Trump’s war on CNN may have backfired bigly

Posted by | February 7, 2017 10:00 | Filed under: Media/Show Business Politics

Republish
Reprint

Reading between the lines of this NY Times report, the cable news outlet could well permanently ban White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway:

There were so many instant internet spoofs making fun of Kellyanne Conway’s now-famous “Bowling Green Massacre” that it’s hard to pick a favorite. Gun to my head, I’d say mine was the Twitter meme that showed a brass plaque dedicated to the names of the poor souls left for dead on Bowling Green’s grassy killing field. It was blank.

That’s because there was no massacre there. No one died. No one even stubbed a toe. But there’s a good chance you know that by now: that the supposed terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Ky., that Ms. Conway, a top presidential adviser, invoked on MSNBC last week to justify President Trump’s contentious travel ban never happened.

…

As the New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani put it recently, Orwell’s classic seems “all too familiar,” capturing “a world in which the government insists that reality is not ‘something objective, external, existing in its own right.’”

Mr. Trump renews those fears every time he taps out social media messages like one he posted on Facebook on Thursday complimenting an article about a “Trump-esque” travel ban Kuwait was imposing on five nearby countries. As it happens, this was untrue, as even Sputnik International, the Russian state-supported news service that helped promote the story, acknowledged.

Then there are the regular Trump Tweets calling CNN or The Times “fake news.”

The Bowling Green episode made such a splash because it played directly into concerns that the Trump administration would use untrue assertions to rally support for its agenda while denigrating as “dishonest” all the valid reporting pointing out the falsehoods.

… [B]y the end of the weekend, it was Ms. Conway’s credibility that was receiving the most scrutiny (which she described as unfair and coming from “a lot of the haters” in her interview with Mr. Kurtz).

Some, like the New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, were calling upon the television networks to stop booking her. And CNN declined to have her as a guest on Sunday — in part because the Trump administration offered her in lieu of Vice President Mike Pence, but also because of what the network told me were “serious questions about her credibility.”

CNN has gone public about the matter – never a good sign when a politician and/or their PR flack is involved:

Reacting to this report, Conway said on Twitter that family issues prevented her from appearing on Sunday shows this week, while also slamming the “false” reporting about CNN executives doubting her credibility.

CNN’s official public relations Twitter handle quickly called out Conway’s claim, and said that she “was offered to SOTU by the White House” this week.

“We passed,” CNN emphasized. “Those are the facts.”

Shortly after CNN’s message, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski sent out a cryptic message telling CNN that it was “not the first” show to decline an offer to have Conway on air.


Click here for reuse options!
Copyright 2017 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.

6 responses to Trump’s war on CNN may have backfired bigly

  1. Mensa Member February 7th, 2017 at 10:04

    As the old saying goes: “Don’t pick a fight with people who serve bits by the billions.”

  2. dogsRgoodpeople February 7th, 2017 at 11:00

    CNN and other major news networks should hold down and force feed every ounce of bs this administration feeds us back into their filthy lying mouths.

  3. Mike February 7th, 2017 at 12:03

    Reuters has the right approach … treat them like a totalitarian dictatorship, refuse to interview or print the propaganda their spox spew. Start digging and doing a little reporting from inside sources which will be numerous and continue to grow as the administration has difficulty getting it’s message out.
    The press needs to take control of the narrative and realize they are at war with a hostile administration.

    • fahvel February 8th, 2017 at 03:09

      hell of an idea – I thought that was journalism, not the garbage morning interview crap that saturates the american and, sadly, our airwaves. Ignore their individual egos and rip into their actions with no quarter – Texans will understand that – an expression that was used moments before the fall of the alamo.

  4. Willys41 February 7th, 2017 at 12:19

    Even old-timey gangsters like Bugsy Siegel had better looking girls than Trump.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z4Rr6AloDs

  5. Suzanne McFly February 7th, 2017 at 20:25

    Here is a quick read I found on Twitter. It tells of a recent story where kellyanne ran out of the room because a staffer brought up the SNL skit….
    http://addictinginfo.org/2017/02/07/kellyanne-conway-embarrasses-herself-during-capitol-hill-meeting-and-then-runs-away/

Leave a Reply