If Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hakeem Jeffries had patted CBS on the head like that, they’d have released a statement saying they rejected the characterization, that it made no difference, etc. But they have no problem with this.
Also Trump talked for 73 minutes and they aired 28. They did exactly what he “sued” them for with Kamala Harris. He even said “You don’t have to use this,” admitting the entire thing out loud.
So where do I go to sue? I’m actually kinda serious.
I was thinking the same thing. MSNBC's morning Joe disected the CBS Trump, er, interview. It was, of course, a lying fest. And one of the guests raised the same point Rick. Why shouldn't we sue CBS for editing the interview?
Actually, editing remains the purview of whatever news organization is producing the piece. Granted, only running 1/3rd of the total interview is lacking, but the entirety is available online. I worked in the print business, and without good editing stories can meander all over the place and newsworthy bits can be diluted or even lost in the shuffle. I'm not defending CBS, per se, but editing is the backbone of news reporting, at least in my era. There's the issue of available pages for newspapers, and airtime for broadcasts. It's always a challenge!!
The boycott list keeps growing. We stopped shopping at Amazon and Whole Foods when WaPo wasn’t permitted to endorse VP Harris. Likewise, we canceled Prime video and Paramount. Disney was gone but we re-upped when they relented to public pressure. One year later, I’m happy to report that I’ve survived not ordering anything I want and have it delivered in two days. In fact, I’m better off. I don’t need as much new stuff as I thought I did. Now, those funds are being used to support substacks like this and organizations working to address the moral collapse of this country. Win-win!
Heather Cox Richardson yesterday suggested CBS News cleared the interview questions in advance with Trump (Asked by O'Donnell if he would answer two more questions, Trump said, "These may be the ones I didn't want."). It's a good question for a journalist to ask CBS News. If the answer is yes, perhaps in future references we drop "News" from "CBS."
Ellison and Weiss are going to do to CBS what Bezos has done to the Washington Post, destroy the brand and render it irrelevant. But the problem for Ellison is that the damage he is doing at CBS News will carry over to his entertainment division and then to Paramount itself. Sure, CBS prime time lineup is geared to the over 60 crowd. Paramount had Yellowstone and now has Landman. But that audience is also old. That audience is literally dying off. To make the point, I'm 72 and used to watch all of the FBI, NCIS and Yellowstone shows. Since the bribe to Trump and the booting of Colbert I have left CBS and Paramount behind. And that includes the Sinclair owned local affiliate. I'm sure I'm not alone.
The only things we watch on CBS now are Colbert, and the local news on the CBS affiliate is pretty good. NOTHING else. We used to watch "60 Minutes" religiously, but not once since the new ownership took over.
Thanks for reprinting the NYT editorial, Margaret! Now, let them keep reprinting it, along with updates to their sliding scale rankings. Attach the relevant ranking to stories to remind readers of the 12 factors and which one Trump is messing with now.
As for CBS, I wish O’Donnell had asked questions about Trump’s threat to democracy (perhaps even using the Times editorial as a basis) instead of the shotgun approach of asking about as many issues as possible. They’re all connected, CBS, and the underlying theme is Trump’s abuse of power.
But what gives me hope is the latest crop of polls showing Americans’ wide disapproval of how Trump is doing his job. The more he openly grifts while people go hungry the more obvious the lies will become to those who’ve closed their eyes to them.
I've seen a fair bit of praise for how O'Donnell (and, presumably, her producers) handled the interview. I was a journalist for almost 30 years, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
I don't know about Robert Graves vs. Joan Didion, but she was a very influential and special writer IMO. I so miss other strong women like Gloria Steinem and Ruth Bader-Ginsburg.
I worry about journalists of color working in these hostile newsrooms. You forgot to mention that most of the people let go at CBS last week were people of color. Many of these white journalists still working in these newsrooms think none of this stuff including Project 2025 will affect them. That's the saddest part of all this.
