And so Trump's control of the media starts...

Putting him on the spot? No problem with that.

Acting as a leftist activist? That's not reporting no matter how you try to spin it.

Well, according to the US view of journalism yes it is, that's exactly what unfettered freedom of speech means.

FOX is right wing activism, Breitbart is right wing activism, Infowars is right wing activism, CNN is left wing activism, TYT is left wing activism, HP is left wing activism. The only way to counteract that polarism is to look long and hard at the first amendment and what it's implications are in practise. You have a legal system which views journalism very differently from most jurisdictions in that there's no incentive for balance or accuracy beyond the fear of libel suits and the only way to moderate that would be to acknowledge that FoS should indeed function within defined parameters.

A "leftist."

Whatever.

Do "leftist" not deserve to ask a question of their president? Should "leftist" media outlets just put assumptions out there about POTUS and not give the President a chance to address them?

See and the next 3 tweets in the thread. The White House took a video that a white supremacist from Infowars doctored, and re-uploaded it. Not retweeted, re-uploaded. This is disturbing as heck.

CNN's Jim Acosta's actions to Trump don't represent the best of journalism

"Leftists", should accept they're not real humans, and slouch their heads in the face of their betters.
Seig hei....I mean God bless America.

I like how they think you have to hand the club to Trump for him to beat you with, as if he won’t just use his own. There is no right way to act around Trump. Jim Acosta didn’t deserve the treatment he got here. This pussyfooting around is why people don’t believe the media is looking out for them.

“Don’t provoke him!” they say to the bully who needs no provocation.

"Whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter".
-Thomas Jefferson.

If you're siding with Trump over the press, and also pretending to worship the founders, fuck you, you're a villain.

Sorry about your broken brain.

Nah, I didn't get that from what Al wrote at all.

Acosta would've been better off framing the questions the way Tompkins suggested instead of getting his back up like he did. The moment he did, Trump had the upper hand.

Sarah Sanders has to watch doctored videos so her eyes can properly focus. By pointing this out you're making fun of her appearance. Please stop making fun of Sarah Sanders' appearance.

The thing is, Trump already had the upper hand. Jim might as well have said what he did in the hopes of breaking through to these people. That is needed now. It is desperately needed as the media tries to walk on eggshells while appearing fierce.

I don't see it as walking on eggshells. I see it as framing questions in a way that either forces the president to answer them or makes him look even more like an idiot than he already does when he dodges/evades. It's what good reporters do.

Acosta is a good reporter, but he lets Trump get to him, which is a mistake.

How do you make a man who thrives on ignorance look like an idiot? It’s like the press is playing chess while Trump is playing Crazy 8s.

You play chess and point out that the other guy is playing Crazy 8s. Otherwise it's the old adage about wrestling with a pig.

Literal fake news coming out of the White House official channels...

On my Facebook feed, people I know who are Trump supporters are FAR more likely to share completely fake/false/made up stories than any of the other people I know. In fact, I actually can't remember the last time anyone I know on the left or in the middle did so.

"Trump is playing Crazy 8s."
"You were playing Crazy 8s!"
"No, we were playing chess."
"Fake news! You're just mad that Trump beat you at Crazy Chess!"

Honestly, it's one of the major issues right now, because if the media tells the truth, it's fake news. If they try to come at it sensibly, it's fake news. The news media is being gaslighted like a motherfucker, and I'm not sure what they can do about it, which is why I see nothing wrong with Jim's comments. This White House is openly hostile to the press. There are times when you give a little so you can get a little in return, but this can't be that time. Trump has been excelling at taking a lot, giving none, and getting his opponents (which shouldn't be the press corps but it is) to give into his demands little by little.

Except doing what you want gets nothing either except make the media the story.

Like I said, it's wrestling with a pig. If you want to get dirty, feel free, just know that the pig actually enjoys it.

