PRESS TIME
Here's how our gutless media can help save their crumbling credibility, and America ...
As the smoke finally started to clear following Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and Donald Trump’s violent attack aimed at overthrowing our government just two months later, I wrote a piece castigating our disintegrating working press in the United States.
The thrust of my write was this: If you were addressing ANY Republican about ANYTHING, your first question simply had to be, “Do you believe Donald Trump lost the 2020 election?”
After all, The Big Lie that Trump had won was the catalyst of his Big Attack on January 6th, and simply had to be put down, refuted and corrected for the record by all means possible.
If after this question was asked, the Republican either refused to answer, was evasive in any way, or worse, flatly denied that Biden won, the follow up had to be this: “Show us the proof you have to back up these dangerous assertions.”
If they could not provide any proof, the interview was over.
Done.
Finished.
There was simply no logical reason to continue talking to a desperate pusher selling a noxious, destructive lie aimed at poisoning the lifeblood of our Democracy.
Allowing dangerous propaganda and people like that to litter our airways and print, wasn’t just irresponsible journalism, it was aiding and abetting Trump’s attack on America.
Besides, he had Rupert Murdoch’s goons at Fox for that.
Well, we all know by now that my pleas to shut these people down were roundly ignored — if they were even heard at all — and because of that, 2024 might be the date that’s etched in the tombstone marking the end of the great American experiment.
The Big Lie hangs over America like a dark, menacing cloud, while too many in our broken press carry on like it is just another sunny day.
As a longtime member of that press, I have sadly come to understand that incompetence, ratings, and money are behind their failures to do even the most minimal thing required of sound journalism: report the truth.
Their inability and/or refusal to sound the alarms of what was coming if God forbid Trump won another term were amateurish and outrageous. How could they have ignored the biggest story since the Civil War?
Why weren’t Democracy Desks set up in every newsroom across America that did nothing but report on Trump and his Republicans’ brazen attack on our nation that was so obviously buttressed by a corrupt, lying, bought-off Supreme Court, whose majority they appointed?
Wasn't it obvious what would happen if Big Lie Republicans ever regained Executive power again? Was there ever really any doubt among the people who were paid to pay attention that Trump would get the blessing of his court to be just as disgusting and anti-American as possible by carrying on as their mad king?
How could this have been missed by the very people whose job it is to cover these lowlifes?
It took no time at all for Trump to lay waste to our government, and for armed troops to litter our streets.
He is placing his name everywhere and on everything, and God only knows how much of our money has landed inside his bottomless pockets.
Fascism is here, and our damn media barely fired a warning shot.
I’m long past the stage where this shoddy, irresponsible “journalism” has broken my heart, and am now just plain furious. Surrendering the facts to Trump during the past decade has to be one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen.
So when the orangey, puffy Trump arrived on the set of Meet the Press Sunday, and started with his anti-American bilge about elections being rigged again, I was shocked when he got some actual pushback from the show’s host, Kristen Welker.
Here’s what went down:
Trump lied that the California gubernatorial race was “rigged.”
“It’s four days and they aren’t even close to counting ballots,” he harrumphed.
Welker correctly asserted that this is how California has always counted votes, and Trump shot back:
“Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election.”
Welker asked for any evidence of cheating, and Trump started his tantrum:
“They’re crooked, just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked.”
Welker pushed back again, and Trump whined like baby:
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.”
Trump then arrived where always does, and hauled out the Big Lie that he won the 2020 US presidential election.
Walker wasn’t having that and pressed on. That’s when the grotesque Trump, who was nearly in tears at this point, said this:
“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough.”
But not before snarling:
“Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
And just like that he was gone, like a loud fart pushed out of the room by an air-purifying exhaust fan ...
Congratulations to Welker for holding her ground and her nose during that interview, but the damage has been done. The America-attacking Trump’s Big Lie is louder than ever, and our press, with a few exceptions, has all but gone quiet correcting it.
On Monday afternoon, Trump’s pointy-nosed puppet, Speaker Mike Johnson, pawed through the halls of Congress parroting his master’s election lies while a clutch of reporters nipped at his little heels. Johnson who lies as he breathes like so many of these odious Republican Christians was asked for proof the recent California election was “rigged.”
He somehow said this without generating a lightning strike: “Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it's impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively that something is wrong here.”
Oh, we sure do, sport ...
Anybody who is still somehow wondering what November’s gerrymandered, Jim Crow elections are going to look like got another preview the past few days. Any close race led by a Democrat will be rigged by “diabolical” means, and any close race led by a Republican will be just peachy-keen.
This is all the result of that Big Lie which has never been properly addressed as the anti-American cancer it most certainly is, and corrected once and for all for the record.
While I long ago abandoned the shoddy, corporatized media for the clear air of independence, it won’t stop me from demanding that my former misguided brethren finally do their jobs, and set the record straight on that lie.
So one more time, people: Any time you are talking to any Republican before Election Day like you did Johnson Monday, the first thing you ask is who won the 2020 election.
If they won’t answer, or deflect and lie like Johnson, then correct them for the record, and shut them and the interview down. Do not give them a platform to perform for their sickly orange king, while helping him attack the foundation of this country.
There’s been more than enough of this the past decade.
Do that? You are doing your job.
Don’t do that? Go to hell.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)
g ANY Republican about ANYTHING, your first question simply had to be, “Do you believe Donald Trump lost the 2020 election?”