This is so scary. We now have 3 Fox News channels. Nitwit House leader Johnson goes out and lies every day saying that the “radical left democrats” want to shut down the government and starve children. Then a portion of the country believes the lies as the White House is bulldozed, boats are being blown up and people are being kidnapped off the streets. The only way to get the truth is to seek it. I generally an optimist, but I don’t see how this ends. Meanwhile, here in VA, I will go greet voters at my neighborhood polling place to hand out sample democratic ballots. It better be a landslide.
CBS, ABC, the Post. "The lamps are going out all over [the world], we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." Sir Edward Grey, not Joan Didion who stole her title from Robert Graves' WWI novel.
The usual excellent work. One quibble: Joan Didion was ironically quoting the title of Robert Graves memoir of World War I and his disillusionment when she titled her essay “Goodbye to All That.” By comparison, she was giving up on a false dream New York glitz.
Because of the things Trump & the other reich-wing fascists have been doing to our media environment over the past 30 years, the mainstream news media is to a great degree now becoming irrelevant. There was a time, not long ago, when I would have more vigorously defended mainstream news media, even when it fell.
Now? Anyone with integrity should be doing all they can to make sure CBS "News" is burned to the ground completely (metaphorically speaking).
If the monsters are going to poison the mainstream media, then stop drinking from that well.
My sister is very diligent about only keeping one or two subscription services active at a time. She will watch everything she missed on say Netflix for the last year in a month or two and then cancel it for a year. And so on. If most of us did that we would save hundreds of dollars in subscription fees.
They’ve turned out the lights at CBS News
“The price of light is less than the cost of darkness.” - Arthur C. Neilson.
If Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hakeem Jeffries had patted CBS on the head like that, they’d have released a statement saying they rejected the characterization, that it made no difference, etc. But they have no problem with this.
Also Trump talked for 73 minutes and they aired 28. They did exactly what he “sued” them for with Kamala Harris. He even said “You don’t have to use this,” admitting the entire thing out loud.
So where do I go to sue? I’m actually kinda serious.
I was thinking the same thing. MSNBC's morning Joe disected the CBS Trump, er, interview. It was, of course, a lying fest. And one of the guests raised the same point Rick. Why shouldn't we sue CBS for editing the interview?
Actually, editing remains the purview of whatever news organization is producing the piece. Granted, only running 1/3rd of the total interview is lacking, but the entirety is available online. I worked in the print business, and without good editing stories can meander all over the place and newsworthy bits can be diluted or even lost in the shuffle. I'm not defending CBS, per se, but editing is the backbone of news reporting, at least in my era. There's the issue of available pages for newspapers, and airtime for broadcasts. It's always a challenge!!
My bad, they aired less than half of the interview. The full transcript is online.
The boycott list keeps growing. We stopped shopping at Amazon and Whole Foods when WaPo wasn’t permitted to endorse VP Harris. Likewise, we canceled Prime video and Paramount. Disney was gone but we re-upped when they relented to public pressure. One year later, I’m happy to report that I’ve survived not ordering anything I want and have it delivered in two days. In fact, I’m better off. I don’t need as much new stuff as I thought I did. Now, those funds are being used to support substacks like this and organizations working to address the moral collapse of this country. Win-win!
Heather Cox Richardson yesterday suggested CBS News cleared the interview questions in advance with Trump (Asked by O'Donnell if he would answer two more questions, Trump said, "These may be the ones I didn't want."). It's a good question for a journalist to ask CBS News. If the answer is yes, perhaps in future references we drop "News" from "CBS."
We could drop the “C,” too.w
Ha!
I only heard one of the questions (the one about the crypto criminal).
I wonder if the other was about Epstein?
Ellison and Weiss are going to do to CBS what Bezos has done to the Washington Post, destroy the brand and render it irrelevant. But the problem for Ellison is that the damage he is doing at CBS News will carry over to his entertainment division and then to Paramount itself. Sure, CBS prime time lineup is geared to the over 60 crowd. Paramount had Yellowstone and now has Landman. But that audience is also old. That audience is literally dying off. To make the point, I'm 72 and used to watch all of the FBI, NCIS and Yellowstone shows. Since the bribe to Trump and the booting of Colbert I have left CBS and Paramount behind. And that includes the Sinclair owned local affiliate. I'm sure I'm not alone.
