A Message To My Doomed Colleagues In The American Media

[bigheadfred]

Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear. We in Russia have been doing it for 12 years now  —  with a short hiatus when our leader wasn’t technically our leader  — so quite a few things during Donald Trump’s press conference rang my bells. Not just mine, in fact — read this excellent round-up in The Moscow Times.

Vladimir Putin’s annual pressers are supposed to be the media event of the year. They are normally held in late December, around Western Christmas time (we Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas two weeks later and it’s not a big deal, unlike New Year’s Eve). Which probably explains why Putin’s pressers don’t get much coverage outside of Russia, except in a relatively narrow niche of Russia-watchers. Putin’s pressers are televised live across all Russian TV channels, attended by all kinds of media  — federal news agencies, small local publications and foreign reporters based in Moscow  —  and are supposed to overshadow every other event in Russia or abroad.

These things are carefully choreographed, typically last no less than four hours, and Putin always comes off as an omniscient and benevolent leader tending to a flock of unruly but adoring children. Given that Putin is probably a role model for Trump, it’s no surprise that he’s apparently taking a page from Putin’s playbook. I have some observations to share with my American colleagues. You’re in this for at least another four years, and you’ll be dealing with things Russian journalists have endured for almost two decades now. I’m talking about Putin here, but see if you can apply any of the below to your own leader.

Welcome to the era of bullshit.

http://upnorth.eu/message-to-doomed-american-media-kovalev-putin-trump/

[Sanguine]

Wrong:  "Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear."  You've been doing that for the past 8 years!

[INVAR]

Wrong:  "Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear."  You've been doing that for the past 8 years!

Yeah, but Trump is not THEIR messianic figure as Obama was.

Trump is to be seen as the devil and treated as such by the media that attempted to create a bloodless Communist overthrow of the country.

What those idiots fail to recognize is that they have created the very precedents and tools that will be used to prop up and massage every future despot that rules us.

[dfwgator]

Yeah, but Trump is not THEIR messianic figure as Obama was.

Trump is to be seen as the devil and treated as such by the media that attempted to create a bloodless Communist overthrow of the country.

What those idiots fail to recognize is that they have created the very precedents and tools that will be used to prop up and massage every future despot that rules us.

The media is going to lose that fight. We've got plenty of alternatives now, we don't need them.

[INVAR]

The media is going to lose that fight. We've got plenty of alternatives now, we don't need them.

I disagree that the current MSM is going to "lose".

They are the propaganda outlet for the Left in this country.  They WILL be funded and propped-up -even if Soros himself has to do it.

WE have no need of the MSM - but in the minds of a majority in this country - they ARE the news, and more than half of the population wants what Obama and the media represent.

I simply see the existing and emerging media as polarizing and divided as the country itself has become - and stoking each of their constituent audiences into separate warring camps.

The media in all it's new and old forms is simply going to accelerate the Balkanization of the country.

That's how I see all of this shaking out in the near-term.

[corbe]

   The similarities are striking

From the Article:


You’re always losing.


This man owns you. He understands perfectly well that he is the news. You can’t ignore him. You’re always playing by his rules  —  which he can change at any time without any notice. You can’t  —  in Putin’s case  —  campaign to vote him out of office. Your readership is dwindling because ad budgets are shrinking  —  while his ratings are soaring, and if you want to keep your publication afloat, you’ll have to report on everything that man says as soon as he says it, without any analysis or fact-checking, because 1) his fans will not care if he lies to their faces; 2) while you’re busy picking his lies apart, he’ll spit out another mountain of bullshit and you’ll be buried under it.


I could go on and on, but I think at this point you see where this is heading. See if any of this rings any bells if you covered Trump’s presser or watched it online.