Remember: the over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable low achievers of the upper middle class who work in the failing “legacy media” are desperate to keep their jobs when the intergalactic widgetmakers who now own them want them to return to “profitability” (defined by Jeff Zucker the Fucker as “Donald Trump brings high ratings!”) so they can sell them off.
One of my best friends is a Delegate. Due to security (protesters blocking roads) it took the huge caravan of delegate busses a couple of hours to get everyone delivered. I was getting her real-time updates.
Last night was incredible. And it's only day 1. The MSM can jump off the Chicago Pier.
In addition, PBS Newshour ran a report over the weekend and again on Monday about the 1968 convention and how this one isn’t “likely” to be a violent repeat. Funny, they didn’t dredge up the ‘68 convention in 2020, or 2016, or 2012, or—well, you get the point. I still watch PBS out of “best of a bad lot” despair but my level of trust is significantly lower than it was a few years ago.
OK, up to a point, but keep in mind that Substackers (and yes, I subscribe to a bunch) are commentators, not reporters. The ones I follow do rigorously base their commentary on the facts in their areas of expertise and interest, but that's not the same as general-interest reporting. Print media lends itself better to the reporting of facts than TV and cable because more space is available to cover stories that may not be front-page-worthy but are still important, but print media has been on the decline for decades thanks to corporate consolidation, etc., and local media, once a reliable source of local stories that didn't interest the regional media (but would sometimes be picked up by them), has been gutted.
P.S. Some people long for the supposedly halcyon days of "Uncle Walter" Cronkite, Huntley-Brinkley, et al., but I'm old enough to remember how their coverage was consistently skewed white and male. There's a reason so many African American communities had (and still have in some places) their own newspapers, and why independent feminist media developed in the late '60s.
Susan, The DNC has a YouTube channel which is live-streaming the convention each night with the full video available to watch on demand after the live-stream ends. There are no network commentators or pundits interrupting the proceedings with unwanted commentary.
I like suggestions such as yours, Karen. Please allow me to tag on and offer another. I encourage all of TC’s readers to not only reread but circulate as a spiral his Substack article on the “Brat Pack”. A reprint of Amanda Giridharadas’ article detailing the change in the Dem party which we can emulate as a response to the MAGat wave and coordinated takeover of the Republican Party. Free Press is not the enemy. Traditional dilution of our offerings made to appeal, persuade, and reach the middle and undecided is old school for “going high” and is not effective. We have discussed ad nauseum the animation of the MAGat base and seeming takeover of the media. So what? Let’s go low by going high and doing the same. Animate, appeal to people’s hearts and the emotion of soul, do not dilute an ounce of our offerings and agenda to save democracy and to follow the rule of law. Catch the wave that has been bubbling up for decades. Bust out your best song, smile until your cheeks hurt, dance your best step, sweat because we are not afraid but joyous about how we feel about our freedoms. Doesn’t matter how scary the leader of the opposition is. He’s an Oz and the curtain is in tatters And why? Because of We the People. There is no voice that is more powerful than ours. It is an resounding echo of FREEDOM. Why we find ourselves often in a moment where we must fight for it is only counterproductive if we do not respond accordingly. Pres Biden will always be great in my mind because he has always demonstrated the way during his 50 yrs of service to The People. We must emulate that purpose and respect that the way to do it has finally bubbled up and he has handed the wheel over to the right person.
Thank you, ALL.
And to you TC for sharing that article. I have circulated it widely and have faith in the younger people in my life that stand firmly with me. We are causing a ruckus!
That's because this convention is also in Chicago, Susan, and there is a last minute change in leadership - but for a very different reason. The well loved Robert Kennedy was murdered in June and there was no leader for the Democrats, very different than today with the beloved leader alive and well, and willingly turned the baton over to HIS choice - his President in training, Kamala Harris
PBS.no longer has “public” support since repubs have chipped away at their funding and they can no longer be a public channel, just beggars like everybody else. I will support them in the hopes that they will return to sanity with a Dem sweep and some funding restored. Repubs have literally bought most media channels, and social media outlets. Now we have to buy what was free and expected of news divisions.
in case no one noticed, "Frontline" (which I've always followed and loved) isn't being broadcast. it IS, however, available on the streaming service. how much does this suck?
