MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell tore into the major cable news networks, including MSNBC, on Thursday after they aired former President Donald Trump’s press conference live and didn’t “fact-check every lie” he told.
O’Donnell then complained that “to make a bad news coverage situation worse, none of the networks – none of them – carried Kamala Harris’ speech live after the Trump appearance. None of them.”
O’Donnell concluded, “It’s 2016 all over again. The same mistakes are being made. I have never seen an industry slower at learning from its own stupid mistakes than the American news business, and you cannot expect them in the next 89 days to figure out what they haven’t been able to figure out in nine years: how to cover a Trump for president campaign.”
I watched both the Trump conference and O’Donnell’s take live and, yeah, he has a point.
The feed I had, you couldn’t hear the reporters questions at all. So all you could hear was Trump and there was no way to know what the actual question was based on his answers.
But nobody follows up on ANY politician and it’s been that way for a couple of decades now.
The classic example I always cite is one that happens all the time:
“Well, we’re going to get rid of job-killing regulations.”
The logical follow up question would be:
“Can you cite an example of a regulation you’d get rid of and in what way it’s a job killer?”
But nobody ever asks that question.
I think the more egregious part is that all of the networks covered Trump’s press conference, then failed to cover Harris’ speech. Giving air time to one candidate and not the other is not balanced reporting. It is giving free publicity to one candidate over the other. They went to Trump’s house on short notice rather than cover Harris’ public speech with plenty of notice.
Yup. Same as 2016…
“We’re live outside the venue where Trump is about to speak in just 7 short hours…”
Bernie Sanders hosts 30,000 people? Crickets.
Denver’s own Kyle Clark has entered the chat. He did a debate (don’t click; it’s boring af) for the CO4 house seat that included Boebert, and he didn’t let her get away with anything. It was great to watch. He’s absolutely loved locally, and probably has a future at the local level.
His interview with the Republican who paid for his girlfriend’s abortion was glorious.
That is true so often, even when it’s a non-crazy press conference. It would be so easy to just stick an omnidirectional mic in the press gaggle.
It’s intentional. If they had a mic for the press, you’d see the press better able to, well, press the politician in question.
The last thing people like Trump want is a journalist pressing him on why he keeps dodging questions and chopping word-salad.
But I don’t just mean for Trump. They almost never do it.
What the person being questioned is supposed to do is repeat the question before answering it. I suspect they’re intentionally not doing that.
Sure, but it’s not necessary. An omni mic in the press gaggle would be fine. It wouldn’t even require much work in terms of an audio mix and they definitely have someone doing a live mix anyway. We’re talking fading in and out.
Right? That’s how we get grilled in interviews. We can’t get away with general statements without answering the question, but somehow no one asks a presidential candidate the same follow-up questions.