After all, The Big Lie that Trump had won was the catalyst of his Big Attack on January 6th, and simply had to be put down, refuted and corrected for the record by all means possible.
If after this question was asked, the Republican either refused to answer, was evasive in any way, or worse, flatly denied that Biden won, the follow up had to be this: “Show us the proof you have to back up these dangerous assertions.”
If they could not provide any proof, the interview was over.
Done.
Finished.
There was simply no logical reason to continue talking to a desperate pusher selling a noxious, destructive lie aimed at poisoning the lifeblood of our Democracy.
Allowing dangerous propaganda and people like that to litter our airways and print, wasn’t just irresponsible journalism, it was aiding and abetting Trump’s attack on America.
Besides, he had Rupert Murdoch’s goons at Fox for that.
Well, we all know by now that my pleas to shut these people down were roundly ignored — if they were even heard at all — and because of that, 2024 might be the date that’s etched in the tombstone marking the end of the great American experiment.
The Big Lie hangs over America like a dark, menacing cloud, while too many in our broken press carry on like it is just another sunny day.
As a longtime member of that press, I have sadly come to understand that incompetence, ratings, and money are behind their failures to do even the most minimal thing required of sound journalism: report the truth.
Their inability and/or refusal to sound the alarms of what was coming if God forbid Trump won another term were amateurish and outrageous. How could they have ignored the biggest story since the Civil War?
Why weren’t Democracy Desks set up in every newsroom across America that did nothing but report on Trump and his Republicans’ brazen attack on our nation that was so obviously buttressed by a corrupt, lying, bought-off Supreme Court, whose majority they appointed?
Wasn't it obvious what would happen if Big Lie Republicans ever regained Executive power again? Was there ever really any doubt among the people who were paid to pay attention that Trump would get the blessing of his court to be just as disgusting and anti-American as possible by carrying on as their mad king?
How could this have been missed by the very people whose job it is to cover these lowlifes?
It took no time at all for Trump to lay waste to our government, and for armed troops to litter our streets.
He is placing his name everywhere and on everything, and God only knows how much of our money has landed inside his bottomless pockets.
Fascism is here, and our damn media barely fired a warning shot.
I’m long past the stage where this shoddy, irresponsible “journalism” has broken my heart, and am now just plain furious. Surrendering the facts to Trump during the past decade has to be one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen.
So when the orangey, puffy Trump arrived on the set of Meet the Press Sunday, and started with his anti-American bilge about elections being rigged again, I was shocked when he got some actual pushback from the show’s host, Kristen Welker.
Here’s what went down:
Trump lied that the California gubernatorial race was “rigged.”
“It’s four days and they aren’t even close to counting ballots,” he harrumphed.
Welker correctly asserted that this is how California has always counted votes, and Trump shot back:
“Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election.”
Welker asked for any evidence of cheating, and Trump started his tantrum:
“They’re crooked, just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked.”
Welker pushed back again, and Trump whined like baby:
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.”
Trump then arrived where always does, and hauled out the Big Lie that he won the 2020 US presidential election.
Walker wasn’t having that and pressed on. That’s when the grotesque Trump, who was nearly in tears at this point, said this:
“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough.”
But not before snarling:
“Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
And just like that he was gone, like a loud fart pushed out of the room by an air-purifying exhaust fan ...
Congratulations to Welker for holding her ground and her nose during that interview, but the damage has been done. The America-attacking Trump’s Big Lie is louder than ever, and our press, with a few exceptions, has all but gone quiet correcting it.
On Monday afternoon, Trump’s pointy-nosed puppet, Speaker Mike Johnson, pawed through the halls of Congress parroting his master’s election lies while a clutch of reporters nipped at his little heels. Johnson who lies as he breathes like so many of these odious Republican Christians was asked for proof the recent California election was “rigged.”
He somehow said this without generating a lightning strike: “Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it's impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively that something is wrong here.”
Oh, we sure do, sport ...
Anybody who is still somehow wondering what November’s gerrymandered, Jim Crow elections are going to look like got another preview the past few days. Any close race led by a Democrat will be rigged by “diabolical” means, and any close race led by a Republican will be just peachy-keen.
This is all the result of that Big Lie which has never been properly addressed as the anti-American cancer it most certainly is, and corrected once and for all for the record.
While I long ago abandoned the shoddy, corporatized media for the clear air of independence, it won’t stop me from demanding that my former misguided brethren finally do their jobs, and set the record straight on that lie.
So one more time, people: Any time you are talking to any Republican before Election Day like you did Johnson Monday, the first thing you ask is who won the 2020 election.
If they won’t answer, or deflect and lie like Johnson, then correct them for the record, and shut them and the interview down. Do not give them a platform to perform for their sickly orange king, while helping him attack the foundation of this country.
There’s been more than enough of this the past decade.
Do that? You are doing your job.
Don’t do that? Go to hell.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)
I share your sentiment, Earl. The Orange Ogre was complaining about fixed elections throughout 2016. Somehow he has managed to win election twice, has had Republican majorities twice, has had a Republican Supreme Court during his entire reign of terror. If Democrats could fix elections, how could Republicans have won all these elections and stacked the Court? It’s ridiculous on its face.
Not sure where Ms. Welker got the courage to push back on Trump as many have criticized her for being walked on and over as the MtP host.
Money is the problem. The fact that the US allows unlimited amounts of money to be spent on elections allows them to be purchased by the billionaire class. And of course all they think about is their ranking in the Forbes 400.
Trump is a tool and a most useful one at that.