Cable TV's Knucklehead News
CNN's SuperFantastic Debate Fiasco
The CNN Presidential TV Debate Between President Joe Biden & "Former" President Donald Trump Showcased how Disinformative Modern TV News can be, Particularly When Moderated by Anchors who Don't Seem to Know Who the Current President is
June 27, 2024 vs 6.21.24 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Things To Do Events / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.
I was horrified Thursday night, as I watched the CNN TV debate unfold between President Joe Biden and 'FORMER' President Donald Trump. Not only because of Joe Biden's performance, but even more so because of CNN's performance, including Jake Tapper's and Dana Bash's mega journalistic failure, for moderating a show, advertised as news [which is supposed to be about facts], that disinformed their TV audience.
Improper Sound Set Up - CNN Technical Failure?
The horrors started with the sound [wo]man's failure to properly amp or set up Joe Biden's microphone so that it properly projected his soft spoken voice at a level audible to the TV viewing public. I had to ratchet up the volume on my TV to twice the level I normally use, to hear what President Biden was saying.
No Fact Checking the Biggest Liar in Presidential History? Only on TV 'News'
Then there's the incredible failure by the TV anchors to properly moderate the debate. First of all they should NEVER have agreed to moderating a debate where fact checking was not a part of the process. I mean really, how can CNN look itself in the mirror tomorrow morning and tell everyone they are a news organization, when facts don't matter in of all things, a Presidential Debate?
And then add to that, that one of the candidates is known to be one of the biggest liars on the planet. According to a January 24, 2021 Washington Post report, they noted that Donald Trump had lied 30,573 different times, in the four years he was president.
Former President Trump went off on some of his predictable mendacious campaign tirades, about January 6th, abortion, immigration, the economy ... and pretty much everything else - without any corrections - save from President Biden, who quite frankly, in part because of his stutter, and in part because it was difficult to hear him, didn't do a very good job.
- CLICK here to read our report on CNN's News Failure on the 1st Presidential TV Debate of 2024 - Knucklehead News.
Trojan Horses?
What Should Biden do about the Members of his Campaign Staff who Agreed to this Fiasco?
Whoever in the Biden campaign management team signed off on the debate rules which disallowed fact checking, ought to be encouraged to spread their professional career wings, and fly away. Giving Donald Trump [or anyone else for that matter] free license to say whatever they want, regardless of the facts, without calling them out and correcting them to keep the record straight, is just simply and plainly unacceptable. And whoever at CNN organized this hour and a half of prime time disinformation disguised as 'news' should also be encouraged to seek employment in another profession.
Who's Supposedly Managing Biden's Digital Marketing? Or is it the Russians?
It's also worth mentioning that the folks running Biden's digital marketing campaigns are not just failing miserably in fundraising, but they are also undermining the president's entire campaign by spamming his support base via numerous daily texts and emails.
The campaign spammers are having to use multiple email addresses, because the ones they used to start the campaign solicitations with, are ineffective, because Biden's supporters are fed up with his digital marketer's relentless spamming and thus are sending the Biden campaign emails to junk. This quickly reduces what campaign emails get seen, because the overused / spamming email addresses get filtered out by email providers' software, which begins to automatically send rejected emails to junk. Any savvy email marketer knows this.
One recipient told me that he has received 53 emails in less than 8 days, which amounts to 6 - 7 emails per day. Has anyone ever spammed you that often? And the Biden campaign email marketers' messages were described to me as sounding desperate and out of touch. One informant pondered whether it was sabotage by someone on Biden's digital marketing team and / or Vladimir Putin's Russian FSB hard at work?
The snapshot above shows 13 Biden campaign emails that were sent out between 7.50 pm Saturday and 11.39 pm Sunday. The mismanagement of the Biden campaign digital marketing effort, regardless of whether it's done by campaign staff or the Russians, is hurting the Biden campaign.
I reckon a lot of people working on a presidential campaign have their own agendas. And surely some of them have agendas that may no longer be in alignment with the president's, during these turbulent times. For the next four months, the Biden team needs to shift its focus from national governance, to managing their campaign. They should start by reviewing the backgrounds, skill sets and current accomplishments / failures of their campaign staff members, contractors, and other aligned parties [such as news outlets like CNN - see why below], to make sure that these folks don't have conflicting agendas, that may cause them to purposely or inadvertently undermine the Biden campaign from inside.