Absolutely correct! Ridiculous but in the far right playbook. And David Brooks is right in there pitching his s***. For a short time he seemed able to cast aside his gop bona fides but not now. And did you hear the former ambassador to russia who was in trump's administration for 3 years as an assistant in the state department - he has written a book that is just out, and when asked if he'd vote for the orange cheato he said he would because he has always voted republican, even knowing what he knows! Of course he could be playing to the right wing. What he does in the privacy of the voting booth is his own business. I cannot believe the PBS interviewer asked him who he'd be voting for. Maybe he thought the guy had some guts like Judge Luttig. But...well that's how it goes in magaland. That's why every vote in every state matters this election. The gop must lose big time everywhere. As Raphael Warnock said, "A vote shows what kind of country we want" - will it be the nation of January 5 or the one trump and his co-insurrectionists/traitors attempted to inaugurate on January 6, 2021? I know what nation I want and it does not look or behave any way like trump and his criminal band envision.
I watched PBS as well, thinking that out of all of the MSM players, they might be the most fair and balanced. Whenever David Brooks came on with his gag-me-with a spoon far fetched nonsense, I would have to turn down the volume till he was done. The man is just such an annoying hypocrite!
The legacy press is still pissed that Harris had sewn up the nomination within 6 hours after Biden dropped out, thus denying them the spectacle of the mini primary followed by a chaotic and hopefully violent convention. They will never forgive her for that even after she’s elected.
I learned long ago to watch conventions on C-SPAN. It's appalling that the people who really should know better, and I suspect know better, keep pushing narratives like this.
I also chose to watch on C-Span, without all the idiotic bloviating one gets on ALL the other stations. of course, when they started to take comments, the first one was a Russian woman who accused the Dems of all being "communists." it takes a certain kind of imbecility to be a right-wing Russian emigre, and Queens is full to bursting with these scumbags.
when I grow up, I'm going to marry Jasmine Crockett.
I watched C-SPAN and I'm glad I did. When I checked out other TV stations they were cutting away from speeches and videos to broadcast "opinions". I prefer to form my own opinions. What an amazing night of hope for what we can accomplish when we love and respect each other.
The prostitution of the once Fourth Estate has become a given as technology has allowed us to move on to the Fifth, perhaps Sixth Estate here at Substack and other platforms. Bezos and others will be left trying to part out their defunct vehicles. Young people and many of their parents have moved on. Radio still has some impact because people can listen while still actively doing other things; no screen necessary. So the MSM's desperation is showing, isn't it? And their owners are holding out for and abetting a Trump win to buy some time to unload their obsolescence. Watch for the Fourth Estate sale.
I keep hoping this era will be looked back on as the moment in history when news changed. I imagine history books of the future describing to kids how news used to be presented in folded paper thrown at the end of your driveway but that format could not make the shift to the wide choices and ready availability of news on the internet so they began to gravitate toward the pandering techniques of yellow journalism and most of the "main stream media" tottered and fell. I'm hoping for a form that is more like a compendium of substacks where you pick and choose who writes the articles you read, but the articles are collected in a few sources which stretch the subscription numbers enough to allow the average news consumer to include dozens of writers. Perhaps a reviewed ad section would help - a Frankenstein of what works with old school media and what's best about substack, such as voting with your dollar on which writers to support which cannot be done with, for example, NYT.
Are you suggesting more ads??? I liked my daily newspaper. Then the powers that be thought that digital was the way to go and abandoned the print people (not the other way around, as they would tell it.). The choices on the internet are currently controlled by billionaire arses wanting more money in the troughs. Where are those wider choices that reflect our moment in history. I don’t have the money or the time to sort through the ubiquitous podcasts and substacks. I take six and that will have to do for me. But to each his own. And that is the core of the problem, is it not.
