The Hill - 09/17/16: After several weeks of positive news cycles and polling gains brought about by a more disciplined campaign, Donald Trump has committed a series of stumbles in recent days that experts see as a return to “bad Trump.”I'm hoping the media has finally turned the corner on this nonsense after getting conned over his ridiculous, politically motivated take back, of his oddly successful birther movement. Great summary from All in with Chris Hayes:
In the strongest push back yet, the following Washington Post article should be a media call to arms, before they single handedly hand the country over to a raving lunatic:
It’s time for TV news to stop playing the stooge for Donald Trump: Donald Trump said “Jump,” and TV news said “How high?” It happened again Friday morning when the Republican presidential candidate held the media hostage for nearly an hour after promising a major news announcement.
“Breaking News: Trump To Make ‘Big Announcement’ on Birther Issue,” said the banner on MSNBC. “Soon: Trump To Address Birther Issue,” said CNN’s banner. Fox News was, of course, along for the ride. While they waited, and waited, Trump provided what amounted to a campaign infomercial and shamelessly promoted his new Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. When it was over, and he had said the absurdly obvious — that he now accepts that President Obama was born in the United States.
“We got played again,” CNN’s John King said on the air. And that was as obvious as the announcement itself.
Trump as recently as Thursday night had declined to put to rest his long history of promoting the false idea that the country’s first African American president was not born here. Based on implausible conspiracy theories, that idea was never more than a thinly veiled appeal to racism, intended to delegitimize Obama’s right to hold the highest office. And yet, reporters turned out in droves, live cameras at the ready.
Dan Gillmor, a media scholar at Arizona State University, on Twitter called this episode “universal sewer dwelling” for cable news ... no journalist with a shred of integrity would have covered it.” Saying the press got played, he said, is an understatement. “This is a campaign and a candidate that completely understands how the press works — or doesn’t work — and exploits the blatant weaknesses of political journalism.”
“CNN and others were pulled into the whole three-ring circus — I’ve never seen anything as crass and disingenuous ... breathtaking." said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief who is now the director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.
“President Obama was born in the United States. Period,” Trump got in his shots at his rival, falsely alleging that Hillary Clinton had started the birther controversy. Fact checkers, including The Washington Post’s, have repeatedly disproved this claim.
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