Donald Is the Enemy of the Fourth Estate

Morning Dispatch

Totally normal.

Last week my uncle announced they he was refusing to participate in the candidates’ traditional pre-election interview on 60 Minutes because they insisted upon—gasp!—fact-checking him. Since then, he’s been openly calling for CBS, the network that hosts the news show, to lose its broadcasting license.

Donald’s rage focused on two versions of an answer Harris gave to a question about Israel. The longer version was somewhat confusing, the shorter more coherent which is why we often see interviews in print prefaced by the phrase, “edited for length and clarity.”

This is standard operating procedure, but Donald claimed that 60 Minutes and CBS committed fraud, calling it “the Single Biggest scandal in Broadcast History!” The fact that Donald was too much of a coward to show up for his 60 Minutes interview is no doubt playing a role in his over-the-top reaction. But it’s also part of a recent trend that sees an escalation in the number of lies and the amount of disinformation he’s spreading.

In another post, he wrote:

CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!

At an event in Detroit, he told the crowd that all the networks are “crooked as hell” and should lose their licenses. The crowd, of course, cheered.

I’ve seen and heard enough of Vice President Harris’ interviews—as well as her commanding performance at the debate—to know that she, unlike Donald, does not need to help to look good. She doesn’t need suspect edits and she doesn’t need to receive the questions ahead of time in order to communicate her compelling, thoughtful, and fact-based strategies for improving the lives of Americans.

Because Donald is a world-class hypocrite, it turns out his interviews have been edited in order to make him look better.

For years, Donald has railed against the press, calling them the “the enemy of the people.” He singles out individual reporters, especially women, by name and calls them stupid when they ask probing questions, or don’t flatter him enough. There is plenty of evidence, from misleading New York Times headlines that whitewash his auhoritarianism, racism, and criminality, to the abysmal performances by moderators at both the CNN and CBS debates, that Donald’s working the refs has succeeded. It’s not clear if corporate media is broken or if it has purposefully decided to seed the ground to fascism.

Earlier this week, Donald appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s podcast and claimed that immigrants have “bad genes.” It’s impossible to overstate how dangerous this kind of fascistic rhetoric is, yet The New York Times went with this headline: “In remarks about migrants, Donald Trump invoked his long-held fascination with genes and genetics,” as if he’s is a grad student doing research on the roots of 19th century American pseudo-science.

Far too many reporters and news organizations fear Donald and have decided that the best way to protect themselves is to appease him. Unfortunately, doing so makes it impossible for them to do their jobs—which, at this critical time in American history, is to educate the American people about, and alert them to, the unique danger a second Trump administration poses.

Let’s hope there’s enough time for them to change course.