JD, tell me about your daily paper - was it a small local paper or do you mean you preferred getting the paper at the foot of the drive type thing and it was one of the large national papers like NYT or WaPo? Most of the people I know abandoned their paper paper to save trees, avoid excessive recycling, because reading on the internet was more convenient for them for various reasons... no more black fingers and okay, no more comic strips! Who was the opossum? Miss him...
But no, I know no one likes ads - I'm just brain storming ways for a compendium of articles by independent writers to help pay for itself. I love my substack newsletters, but for a fact six substacks at the bargain price of $50 (just an average maybe) is well more than the cost of a subscription to two national newspapers. If we could get a system where we picked which articles showed up on our paper and our collection was customized by us for us (even the ads) then it might be more truly a substitute for the old fashioned newspaper, more affordable than six substacks, and endlessly customizable which would provide feedback as well. I feel like my imagination though is constrained by prior experience... I'd love to be able to imagine the news sources of the future.
In some ways we are harkening back to the days of old in the West when various riders came through town bearing news, and each one gave us a different version of what was seen and heard, with some being just more interesting to listen to. Some you'd give a hot coffee to and sit down with, and others you'd be happy to see the back ends of their horses leaving town.
Did not see it, but remember visiting my farmer grandparents in small town Kansas when I was a kid and sitting quietly at the kitchen table as various delivery people and customers would come in for coffee or tea and tell my grandparents what they knew about the events of the day. After some of them left my grandmother would fret and my grandfather would sneer and shake his head as he returned to his chores. But those newsbearing visitors always got their attention and delayed their chores.
Thanks for naming the film. If it's a couple of years old, I can probably find it in one of the streaming catalogs.
Agreed: we can't let them get away with it. But, practically speaking, how do we each do that? Writing letters to the editor of every one of those outlets every time they pull this crap is untenable. I'm all ears for suggestions.
The trouble with that is you can only cancel them once. Once per. They just keep cranking it out. We must brainstorm other additional effective ways. I say that fully knowing how hard that is to find solutions to intractable problems. I'm still trying to think of ways to keep turtles from crossing roads...
I don't think there is any doubt that the First Amendment does not supersede Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution. Maybe Merrick Garland would even agree if he were alive.
I watched / streamed on MSNBC and listened to the Maddow team on radio, from Steve Kerr on and I though it was fantastic! Also I have not paid attention to the MSM. It is disheartening to hear they seem to keep being so rough on the dem/progressive side and forgiving of the repub/MAGA side.
I do subscribe to Robert, Joyce, Heather, TC and Chop Wood Carry Water. But I also watch PBC newshour and the BBC, both of which compel me to shout at the TV from time to time.
One of my best friends is a Delegate. Due to security (protesters blocking roads) it took the huge caravan of delegate busses a couple of hours to get everyone delivered. I was getting her real-time updates.
Last night was incredible. And it's only day 1. The MSM can jump off the Chicago Pier.
With cement shoes!
In addition, PBS Newshour ran a report over the weekend and again on Monday about the 1968 convention and how this one isn’t “likely” to be a violent repeat. Funny, they didn’t dredge up the ‘68 convention in 2020, or 2016, or 2012, or—well, you get the point. I still watch PBS out of “best of a bad lot” despair but my level of trust is significantly lower than it was a few years ago.
Susan, ditch PBS, pay TC and Robert Hubbell
Don't forget Heather and Joyce.
OK, up to a point, but keep in mind that Substackers (and yes, I subscribe to a bunch) are commentators, not reporters. The ones I follow do rigorously base their commentary on the facts in their areas of expertise and interest, but that's not the same as general-interest reporting. Print media lends itself better to the reporting of facts than TV and cable because more space is available to cover stories that may not be front-page-worthy but are still important, but print media has been on the decline for decades thanks to corporate consolidation, etc., and local media, once a reliable source of local stories that didn't interest the regional media (but would sometimes be picked up by them), has been gutted.
