The Trump administration's slide towards state-sponsored media continues.

You put out headlines with trump in the title to get the clicks. This is what you’ve been signing up for and now you’re being replaced assholes.

This week, the White House sank to a new low on that front, holding a first-of-its-kind “New Media Press Briefing.” While inviting journalists from smaller, less established outlets to the White House is ostensibly a good idea, that’s not what the administration did. Indeed, instead of inviting actual journalists to the event, the White House populated it with a slew of friendly influencers who were all too happy to kiss the president’s ass and ask White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt the softest of softball questions. It was bullshit questions and bullshit answers all the way down.

Leavitt kicked the briefing off by bragging about the administration’s various “accomplishments” over the past 100 years, er sorry, I meant days. “As I promised at my first briefing as press secretary back in January, the Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities—not just the legacy media who traditionally has covered this institution,” Leavitt said.___

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    41·
    1 day ago

    Wtf? I was speaking to a bunch of people I know last weekend about this. Did all of the Trump stuff happen under Bush, and we were shielded from most of it because he didn’t say it out loud? Twitter wasn’t a thing yet either, so people didn’t have an easy way to whistle blow or keep track.

    I know that trump and the republicans did a lot of this same stuff last term. Most of it really, it was just that Republicans are in charge of every single branch now and cheating more and more. They’re also setting it up to cheat even more in the future, so the new parts are really scary, but this went on last term too.

    America has been compromised for a long time.

    The White House faced fresh accusations of a clandestine propaganda campaign yesterday after it emerged it granted regular access to a rightwing blogger with a habit of asking President Bush easy questions.

    The fake White House correspondent quit his job at the Talon News site on Wednesday after liberal bloggers found he had been operating under a pseudonym, and that he was linked to several gay pornographic web domain addresses under his real idenity, James Guckert.

    The extent of Gannon’s links to an earlier White House scandal - the leaking of the name of the CIA agent Valerie Plame - also remained unclear yesterday. Gannon has been targeted for questioning in that case.

    “It’s just common sense that the White House knew who Jeff Gannon was, and they were waving him in for a reason,” said David Brock, director of Media Matters for America, the liberal monitoring group which named the reporter last week.

    Gannon’s unmasking comes only weeks after the Bush administration admitted paying handsome sums to three conservative commentators to promote its social programmes in print, radio and TV, and has led to calls from Democrats for an explanation.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      1 day ago

      Did all of the Trump stuff happen under Bush, and we were shielded from most of it because he didn’t say it out loud?

      It was all widely reported and remarked upon for the better part of the Bush Presidency. But liberals just choose to forget. We don’t talk about the gross abuses of power and manipulation of public opinion under Bush or Reagan or Nixon anymore. And if you bring it up, you’re discounted as a crank or an apologist.

      America has been compromised for a long time.

      Practically since Day One. You can find parallels to this historical moment running straight back to the Adams administration. American liberal democracy is deeply flawed and fundamentally broken, thanks to the privatization and monopolization of so much of the social infrastructure surrounding it.

      But we generate enormous amounts of wealth for an enfranchised minority. So please don’t rock the boat. Just vote a bit harder next time. Everything will be fixed in the next election cycle, we promise.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        You’re right, you’re right. The only thing I keep thinking is, the people are wonderful. You know, not the batshit 36-42% range that are die hard MAGAs, but the rest are amazing.

        🔹We’ve fought for and won* many challenges that were then accepted in other parts of the world because of our movies and tv shows.

        • Civil Rights
        • LGBTQ+
        • Women’s
        • Wars were ended

        (they’ve had their ups and downs)

        🔹When there is a catastrophe anywhere in the world, we send people, resources and money there. We do this as volunteers, Seattle empties a bit whenever there is a huge disaster anywhere. Donations are incredible to watch.

        🔹We have non-for-profits that really do some great good in the world.

        Whenever I think about our corrupt politicians, I remember the people are actually better than than the batshit 35% or so our politicians represent right now.