It has been a bit since I wrote and there is reason— both personal and professional. One I just needed a break and also just some frustration in my own writing journey. I also had some things to take care of for work, aka the thing that pays the bills. So my apologies, but the frequency will go back up.
Or maybe people like me not blowing up their inbox..idk we will see.
The past week was a wild one.
A big summary I have from last week is simple: traditional media is broken. Like broken broken.
Just a quick reiteration of both national and local (for me) media.
Vice President Harris succumbed to faux outrage over not doing interviews (she did) and sat down with Dana Bash of CNN where she asked no real questions and regurgitated Trump and GOP talking points in the form of questions—which then adds to the normalizing of those inaccurate points. She harped on the —lack of specific policy on day one when the VP said she’d begin day one focusing on the middle class and ya know—real people. Claiming that not having a specific policy to PASS on day one was a failure (as she pretended and right-wing talking heads disguised as journalists for traditional media yelled online to clouds) is silly.
That is not how the job works and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous. I said as much to one of the ‘journalists’ and they followed up to say President Biden had a plan for his first day. To prove this point they directed people to a link with a header that seemed to make their point.
I guess they hoped no one would read it and take the headline as proof. The actual story was about plans from Biden’s transition team. For those who don’t know— that is the team you assemble to assist in the transition into office. This was written AFTER the election when he was actually able to have time to develop policies and teams. Not two weeks after becoming the nominee. Trad media (trying that phrase out) was like— oh but she CAN do executive orders after swearing in.
If someone claimed to have an EO ready on day one I’d be suspicious and challenge it. Real leaders, aka not dictators, don’t just issue an executive order. They have to be vetted by the relevant agencies and legal for putting them in place. To do so without these steps would be a major misstep and you really can’t plan with agencies until you have the agencies and after this weird concept called an election.
The media knows this if I know this. But it is easier to play dumb and spread nonsense.
This wasn’t the worst part of it though. The Vice President also refused to get into the back and forth of Orange Soda Skins racist attacks. Taking the correct approach and not getting into the mud on questions of her race. Dana on CNN tried again and VP was like—nah next question.
This is what we, as actual Black people are taught to do when people try to go that route. You would think media would respect it, but Dana wanted mud, wanted a Jerry Springer moment for clicks. And so did other media outlets.
THIS is how her response was covered:
LOL evades?
They, and others, tried a few more times to post headlines to ‘fix’ this but only dug in more on the false narrative that there was a question she should answer. There wasn’t. They were not owed a response. We don’t have to dignify racist attacks with our breath.
So traditional media continued to fail all week.
Just for giggles, I also noticed local news failing to do the bare minimum of checking wording. I didn’t take many journalism classes, I did take a ton of writing classes and legal writing especially, and WORD CHOICE MATTERS.
There is a big difference in the words should and won’t and it matters where those came from.
Reading some headlines I thought they were dipping into my opinion piece territory. Stay off my lawn guys.
Anyway—this is long for a “Monday” so i’ll shut up but there will be more.
And if there is anything you want my thoughts or context on, always feel free to reach out.
Have a good week— and be careful reading the trad media.