General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChuck Todd now realizes he's being used for propaganda. The real question is what happens next
Chuck Todd now realizes he's being used for propaganda. The real question is what happens next
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/1/1908612/-Chuck-Todd-now-realizes-he-s-being-used-for-propaganda-The-real-question-is-what-happens-next?detail=emaildkre
At the website PressThink, Jay Rosen had a post-Christmas examination of Meet The Press host Chuck Todd's startling new realization that, golly gee, it turns out that Republicans have been intentionally using his show and others to spread false information. Yes, Todd just realized that now. Yes, he is one of the top political "minds" in Washington, which ought to clarify just how boned we all are, as the nation's political press continues to somehow degrade into something even worse and more vapid than the chummy gullibles that brought us the Iraq War.
I don't have much to add to Rosen's diagnosis, so go read that, but here's a key point.
http://pressthink.org/2019/12/the-christmas-eve-confessions-of-chuck-todd/
So what will they do now? My answer: they have no earthly idea. This is what I mean by an epistemological crisis. Chuck Todd has essentially said that on the right there is an incentive structure that compels Republican office holders to use their time on Meet the Press for the spread of disinformation. So do you keep inviting them on air to do just that? If so, then you break faith with the audience and create a massive problem in real time fact-checking. If not, then you just broke the show in half
Whether we truly believe that Todd or any of the other hosts on any of the other shows have been previously mystified as to why Kellyanne Conway, Ted Cruz, the phalanx of House Republican Trump defenders, Trump himself, or the rest of the Republican Party moved into overt disinformation and propagandizing, with the networks' willing help, is irrelevant. We have our suspicions, but it is irrelevant. The pertinent question is what happens to Meet the Press now that its host has confirmed, in his own mind and to the public, that Republican guests have been intentionally lying to the American public, relying on network and journalistic conventions to broadcast those lies with little or no pushback.
As Todd himself realizes (just now, allegedly), his show's current format rewards lying over honest behavior. So what now?
There are a few possibilities, and all of them would require an integrity among the Sunday shows that I don't think any of the Sunday shows have, or want. First, pervasive liars such as Conway and the vaporous White House press secretary do not need to be on the airwaves at all: There is no information they can convey to guests that cannot be accessed elsewhere and more accurately, and both have a proven record of repeatedly using media as disinformation outlets.
/snip/
dalton99a
(81,637 posts)StClone
(11,688 posts)Most of them. He wouldn't have a show. He feigns offense then continues with the show.
GeorgeGist
(25,324 posts)Political Director for NBC News.
JHB
(37,163 posts)It's a different job from the one implied by his titles and job descriptions, but clearly his employer hasn't found fault with his performance.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)So thanks for the reminder.
Its like forgetting that photographs arent just about what you see in them. Theres always a photographer making the human decision to take them.
JenniferJuniper
(4,515 posts)stupid to handle job.
But he won't and it will be more of the same going forward.
wryter2000
(46,099 posts)But that didn't change his behavior. This won't either.
dajoki
(10,678 posts)"truth isn't truth" but he didn't change then either.
TheRealNorth
(9,500 posts)But maybe pair investigative journalism with the panel. That way, the networks can frame what "is true" on whatever issue is going to be discussed.
BlueJac
(7,838 posts)It is passed time he be replaced, I was never a fan of his! Just another Republican trying to blame both sides for the mess we are in. What a fool!
lunatica
(53,410 posts)The blame just rests on the Democrats, even if only by implication.
JHB
(37,163 posts)...nothing. He's made his pro-forma mea culpa as part of hyping a new project. Now he's free to go on doing the same "naive" things, and keep collecting his big paycheck.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)the real story. Chuckie's Ego was just exposed. Will he change to a Journalist Model,he is incapable of that. He is a tool of the Corporate Media Empire and as long as he gets the big payday,F the rubes.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)the audience. Hes enamored of his own so called cleverness and thinks were all fooled because he actually sees the emperors fine clothing. And hes a little Napoleonic strutter too. Pompous.
Im sure he thinks, just like Trump, that we cant see right throughout his thinning hair.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)and if one doubts,ask him,and he will tell you he is the best thing since sliced Bread.
kairos12
(12,882 posts)He is beyond disgusting.
He learned from Russert who got used and abused by Cheney.
Matthews also fell for Shrub's codpiece strut on that carrier.
None of them have any credibility.
Fla Dem
(23,785 posts)"Well, we'll have to leave it there." No rebuttal, just ending the interview on a lie.
dalton99a
(81,637 posts)stillcool
(32,626 posts)to believe that Chuck was duped, into being a vessel of the GOP. Unfortunately, by his own inflections, how he, all by himself nuances a story, he has revealed himself, over, and over, and over. Don't know why he's trying to do a remake now. That's probably the only story, to the story.
TheBlackAdder
(28,230 posts).
He did not come to this on his own volition, he must have been pressured to change his tune.
.
Leith
(7,813 posts)a. Keep doing the same. Consequence: he is now a witting dupe.
b. Hold rethug feet to a newly kindled fire. Consequence: fewer rethug guests (this one is okay by me because he has years of catching up to do with Democratic guests).
c. Quit in disgrace and fade away forever. Consequence: he will be replaced by another rethug dupe and nothing will change.
He will probably choose (a) and claim that he is now "knowingly nonpartisan."