P.S. Some people long for the supposedly halcyon days of "Uncle Walter" Cronkite, Huntley-Brinkley, et al., but I'm old enough to remember how their coverage was consistently skewed white and male. There's a reason so many African American communities had (and still have in some places) their own newspapers, and why independent feminist media developed in the late '60s.
Susan, The DNC has a YouTube channel which is live-streaming the convention each night with the full video available to watch on demand after the live-stream ends. There are no network commentators or pundits interrupting the proceedings with unwanted commentary.
I like suggestions such as yours, Karen. Please allow me to tag on and offer another. I encourage all of TC’s readers to not only reread but circulate as a spiral his Substack article on the “Brat Pack”. A reprint of Amanda Giridharadas’ article detailing the change in the Dem party which we can emulate as a response to the MAGat wave and coordinated takeover of the Republican Party. Free Press is not the enemy. Traditional dilution of our offerings made to appeal, persuade, and reach the middle and undecided is old school for “going high” and is not effective. We have discussed ad nauseum the animation of the MAGat base and seeming takeover of the media. So what? Let’s go low by going high and doing the same. Animate, appeal to people’s hearts and the emotion of soul, do not dilute an ounce of our offerings and agenda to save democracy and to follow the rule of law. Catch the wave that has been bubbling up for decades. Bust out your best song, smile until your cheeks hurt, dance your best step, sweat because we are not afraid but joyous about how we feel about our freedoms. Doesn’t matter how scary the leader of the opposition is. He’s an Oz and the curtain is in tatters And why? Because of We the People. There is no voice that is more powerful than ours. It is an resounding echo of FREEDOM. Why we find ourselves often in a moment where we must fight for it is only counterproductive if we do not respond accordingly. Pres Biden will always be great in my mind because he has always demonstrated the way during his 50 yrs of service to The People. We must emulate that purpose and respect that the way to do it has finally bubbled up and he has handed the wheel over to the right person.
Thank you, ALL.
And to you TC for sharing that article. I have circulated it widely and have faith in the younger people in my life that stand firmly with me. We are causing a ruckus!
Salud!
🗽💜
That's because this convention is also in Chicago, Susan, and there is a last minute change in leadership - but for a very different reason. The well loved Robert Kennedy was murdered in June and there was no leader for the Democrats, very different than today with the beloved leader alive and well, and willingly turned the baton over to HIS choice - his President in training, Kamala Harris
PBS.no longer has “public” support since repubs have chipped away at their funding and they can no longer be a public channel, just beggars like everybody else. I will support them in the hopes that they will return to sanity with a Dem sweep and some funding restored. Repubs have literally bought most media channels, and social media outlets. Now we have to buy what was free and expected of news divisions.
I support them for the mystery drama shows. I like European mysteries and cop shows.
Me too, have for decades. I love most NOVA episodes. Best thing on tv, or used to be
in case no one noticed, "Frontline" (which I've always followed and loved) isn't being broadcast. it IS, however, available on the streaming service. how much does this suck?
I have hope that if Dems get back in, the effort to privatize everything but the trough will cease and they can return to their roots.
Absolutely correct! Ridiculous but in the far right playbook. And David Brooks is right in there pitching his s***. For a short time he seemed able to cast aside his gop bona fides but not now. And did you hear the former ambassador to russia who was in trump's administration for 3 years as an assistant in the state department - he has written a book that is just out, and when asked if he'd vote for the orange cheato he said he would because he has always voted republican, even knowing what he knows! Of course he could be playing to the right wing. What he does in the privacy of the voting booth is his own business. I cannot believe the PBS interviewer asked him who he'd be voting for. Maybe he thought the guy had some guts like Judge Luttig. But...well that's how it goes in magaland. That's why every vote in every state matters this election. The gop must lose big time everywhere. As Raphael Warnock said, "A vote shows what kind of country we want" - will it be the nation of January 5 or the one trump and his co-insurrectionists/traitors attempted to inaugurate on January 6, 2021? I know what nation I want and it does not look or behave any way like trump and his criminal band envision.
