Oh fuck I was expecting it to be bad, but ooo fuck it’s bad. I speechless as to how bad it is. Like wtf is this?
For some reason though this stuck in my craw most of all:
Every major news outlet I saw report this the same way. Namely saying DJT said “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,”
I’m sorry but Donald Trump did not write that. NO FUCKING BODY thinks Trump wrote that. Someone on Trump’s staff wrote that (presumably adding the extra capital letters to try and imitate him). It sounds nothing like anything Trump has ever said or written. There is no chance Trump wrote something so articulate and non-shouty, even if he hadn’t just been shot at.
I realize it’s too much to ask our media keeps their heads and not push us happily towards fascist dictatorship but I would expect them to report on the facts. And the fact is Trump did not write that, it’s nothing like Trump’s writings. Everyone knows this. Yet not a single media outlet pointed that out.
Isn’t that the case for just about everything every president “says”. We always credit the president with anything they say/tweet, regardless of who actually wrote it. At least WRT how the media handles it.
Even outside of politics, an article might say “The CEO of [business] said in a press conference…” , not “The CEO’s speechwriter wrote…”.
Except for all the posts he does clearly write himself that are incoherent shouty rants. I’d buy that if all his posts were clearly written by someone else, but they aren’t. There is an obvious difference in style and content that almost everyone who read this noticed immediately. Yet no one has commented on it.
Disagree. I’ve constantly seen statements like “A spokesperson for ___ said.” And they usually always distinguish between tweets and actual speech.
Even just “Trump said on X (formerly Twitter)” would okay, as that implies it at least could have been written by someone else. (though I’d prefer “Trump’s account posted on X (formerly Twitter).”) But saying “Trump said” implies he actually said it.
I don’t give a fuck who said it. The media needs to recognize that giving Trump or his staff a platform now is only enabling the rise of a fascist. They should not be reporting on any statements attributable to him except to possibly to offer criticism of his dangerous rhetoric.
I cannot fucking believe how many (normally) relatively sane media outlets are showing pictures of Trump looking defiant and heroic as he gets carted off by the Secret Service. It’s out-fucking-rageous.
I empathize with your frustration, but it’s not the business of objective news reporting to “comment” on whether or not a particular individual personally wrote a statement posted to their official communication channel.
What I do object to, though, is the wording in the AP release that “former President Donald Trump called Sunday for unity and resilience”. I know this is standard journalistic practice, but in this case it elevates the statement to the status of a sincere belief, and Trump long, long, ago lost any right to be taken at face value for anything he says.
It’s like the media has the naivety of a child who’ll believe anything they’re told no matter how improbable. Trump’s handlers are exploiting this naivety for all it’s worth. This should be reported as a post made to Trump’s social media account, and nothing more.
The media has long wanted Trump to appear presidential. And when he isn’t, they’ll do what they can to make him look presidential. So that means showing good photos of him and also quoting the rare dignified things he says.
So what are they supposed to report instead? “Mr. Trump’s office issued this statement, which is as full of crap as his usual stuff” would, I suppose, meet your standards of journalistic integrity. And down and down we go, further into the spiral of mixing news reporting with opinion. It’s hard enough to find straight news coverage now; is it supposed to be impossible?
I truly don’t understand what the OP and others in this thread are thinking is appropriate for news coverage, keeping in mind standards not only for this candidate and this election, but for the long term.
It never occurred to you that they could say exactly what you said – “Mr. Trump’s office issued this statement" – without the ridiculous straw-manning bullshit that you added on for some unknown reason?
Media objectivity does not preclude exercising common-sense judgment. The lack of discerning judgment is one of the reasons today’s media is shit. It’s like when a scientific organization releases yet another report on the hazards of climate change, the media feels obliged to find a contrarian somewhere to refute it in the interest of “balance”.
The public is left with the impression that one side has one opinion, and another side has a different but equally valid opinion. No. The science side has unequivocal evidence, and there is no “other” side. The “other” side is a crackpot lunatic spouting gibberish and likely being paid for it by fossil fuel interests.
Claiming that Trump is “calling for” some bullshit that a minion posted on Truth Social is the same level of journalistic failure.
Is that the headline, or is that the extent of the reporting? If that’s the headline, fine, assuming all candidates are treated the same, and that the contents of the statement are included in the story, either quoted or in summary with partial quotes. There’s no point whatever in just saying “Trump’s office issued a statement” without including the statement in the story, which seems to be something that some people object to. I didn’t see the press release that you referred to, but you seem to be saying that the media should not report what Trump says (or what his office says he said) unless they qualify it as insincere and not to be taken at face value. To wit:
Of course the contents of Trump’s statement should be reported! How could you possibly conclude otherwise? I’m just saying it should be reported as a statement issued through whatever channel, and not as something that Trump “calls for”, which, intentionally or not, spins it as being a sincere belief.
I was pissed at this morning’s Chicago Tribune which featured a huge photo of Trump’s fist shaking moment on the front page.
This was obviously a front-page story, but couldn’t they have picked a pic less likely to be framed as a poster by millions of MAGAts? Surely they could have chosen from dozens of shots that made him look scared or confused. But no, they went with the one that made him look like a defiant hero.
Also … off topic … I saw people today walking around with gauze in their right ear in solidarity. I’m sure they’d do the same if it was Biden who was shot.
Why would you use a photo of the man looking scared and confused when, despite everything, he got his shit together before leaving. That’s just disrespectful both to the former President and to the photographer, Evan Vucci.
It’s a great, iconic photograph of a terrible moment in American history and it deserves to be on the front page.
Photographs of the perpetrator should not appear on the front page.
How the fuck not? It’s a very pertinent fact of the story. When its completely obvious to everyone that (unlike his other truth social stories) he clearly didn’t write it. Its your duty as a journalist to point that out (or at the very least mention how drastically different this was to his previous posts)
The important thing in this case is properly attributing the source of the quote, that is, Donald Trump’s post on Truth. Whether or not he wrote the copy, the statement came from his official account and is properly attributed to him.
Nonsense. When a criminal defendant or subject of a scandal puts out a statement of innocence, and the media reports that statement, that reporting does not imply sincerity.