Media and Evil — Covering MAGA
The late unpleasantness anent Ronna McDaniel has stirred up some conflations worth sorting out. A quick one is the distinction between covering a lying sack of shit like Ms. McDaniel and paying one to lie. No one has silenced McDaniel, and no one should. News outlets should interview her and, in the process, remind viewers why some of us can speak of her only in scatological terms. But pay her? For what?
For the same reason, I reject CNN’s quick embrace of Trump flacks like David Urban and Jason Miller. These men supported Donald Trump for the presidency. That means, to me at least, that they are either evil or stupid. Even if they have seen the light — and I have no reason to believe that they have — there is no cure for stupid, and I don’t see why a news organization should pay a stupid person to be stupid on the air. Why on earth would anyone think they have anything to contribute beyond their own failings, which can be had for free by interviewing them. (If they won’t appear without being paid, what does that say about them, and the people who pay them?)
And here’s where Hitler comes in. Would CNN have paid Joseph Goebbels to be a “CNN Contributor?” How are any of Trump’s supporters relevantly different? Because they aren’t virulent anti-Semites? Is that really the test? CNN…