Legal Eagle

CNN has been trending rightward for a while now

Yeah, CNN's leadership wanted to pursue a more "objective" (read: bothsideist at best, right-leaning at worst) angle and got a lot of flak from the people who actually watch CNN for it.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 24th 2024 at 10:58:00 AM

The USA doesn't really have a leftwing equivalent of FOX News. "Liberal" media is only called that to dismiss it as liberal propaganda.

"Liberal media" is just another dogwhistle.

Edited by M84 on Apr 24th 2024 at 4:33:56 PM

Well, I wasn't sure what to call it, then. Left wing media?

Still not left wing.

CNN recently hired a far-right, election denier politician. It took an almost literal revolt by the TV anchors to make CNN drop them.

Edited by Resileafs on Apr 24th 2024 at 8:27:46 AM

And even so, complaining about "liberal media" doing something implies it's something intrinsically tied to, well, liberal media instead of the 24-hour news cycle and not what right-wing media is doing as well.

The media is sensationalizing the trial, and why shouldn't it?

1. It's Trump, already guaranteed views
2. It's the first criminal trial of a US President in history
3. It's about paying off a porn star
4. It may well determine the outcome of the election

Are you, Joe Media Person, going to eschew the ratings and cover the local track and field meet instead? No, you are not.

Well, the right wing media running with it is a given, so I didn't bother mentioning it, but yeah, it's the media in general.

I will be both amused and disappointed if this, of all things, ends up being the thing that makes or breaks Trump's election.

Journalistic standards?

...

Sorry, can't believe I actually wrote that.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 24th 2024 at 5:34:39 PM

Well, of course it's important in its own right, but it's being covered like some royal event, like I said. It is rather ridiculous to have the media breathlessly cover Trump's drive to the courthouse, or analyse his every facial expression and action.

It makes the whole thing look a lot more exciting than it really is. Trump fell asleep, not because he is old, but because these things are boring.

There are more important things to cover besides this trial. This trial neither deserves nor needs this level of attention.

Clicks prove otherwise for media companies.

I also don't buy that this is going to be the thing that brings down Trump, or loses him the election. It's more likely to just bolster his position with his base than anything else, no matter the result.

If he is convicted, and if he is sentenced to prison, it will be a pretty big problem for his campaign. Tough to attend rallies from a jail cell, and the Constitution might be... stressed... by the President-elect being unable to appear for his own inauguration. And this isn't even getting into the issue of self-pardons.

Even in the most optimistic case I do not expect him to spend any actual time in prison (potential contempt charges aside) before January, as the court will almost certainly stay the sentence until his appeals are exhausted, and those could take a long time.

There is an expectation among pundits that an actual criminal conviction, as opposed to civil judgments, would be a deciding factor for enough voters that he would no longer have a reasonable chance of winning the election. I have no idea if this is valid.

There's an edge possibility that the 25th Amendment might be invoked: Trump wins, but cannot serve his office, so the Vice President-elect becomes President to cover the gap. That makes the VP pick rather consequential.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 24th 2024 at 12:35:21 PM

If people are still supporting Trump after January 6th, then I doubt anything will sway them.

When the guy said he could probably shoot somebody in public and wouldn't lose any voters, he might have actually been correct for once. :|

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 24th 2024 at 7:25:17 PM

As a side note, I find the whole thing with these gag orders rather laughable. A 1000 dollars per violation? Really? That's barely even pocket change for someone like Trump. No wonder he flaunts them.

Also the current case is the least likely to land him any jail time, by all accounts.

The money isn't the point. That's just the teaser rate. If Trump keeps flagrantly defying the judge's orders, a criminal contempt order could land him in jail, and those could well be the first bars he goes behind.

Apparently the Secret Service detail around the former guy is preparing for a stay in prison.

Given that he is basically threatening the judge's family while ignoring the gag order, he should have been kept in jail until the trial at least thrice over.

Any other criminal defendant would already be in jail for what Trump has said. But Trump is not "any other criminal defendant" and it's useless to pretend so.

The topic has shifted, but honestly, the only American (that is, United States specifically) "news source" I consider mostly reliable are Pew Research Center, PBS, and Associated Press.

Outside of United States, add in Reuters, BBC, and DW.

One very important thing to remember is that a lot of people do not realize what happened. At best, they might know that there was "some sort of protest" that "might have gotten out of hand." My grandmother is a die-hard Democrat... but she lives in Texas, so she had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the coup attempt.

A significant number of people, on both sides, only get their news from Fox News because it's where they've always gotten their news. Even if they disagree with the politics, it's just what's always on. If you hear "there was some Trump protest," why would you go looking for more information on that specifically? Fox did a disturbingly good job of downplaying and ignoring the event; very little complaining about how they're being victimized, because that might get people to wonder if they are in fact at fault.

What about the New York Times? Isn't that supposed to be a good news source?

Wait, Nordberg from the Naked Gun, that's OJ Simpson? Wow, I never realized that.

OJ could have been the Terminator, apparently. Man, that would have been a very different movie.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 25th 2024 at 12:03:02 PM

A lot of people found OJ's role in The Naked Gun a lot funnier after the trial.