GQ has an article posted to Facebook today called ‘On His Way Out, President Obama Is Making the White House Hell for Donald Trump’ it’s paired with a photo of President Obama cheesin’ at a podium, beside himself with laughter.
To tell you the truth my reason for clicking on the article was in fear that the President was starting to get petty with president-elect Trump, and I clicked on the article in a way I might an article about a celebrity break-up. To my surprise the article was a well-written account about Obama’s decision to put more sanctions on Russia and barring several Russian intelligence officials from entering or being in the United States in punishment for Russia’s involvement on the U.S. election. So, while I expected some news of the Obama administration booby-trapping the White House with peanut cans that are actually spring snakes, I actually learned a lot about what is happening. The article made me really understand Obama’s pragmatic decision to do this, and opened my eyes to the idea that many Republicans are supporting this decision.
What absolutely kills me about this is that neither the headline or the photo gave me any indication whatsoever that this article was about the Russian involvement in the U.S. election, or the diplomatic, impersonal, reasons that Obama had to do this despite Trump.
In fact, before going into the reasons that these decisions are affecting Trump (and sure, perhaps Obama doesn’t really care that this is hurting Trump’s image) the writer leads with a sentence that almost absolves him from any petty intentions: “When the details of Russian election hacks first came to light, President Obama faced a delicate dilemma.”
A delicate dilemma is not a conniving intention to make a person’s life ‘hell.’
I am not directly blaming the writer of the article, because this is a deep-seated issue and I’ve seen the process in the newsroom. I know that it is usually a direct decision of a human, in some cases more qualified than others, to choose an associated image to upload into the backend ‘CMS’ system that generates the online article, and I know if that person chose a picture the editor usually does not stop her or him from doing it because ‘Hey, it’s accurate right? It’s a picture of Obama, we’re talking about Obama.’ But it is irresponsible. A lot of editorializing can happen in images, captions and headlines, and we should take that more seriously.
In November, I was unfortunately drawn to CNN after several years of disavowing the exploding trash fire ‘news’ network and I was inspired to be enraged by them again because of their tactless ability to turn a pivotal point of a conversation into a drama-ridden freak show.
This all happened on a Breaking News segment led by CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin who had GOP consultant Paris Dennard and journalist Charles Kaiser on her show commenting on Trump disavowing the actions of the “Alt-Right/Alt-Reich” white supremacists.
For a person who doesn’t have cable and wouldn’t flip to CNN (or any cable news network for that matter) if I did, I of course heard of this happening from online articles saying things like:
“CNN Anchor Cries After Guest Says N-Word On Air” - Jezebel
“White guest on CNN drops the N-word”- New York Post
“A CNN Host Slammed A Guest For Using The N-Word On Her Show”- Buzzfeed
Had I not been incredibly curious to look into the whole segment myself, I would not have known that Kaiser said the n-word while disavowing the use of the word and anyone who does use it intentionally and maliciously. Perhaps it was not smart for Kaiser to say the word in full, there are a lot of debates about it, but it did sicken me that Baldwin let the comment fly for a few second before putting her finger in her ear and then pausing before she somehow had enough fury come over her to say, ‘I appreciate you going through all this but please don’t use the n-word on my show.” In the moment I suspect ratings were soaring, but the points of the commentators were going nowhere.
I do want to note that the Esquire did report more accurately with the headline “A White CNN Guest Used the N-Word While Allegedly Quoting Trump Adviser Steve Bannon,” and I do appreciate that.
This whole situation trickles down to the news that should make us happy: Sports. For years questions from reporters to players like ‘How much does it bother you when..?” or “How confident are you that..?” have irked me. It causes my blood to go from mild simmer to rapid boil when the reply is “It didn’t bother me at all” or “it’s not about confidence...” because those are answers could have been avoided, and a better, more accurate soundbite could have arrived more naturally.
My boyfriend is a fervent Cleveland Cavaliers fan and perhaps this is my time to admit I kind of am too. The games are fun, the players have a level of talent that I cannot even fathom, it reminds be of growing up in the Chicago area in the 90s, and I truly enjoy the personalities of the players which I get to see in post game interviews.
More than any other player I’ve ever witnessed, Lebron James has to fight off backwards comments and leading questions from reporters. He’s extremely conscious of the question versus the headline that will end up online an hour later.
Again, this past November I watched reporters press him for a reply on a comment from Phil Jackson who criticized Lebron for requiring special treatment and wanting things his way all the time. ESPN reports that Jackson initially said, “You can't hold up the whole team because you and your mom and your posse want to spend an extra night in Cleveland.”
In a conversation with Lebron James I saw reporter after reporter try to ask about the comment, instead of any question about the game of basketball, and he tried to dodge or brush off the question. Finally he answered and calmly retorted on his issue with Jackson’s use of the word ‘posse’ and said “I got nothing for him,” referring to Jackson. My first gripe comes from the fact that ESPN later reports that Lebron said he lost all respect for Jackson, which I believe he decidedly didn’t say. The video ESPN aired in conjunction with an article on the subject opens up with Lebron James saying, ‘zero.’ The text article would have you believe Lebron was answering a question about how much respect he has for Phil Jackson, but in fact it was a question about what kind of relationship they have.
But to digress from the hairsplitting, James was obviously calmly obliging reporters with his opinion, that he didn’t agree with the criticisms against him --who would?--and yet every article online later said Lebron ‘smeared’/’slammed’/’fires back’ and took Phil Jackson ‘to task,’ about the comment. Or my personal favorite:
“Lebron James has never forgotten about Phil Jackson’s posse comment”- CBS Sports
Once someone told me they didn’t like Lebron James because he’s arrogant being called ‘King James’ and not responding to reporter’s questions. Something tells me these are things he did not ask for himself. But it’s too late-- someone’s perception was made.
The thing that inspires me to even write these examples down is that we’re not digging in far enough. This fall/winter there has been a huge focus on curbing fake news, and some people are especially determined to eradicate this problem because their candidate lost the election and feel cheated by rampant misinformation. Unfortunately the line between real and fake news is and always will be blurred but the difference is, if someone, or an organization, is creating and spreading fake news in the first place, there’s very little incentive for them to stop. Instead of reporting polarizing criticism of other news sources I think that established news organizations can do better in smaller ways like thinking how their headlines, photos, captions and ledes can be more accurate. As it stands, many people are scrolling through newsfeeds and news apps gaining information from a short amount of information, and a lot of perceptions are built quickly through lies of omission.
