Will you indulge me for a moment? Here's a transcript of an interview just before the summit, conducted by @NPR's David Greene with Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat. It's a four minute read, then I will have some comments. npr.org/2018/07/16/629… 1/
You will notice that Greene's entire approach in this interview is "but what about...?" He thinks interviewing is listening to what a guest says, then tossing back a few doubts. "Is it going too far to..." "Isn't this an opportunity to..." "But wait the president says..." 2/
It's like a tennis match. Or not even a match, just hitting the ball around for fun. Senator says: "he's going in without a plan!" (True.) Greene hits it back: "But do you think he had a point when he said..." This may or may not be valid, but Greene doesn't care. Not his job. 3/
Now before you @ me, yes, this NOT unusual for NPR. It is utterly typical. House style. But in light of what happened at the summit, it stands out as cringingly weak— not compared to a normal day at NPR, but compared to the task passionately outlined by @Sulliview last night. 4/
"For the reality-based press," she wrote, "the job will require clarity and moral force, in ways we’re not always all that comfortable with... We need to get out of our ingrained habits in order to tell this story clearly." 5/ washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…
Right. One of those habits is the "just hitting the ball around" style of questioning in which Greene (but not only he) trades. The problem is the endless deferral of responsibility for saying flat out what is true, which prevents any deeper dig into "what is happening to us?" 6/
At @NPR in particular they have lost any capacity to listen to this criticism. It just sounds to them like a demand to take sides. "Not our role." Which is exactly what the tennis ball style is about... See? (Whack.) Not taking sides! (Whack.) Still not taking sides (Whack...) 7/
That simply isn't good enough. We have a president who is putting into practice on the world stage a demand that undermines and trivializes everything a good journalist tries to do. I refer to his bizarre quest for freedom from fact, in which he now schools his supporters. 8/
Which is why I called for the press to suspend normal relations with the Trump presidency, "which is the most significant threat to an informed public in the United States today." pressthink.org/2018/06/its-ti… 9/
It is not a recent discovery, but we can see it better after Helsinki. His whole presidency is now organized around undermining any shared reality on which divergent views could be taken. Under those conditions, another friendly game of gotcha tennis becomes an obscenity. 10/ END
Tennis.
Senator: After Helsinki, people want a congress that's willing to hold Trump accountable.
NPR: Do you worry that you'll be accused of politicizing nat'l security?
Senator: I just said we need to put patriotism over partisanship.
npr.org/2018/07/18/630… Via @lineator
Senator: After Helsinki, people want a congress that's willing to hold Trump accountable.
NPR: Do you worry that you'll be accused of politicizing nat'l security?
Senator: I just said we need to put patriotism over partisanship.
npr.org/2018/07/18/630… Via @lineator
