert media manipulators. They carefully stage propaganda for the mostly sympathetic international media and our own media here in the US. In the wake of the worst terror attack against Jews since World War Two, however, that has seen the death toll rise to more than 1,000 victims and 150 hostages, you would think Hamas would be about to lose the optics war. Not so fast.What began as breaking news reporting by American outlets quickly shifted to the default position of sympathizing with Palestinians, and focusing almost solely on Israel’s retaliation, as has usually been the case with this conflict.

Donald Trump is executing an identical debate strategy that he deployed in 2016, right down to the same complaints and threats of boycotts against Fox News and their debate moderators.   Trump is currently threatening to boycott the first GOP primary debate on Wednesday August 23, citing his lead in the polls and what he projects to be unfair treatment by moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Not only is Trump threatening to skip the debate, according to three sources speaking to CNN, Trump is looking to counter the debate by offering his services to other networks — or even Tucker Carlson, who is reportedly considering the offer.