Jake Tapper & Dana Bash - Proof that 'TV Journalists' are Oxymorons
So bad sound, no fact checking, and then - two moderators who don't know how to get an answer, let alone truthful answers. Both Jake Tapper and Dana Bash repeatedly let Trump dodge their questions.
Tapper asked Trump about the January 6th Insurrection. Trump distracts and doesn't answer the question, by talking about energy, taxes, regulations and the U.S. international standing. Trump uses up most of his time talking about what he wants to talk about and mostly on the attack, instead of talking about what Trump had done while president or what he would do, should voters give him another go at it. Using this technique of using up his time, talking about what Trump wants to talk about, Trump gets more time than Biden, and skillfully avoids the questions. After Tapper pushes for an answer again, Trump responds by telling Tapper that Trump's comments after the Neo Nazi march in Charlottesville were taken out of context by the media.
Dana Bash asks Trump to comment about what he did and what he would do to address Climate Change. Again, Trump distracts her, by rambling off about crime and the police. Tapper asks about what Trump would do to help families with childcare, and Trump goes about Afghanistan and hiring and firing U.S. military generals. Tapper asks Trump about the opiod crisis during his administration, and what he would do if he were elected, and Trump talks about tariffs and deficits and China. Bash asks if Trump will accept the results of the election if he loses. Trump responds by talking about WWIII and Ukraine. She presses him again and he gives a convoluted answer that allows him to wriggle out of it if he loses.
In the graphic above right, the CNN 'moderators' Jake Tapper and Dana Bash at the first TV Debate in Atlanta, on June 27, 2024.
The Cherry atop the Tapper & Bash Journalistic Failures Feast, was that Neither of Moderator Appeared to Know Who is Currently the U.S. President
Oh, so you thought Trump was a 'former' president did you? Not Thursday night on the CNN Presidential TV Debate.
TV journalists [the term 'TV journalist' is an oxymoron], Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, repeatedly addressed the 'FORMER president' as 'President' Trump. Even the person typing the closed captioning knew they were wrong, because the closed captioner repeatedly omitted Tapper's and Bash's titular errors. It's pretty pathetic when the moderators of one of the only two presidential debates in four years, don't appear to to be able to distringuish between which of the candidates is the current president, and which is the former president.
The CNN Presidential TV Debate was a Colossal Failure to Inform & in Fact it was Just the Opposite
Throughout this mockery of a debate, organized by cable TV news organization CNN, the viewers of this colossal news media failure, were witnesses to a data dump of disinformation, by the grand master of dishonesty and deceit himself, 'Former' President Donald J. Trump.
During the last election, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash characterized the Trump Biden TV debate as a hot mess. Well, if the 2020 debate was a hot mess, Tapper & Bash's performance on CNN Thursday night was an hour and a half of disinformation on steriods.
Over the past eight years, TV News has probably done as much to disinform, as they have done to inform, the American public. Their ratings-driven, theatrical, 'reality' TV events, such as the Thursday night debate debacle, are disinformative distractions from the real issues of the day.
The CNN TV debate was presented as news, but it was not. It was essentially a broadcast of endless Trump lies and deceits, that went largely unchallenged, thus disinforming the public. TV news has become part of the problem, and is no longer a part of the solution, so it's time to tune out.
The Era of the Informative TV Debates is Over
Modern TV Can No Longer be Trusted with Serious Issues
The only thing we learned Thursday night, was that TV 'News' continues to fail the American people as a reliable information source on things that matter. Perhaps the era of televised presidential debates should be over, as they no longer fulfill their legacy mission, which was to inform.
The folks on TV frequently disparage the quality of internet news. Yet it seems to me the quality of televised news is at least as bad - if not worse.
Post Debate Update - Added 6.30.24
U.S. Televised Media, Appears Poised to Fail the American People ... Again
This is an important election and unfortunately the U.S. media seems woefully inept at properly doing its job, as we witnessed during the Thursday night [6/27/24] CNN debate in Atlanta.