If they wrestle with the pig, they lose and the pig is happy. If they stand back and claim they're not wrestling with the pig, they're seen as incapable of proving the pig is indeed a pig, and the pig is happy. How do they win in a lose/lose situation? If they're counting on future generations to look back and say the media was right (and believe me, I'd rather they win on moral principle), who knows what will come? I just don't want another McCarthy era.

I love how there's always this assumption that we're dealing with two completely opposite binaries - the virtuous mainstream media populated with crusading truth warriors vs. evil Darth Trump and his alt-right Empire.

In your world, the lamestream media would NEVER peddle propaganda disguised as news, wouldn't slant the news to manipulate public opinion. In your world, lamestream journalists would never push their own sociopolitical agendas and use their "reporting" as a vehicle.

There's a reason why Trump's "fake news" mantra resonated with people. Because people already knew the mainstream media was biased and had caught on to their manipulative tricks.

And if they eat the pig, it's anti-Semitic.

Which is still lose/lose because Trump's Breitbart crowd just like the idea that even the left hates Jews, even if it's fiction.

Of course they would. We're not that fucking idiotic.

What we ARE is smart enough to tell the difference between people who occasionally lie for money/politics and a man who routinely lies as easily as breathing because he's an utter narcissicist who wasn't told "no" enough as a kid.

And that you are prepared to side with the latter, because apparently a pathological liar in the highest office in the land is fine as long as he tweaks the "libs".

The former, you will note, do not have supreme executive power or their fingers anyway near the nuclear button.

On our town's community forum, I just watched one guy argue with another one over how Nancy Pelosi told Democrats to beat up people wearing MAGA hats. When the other guy said that she didn't make any such claim, and that Trump *did* tell some of his followers to beat up dissenters when he was campaigning, the first man called it fake news and said he must be watching CNN or other "liberal liars." Then the whole group in that discussion thread came crashing down on the second man (the one who said Pelosi never made such a statement), telling him to get his snowflake ass back to San Francisco with the other liberals and migrant lovers.

Engage? You lose. Don't engage? Lying spreads faster.

However, the doctored video @Order2Chaos posted, compared with the actual video, is all over Facebook. Donnie may be Magic Man on Twitter (until they pull the plug on him), but only The Faithful are buying his bullshit.

My new sig:

“He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle.”

Gotta stay faithful to truth no matter how hard it gets.
The second one of us lies, and gets caught, we're fucked.
This ain't like Idiocracy where we can tell President Camacho that the plants told us they want water.

Only by the Trumptards, and you're never, ever going to convince those people.

If they had any sense, they wouldn't be Trumptards, so why try to convince them of something that they refuse to see?

What Trump knows how to do, and do well, is troll narcissistic, self-righteous journalists and get them sputtering with outrage. Trump is Dayton, writ large, and America is Trump's Red Room.

And yeah, I get a kick out of these smug lamestream journalists jumping like fleas, unable to figure out why Trump won't bow down before them and why he insists on fighting back.

The real irony here is that it's actually CNN who are the bullies. Remember what they did to the guy who created that silly video of Trump beating up CNN superimposed on pro wrestling? CNN doxxed him, and spent days gleefully threatening him, publicly humiliating him, all because they were butthurt over a stupid video.

And guess what? Two years later Trump is still beating up on CNN, and nobody but other libtard journalists care.

And for that you're his biggest fan.

Sneering condescension of Trump voters and refusal to address their concerns in a serious manner is why Trump will win in 2020. The Left has spent the past two years labeling anyone who supports Trump "bigots," "racists," "nazis," "alt-right," "fascists." America has grown numb to it. The 63 million who voted for him haven't been convinced by the daily barrage of lamestream media propaganda. The Left can spend the next two years screaming that anyone who supports Trump is an "incel," or a "Proud Boy," or a "Trumptard," and it won't mean a damn thing.

The Left can create some gridlock for the next two years, but Democrats lost ground in the Senate. RBG isn't going to last much longer, and Trump will get SCOTUS pick #3. Demonic femi-nazis who think it's their Gaia-given right to kill their unborn babies are in for a rude awakening. The Unborn will finally see an end to the state-sanctioned slaughter.