That interview surprised me. Party above all else. Almost sounded like Anthony Hopkins performance in Remaining Days justifying service.
I watched PBS as well, thinking that out of all of the MSM players, they might be the most fair and balanced. Whenever David Brooks came on with his gag-me-with a spoon far fetched nonsense, I would have to turn down the volume till he was done. The man is just such an annoying hypocrite!
I would have thought he'd be more "reasonable" after he got busted on that three-drink airport lunch...
fuck him.
The legacy press is still pissed that Harris had sewn up the nomination within 6 hours after Biden dropped out, thus denying them the spectacle of the mini primary followed by a chaotic and hopefully violent convention. They will never forgive her for that even after she’s elected.
Biden/Harris cost them Billions. They want their pound of flesh; The Streets of New York. Bill Sykes
You succinctly put into words what I was thinking.
I learned long ago to watch conventions on C-SPAN. It's appalling that the people who really should know better, and I suspect know better, keep pushing narratives like this.
I also chose to watch on C-Span, without all the idiotic bloviating one gets on ALL the other stations. of course, when they started to take comments, the first one was a Russian woman who accused the Dems of all being "communists." it takes a certain kind of imbecility to be a right-wing Russian emigre, and Queens is full to bursting with these scumbags.
when I grow up, I'm going to marry Jasmine Crockett.
I watched C-SPAN and I'm glad I did. When I checked out other TV stations they were cutting away from speeches and videos to broadcast "opinions". I prefer to form my own opinions. What an amazing night of hope for what we can accomplish when we love and respect each other.
Thank you for this. I'm switching from PBS to C-SPAN tonight!!!!
The prostitution of the once Fourth Estate has become a given as technology has allowed us to move on to the Fifth, perhaps Sixth Estate here at Substack and other platforms. Bezos and others will be left trying to part out their defunct vehicles. Young people and many of their parents have moved on. Radio still has some impact because people can listen while still actively doing other things; no screen necessary. So the MSM's desperation is showing, isn't it? And their owners are holding out for and abetting a Trump win to buy some time to unload their obsolescence. Watch for the Fourth Estate sale.
With fewer and fewer buying.
I keep hoping this era will be looked back on as the moment in history when news changed. I imagine history books of the future describing to kids how news used to be presented in folded paper thrown at the end of your driveway but that format could not make the shift to the wide choices and ready availability of news on the internet so they began to gravitate toward the pandering techniques of yellow journalism and most of the "main stream media" tottered and fell. I'm hoping for a form that is more like a compendium of substacks where you pick and choose who writes the articles you read, but the articles are collected in a few sources which stretch the subscription numbers enough to allow the average news consumer to include dozens of writers. Perhaps a reviewed ad section would help - a Frankenstein of what works with old school media and what's best about substack, such as voting with your dollar on which writers to support which cannot be done with, for example, NYT.
Are you suggesting more ads??? I liked my daily newspaper. Then the powers that be thought that digital was the way to go and abandoned the print people (not the other way around, as they would tell it.). The choices on the internet are currently controlled by billionaire arses wanting more money in the troughs. Where are those wider choices that reflect our moment in history. I don’t have the money or the time to sort through the ubiquitous podcasts and substacks. I take six and that will have to do for me. But to each his own. And that is the core of the problem, is it not.
JD, tell me about your daily paper - was it a small local paper or do you mean you preferred getting the paper at the foot of the drive type thing and it was one of the large national papers like NYT or WaPo? Most of the people I know abandoned their paper paper to save trees, avoid excessive recycling, because reading on the internet was more convenient for them for various reasons... no more black fingers and okay, no more comic strips! Who was the opossum? Miss him...