The debate was a colossal news failure by CNN to properly structure the debate, including its mismanagement of the rules for the debate [no fact checking of a president who told over 30,573 lies while in office, according to a 1/24/21 Washington Post report]; a mic not set to a level to properly accommodate Biden's soft spoken voice; and the selection of two bumbling moderators, Jake Tapper & Dana Bash, who didn't fact check, didn't get any straight answers, when they got answers - from the ex president; and both of whom seemed unable to differentiate between the current president and the ex president. See related story above.
Post Debate: Corporate Media & TV News Celebrities - Not the Pols - Freak Out & Urge Everyone Else to do the Same
Following the debate, there was a huge corporate media freak out, lead by CNN. It wasn't the pols. It was the corporate media, most notably CNN and the NYT [see why below]. That's because the media celebrities have buried their ostrich heads in their TV screens, where they vainly watch themselves gabbing endlessly, and saying almost nothing that isn't a big waste of people's time ... like the debate and post debate analysis was on Thursday night.
What Really Happened in the Thursday Night Debate?
The Corporate Media Sins: Reports with Important Facts Omissions
The corporate media and their newsroom celebrities, spun what happened Thursday night, with scant recognition paid to providing folks with the full context of what really happened [see post debate story above]. What really happened is the corporate media, most specifically CNN - failed, at least as much as Joe Biden stumbled.
But the media seldom, if ever, admit their own mistakes, except in a court of law [Fox vs Dominion Voting Systems]. So most of the media celebrities circled their wagons to protect one another, and instead reporting what happened objectively, by analyzing the debate in a broader context for their viewing audience, they resorted to pointing the finger at Biden. Biden, throughout his political life, has flubbed debates because he is handicapped with a speech impediment - a stutter - which has always hurt him in debates. Why didn't any of the corporate media / TV celebrities & analysts mention that in their post debate discussions? That Biden has a speech impediment handicap?
Corporate News & TV Celebrities Project their Failures onto Biden & then Attempt to Distract us by Calling for Biden to Step Down, Instead of Fessing up to Their Own Journalistic Incompetence
Ever since the debate, the media celebrities have been screaming like spoiled children - particularly on CNN & at the NYT - for Biden to step down. This seems like an attempt to shift attention away from their own failings, by projecting the cause of their failures, away from themselves, and onto Joe Biden. It's worth mentioning that the new CEO of CNN, was previously the CEO at the NYT, which helps explain why these two organizations appear to be moving in lockstep - at least on this story.
The New CEO at CNN has been Transforming it into a Very Different CNN
Is the new CNN CEO, Replicating a Decades Long Pattern of Distorted Journalism?
Mark Thompson was appointed as CEO at CNN in August of 2023. He assumed the position on October 9, 2023, which was the day of the Hamas terrorist attack on an Israeli kibbutz. That coincidence aside, to know present day CNN, you have to know a bit about the new CEO running it. So here are a few factoids from Mark Thompson's past.
Under Thompson's watch at BBC there were numerous lapses in editorial integrity, where his team(s) presented things that were known to be fake as real. Also while at BBC he had to put one of his sensationalist ratings winning shows on hiatus because it was in such poor taste. Thompson also reportedly censored truths in broadcasts that didn't fit with his own political views. It seems that while CEO at the NYT, Thompson's journalistic lack of integrity may have been held in check by the NYT culture of journalism - but I only took a very, very superficial look into it - so this is not the last word on that.
In the short time he's been at CNN, Thompson has already been criticized for again censoring and biasing news reports by ommissions, based on his own political views. Thompson's politics and moral compass appear to have some similarities to those of arch conservative Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, which is in contrast to the companies he's worked for - such as the BBC, NYT & CNN.
So beware. This is no longer your parents' CNN.
The Changing Media Landscape - It isn't Getting Better
Should having one bad night in a televised debate [which Biden admits] overshadow the record of accomplishment by Biden as president over the past four years, and as the Vice President for eight years, and a lifelong career as a Senator? Be advised that this is essentially a mass media coup d'etat to replace the will of the voters - and surely such controversy is good for ratings [but not the nation]. But ultimately it is much ado about nothing, because Biden isn't stepping down.
The corporate mass media & TV celebrities have been whining about the Biden candidacy - not just for the past year - but also four years ago, before Biden was elected president the first time, and pretty much ever since.
Stay tuned, because we're in for a rough ride.