The only things we watch on CBS now are Colbert, and the local news on the CBS affiliate is pretty good. NOTHING else. We used to watch "60 Minutes" religiously, but not once since the new ownership took over.
I don't think "revamped" is the appropriate word to describe CBS; it's closer to the destruction of CBS as the news organization that is once was.
I knew there must be a better adjective!
Excellent analysis on "odds/stakes". Thanks.
Thanks for reprinting the NYT editorial, Margaret! Now, let them keep reprinting it, along with updates to their sliding scale rankings. Attach the relevant ranking to stories to remind readers of the 12 factors and which one Trump is messing with now.
As for CBS, I wish O’Donnell had asked questions about Trump’s threat to democracy (perhaps even using the Times editorial as a basis) instead of the shotgun approach of asking about as many issues as possible. They’re all connected, CBS, and the underlying theme is Trump’s abuse of power.
But what gives me hope is the latest crop of polls showing Americans’ wide disapproval of how Trump is doing his job. The more he openly grifts while people go hungry the more obvious the lies will become to those who’ve closed their eyes to them.
I've seen a fair bit of praise for how O'Donnell (and, presumably, her producers) handled the interview. I was a journalist for almost 30 years, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT owes nothing to Joan Didion and everything to Robert Graves, whose autobiography of that title was published in 1929.
She wrote an essay about leaving New York with that title. Thank you for pointing out the earlier title by Graves.
I don't know about Robert Graves vs. Joan Didion, but she was a very influential and special writer IMO. I so miss other strong women like Gloria Steinem and Ruth Bader-Ginsburg.
I worry about journalists of color working in these hostile newsrooms. You forgot to mention that most of the people let go at CBS last week were people of color. Many of these white journalists still working in these newsrooms think none of this stuff including Project 2025 will affect them. That's the saddest part of all this.
This is so scary. We now have 3 Fox News channels. Nitwit House leader Johnson goes out and lies every day saying that the “radical left democrats” want to shut down the government and starve children. Then a portion of the country believes the lies as the White House is bulldozed, boats are being blown up and people are being kidnapped off the streets. The only way to get the truth is to seek it. I generally an optimist, but I don’t see how this ends. Meanwhile, here in VA, I will go greet voters at my neighborhood polling place to hand out sample democratic ballots. It better be a landslide.
That’s how it ends—with good people like you continuing to show up locally and do what they can in their sphere of influence!
It's the same as Lincoln mentioned over 150 years ago -- "....you can fool SOME of the people ALL of the time."
CBS, ABC, the Post. "The lamps are going out all over [the world], we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." Sir Edward Grey, not Joan Didion who stole her title from Robert Graves' WWI novel.
Yep. Liked the thought about Joan Didion. And, at her best: Pekinese on upper Madison
Avenue. Lot of darkness followed that for her. Now, she does get to miss all of this. Such as Cuomo threatening bomb scares at polling places today.
The usual excellent work. One quibble: Joan Didion was ironically quoting the title of Robert Graves memoir of World War I and his disillusionment when she titled her essay “Goodbye to All That.” By comparison, she was giving up on a false dream New York glitz.
Thank you!
Because of the things Trump & the other reich-wing fascists have been doing to our media environment over the past 30 years, the mainstream news media is to a great degree now becoming irrelevant. There was a time, not long ago, when I would have more vigorously defended mainstream news media, even when it fell.
Now? Anyone with integrity should be doing all they can to make sure CBS "News" is burned to the ground completely (metaphorically speaking).
If the monsters are going to poison the mainstream media, then stop drinking from that well.
That;s why the aggregators have become so popular as well as Heather Cox Richardson, the Contrarian, Bulwark, etc.
I'm well aware. We do that every weekday @ThePoliticsBar. check out the "news On Tap" and you'll see how we do it.
https://www.thepoliticsbar.com/s/whats-on-tap-today
Very happy that I cancelled my Paramount Plus subscription. When in doubt boycott the Oligarchs!
My sister is very diligent about only keeping one or two subscription services active at a time. She will watch everything she missed on say Netflix for the last year in a month or two and then cancel it for a year. And so on. If most of us did that we would save hundreds of dollars in subscription fees.