But no, I know no one likes ads - I'm just brain storming ways for a compendium of articles by independent writers to help pay for itself. I love my substack newsletters, but for a fact six substacks at the bargain price of $50 (just an average maybe) is well more than the cost of a subscription to two national newspapers. If we could get a system where we picked which articles showed up on our paper and our collection was customized by us for us (even the ads) then it might be more truly a substitute for the old fashioned newspaper, more affordable than six substacks, and endlessly customizable which would provide feedback as well. I feel like my imagination though is constrained by prior experience... I'd love to be able to imagine the news sources of the future.
In some ways we are harkening back to the days of old in the West when various riders came through town bearing news, and each one gave us a different version of what was seen and heard, with some being just more interesting to listen to. Some you'd give a hot coffee to and sit down with, and others you'd be happy to see the back ends of their horses leaving town.
Did you see that Tom Hanks movie a couple years ago? "News of the World." His character was one of those guys.
Did not see it, but remember visiting my farmer grandparents in small town Kansas when I was a kid and sitting quietly at the kitchen table as various delivery people and customers would come in for coffee or tea and tell my grandparents what they knew about the events of the day. After some of them left my grandmother would fret and my grandfather would sneer and shake his head as he returned to his chores. But those newsbearing visitors always got their attention and delayed their chores.
Thanks for naming the film. If it's a couple of years old, I can probably find it in one of the streaming catalogs.
I missed that one. I’ll check it out
Judith
The Day The Earth stood Still when television became My Space
I watched most with Rachel team on MSNBC. Their post show sounded almost adoring and certainly respectful. And, yes then their was the NYT.
when I pick up y daily NYT in the building lobby (yes, yes, I know) I roll my eyes PREEMPIVELY.
Do you have a dog? You could take it on dog walks for scooping.
The only talent they have is gaslighting.
I missed, but did you all see this ad the DNC played last night exposing Trump. Knocked it out of the park ! At least millions saw this:⬇️
https://x.com/AlexSokoloff/status/1825824199002222721
MSM is not up to the job, as usual, so let’s all keep sharing what actually happened last night!
Liza Donnelly ( some may be familiar with her New Yorker cartoons) is watching and drawing the DNC speakers with selected quotes.
https://open.substack.com/pub/lizadonnelly/p/live-drawing-the-dnc-day-one?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
“Are we ready to vote for freedom?!” Joe Biden
❤️🤍💙
Thanks for those links, Kathy.
Agreed: we can't let them get away with it. But, practically speaking, how do we each do that? Writing letters to the editor of every one of those outlets every time they pull this crap is untenable. I'm all ears for suggestions.
Cancel them.
The trouble with that is you can only cancel them once. Once per. They just keep cranking it out. We must brainstorm other additional effective ways. I say that fully knowing how hard that is to find solutions to intractable problems. I'm still trying to think of ways to keep turtles from crossing roads...
But . . . Wordle . . . KIDDING
They pick which letters to print. They stopped printing mine about nine months ago. I don’t think I had become incoherent at that time.
The “fact check” made me positively ill this morning. What slanted reporting. 🤬
I watched the DNC feed with a SHORT glimpse of NBC (nothing but cra*?). The msm are just plain losers. How the mighty have fallen.
I don't think there is any doubt that the First Amendment does not supersede Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution. Maybe Merrick Garland would even agree if he were alive.
I watched / streamed on MSNBC and listened to the Maddow team on radio, from Steve Kerr on and I though it was fantastic! Also I have not paid attention to the MSM. It is disheartening to hear they seem to keep being so rough on the dem/progressive side and forgiving of the repub/MAGA side.
Warnock was great! I loved it.
That’s right! The so called press is NOT going to get away with their distortions. Because—
R E A L I T Y .
Reality can be skewed. Goebbels proved that. Repubs decided he was right
Reality can only be skewed temporarily. When reality is skewered for too long a pent up countering tidal wave happens. Like Kamala Harris and the DNC.
Rupert held sway for decades and I thought a counterwave looked less and less likely. So happy it arrived, maybe right on time.
I do subscribe to Robert, Joyce, Heather, TC and Chop Wood Carry Water. But I also watch PBC newshour and the BBC, both of which compel me to shout at the TV from time to time.