The Sternberg Report

When the Big Lie Meets the Big Truth - Why TV is No Longer Trump's Friend

The concept of “the big lie” is essentially that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually believe it.  Since most people tell small lies themselves in their everyday lives, while they would never tell colossal lies (so have trouble believing someone else would), they are more likely to fall for the big lie than the small lie.

 

President Trump has not only been a master media manipulator, he has also been a master of the big lie - simple statements that strike an emotional chord, require no additional explanation, can be repeated loudly and often, and are amplified by the conservative media/social media echo chamber.  Recent examples of President Trump’s big lies include, the Russia hoax, CNN and The New York Times are fake news, and mainstream media is the enemy of the people.

The regular (i.e., mainstream) news outlets have neither the time nor inclination to continually dispute every claim.  The other side is never given ample time to refute these lies, since that takes longer explanations that don’t fit neatly into today’s headline news culture – so occasional (even frequent) fact-checks are not nearly enough to drown out the big lie.  And while much is made of the President’s Twitter feed, it was television that gave it coverage beyond the 20% or so of the country that actively uses that social media site. 

When he was a candidate for president, Donald Trump was willing to be interviewed everywhere, often calling in by phone (at the time very unusual for any politician).  And even the most liberal news networks, such as MSNBC, were salivating to get him on air and give him a virtually uncontested platform.  After he became president, he didn’t have to spend any time answering tough questions for non-conservative outlets, he could just tweet something and he knew CNN, MSNBC and the broadcast networks would give it extensive coverage.  He reserved most of his in-person interviews for the friendly Fox News hosts.  TV was Trump’s friend and he knew how to use it.

The big lie can only be maintained, however, as long as you can shield people from reality.  President Trump and his surrogates have run head-first into something that has stopped them in their tracks – “the big truth” (something so obviously true that no amount of lying and no misinformation campaign can make you disbelieve it for long). 

The first big truth, of course, is the global COVID-19 pandemic.  This is different from virtually every other tragedy or catastrophe in our lifetime.  While it is a national and worldwide event, it is also occurring in every city and every local community across the country.

Initially, the epicenter of the virus was the New York metropolitan area, with much of the country being relatively unaffected.  The big lie that the virus was under control, it was really just a northeast problem, and the rest of the country could open for business was continually repeated by the President, Vice President, most Republican governors, Fox News, and other conservative media and websites.  Despite virtual unanimity  among the medical and scientific community that this was not the case, this message was able to resonate with Trump’s base and beyond.

Then came Memorial Day, when people throughout the country congregated and attended large gatherings – at about the same time that states with Trump-following governors, such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Georgia, started reopening non-essential businesses without strictly following the CDC recommendations for multi-phased openings.  Needless to say, new coronavirus cases spiked sharply in many southern and western states.

People tend to be more familiar with their favorite local newscasters, like them, and find them more credible when reporting local disasters than they do national correspondents.  They also tend to trust their local politicians more than national representatives.  Some Republican governors can continually deny, dismiss, and downplay the virus, and move to quickly reopen a state, and many of their constituents will believe them – until it hits their town.  Then it’s on the local news every day and people start to have friends and family members who are personally affected.

 Eventually even most GOP  governors and mayors started to realize a pandemic is not something with which you can play politics for too long.  Republican senators have started to come out publicly in favor of social distancing and wearing face masks, leaving the President virtually alone on an island of denial (along with a few remaining sycophantic governors).  The big lie almost always succumbs to the big truth.  Even the Republican Governor of Texas, a strong Trump ally, who had previously forbidden any local counties from mandating people wear face masks, finally relented and issued an executive order requiring face masks in public.

With President Trump and Vice President Pence continuing to act as if the virus is under control and will “soon disappear,” they are increasing seeming out of touch – even among many of their supporters.  Turn on the news today and you’re likely to see President Trump flouting not wearing a mask and saying there’s too much testing, followed by medical experts from his own administration wearing masks and saying more testing is essential to stop the spread of the virus (even Vice President Pence has finally started wearing a mask in public).  Trump and Pence are both on TV saying the worst is over and they don’t expect any second wave.  The next scene shows charts of how much U.S. cases are increasing, with government officials saying they’re preparing for a second wave.  Trump and Pence tout how well they are handling the virus.  The next segment talks about the EU banning travel from the U.S. because of how poorly we are handling the virus. 

The President and Vice President continue to encourage large rallies, with no social distancing and masks optional.  There’s actually video of Trump campaign workers removing social distancing stickers from seating at one of his rallies.  At the same time, their own medical experts are saying people should stay away from large gatherings, and if they need to go somewhere, social distance and wear masks.  For some reason the Trump campaign was surprised that their Tulsa rally was less than one-third filled.  Even many Trump supporters can see the big truth, with many, particularly older folks, fearing large gatherings.  President Trump’s national bully pulpit is not powerful enough to overcome the consistent local messaging of the big truth. 

Another example of the big truth was when an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, was killed by a White police officer.  Unlike virtually every other well-documented instance of police abuse, there were no excuses for the racists, the police-supporters at any cost, the heads-in-the-sanders, the status-quo-ers, or the if-only-ers.  You couldn’t say “he’d be alive if only he didn’t attack the cops, if only he didn’t grab the gun, if only he didn’t just rob a convenience store, if only he didn’t resist, if only he got out of the car faster, if only he hadn’t been drinking, if only he wasn’t selling loose cigarettes, if only he didn’t look like that other Black guy who really committed a crime…” 

When Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back by police, for example, as most people were righteously outraged, Fox News brought on several people, day after day, to opine that the shooting was justified because Mr. Brooks had resisted arrest, grabbed a police taser and was running away (another “if only he…”), with virtually no pushback from the various Fox hosts.  Many conservative media outlets took the same stance.

This was not the case with George Floyd.  There were simply no excuses possible.  There was an 8-minute video showing a White cop put his knee on a handcuffed and unresisting Black man’s neck until he died, with three other cops standing by and letting it happen.  Callous, nonchalant, and disgusting, it immediately outraged a nation and led to months-long protests for racial justice and police reform across the country.  Even Fox News anchors and opinion hosts had to admit this was revolting and unjustified.  This seemed to be a wake-up call to White people across the country that this type of thing happens all the time, and African-Americans have a different and justifiably more fearful view of the police than they do. 

After a short period of sympathy (although not empathy) President Trump, Fox News, and other conservative media and online outlets have tried to shift the discussion away from George Floyd and toward rioting/looting, liberal calls to defund the police, attacks on cops, and the idea that there are only a few bad apples and no systemic racism among law enforcement (and, of course, the toppling of Confederate statues).  These have been largely overshadowed by diverse racial justice protests, swiftly shifting attitudes, and action – such as NASCAR banning the confederate flag, the NFL saying it previously made a mistake not backing player protests against police violence, cities voting to remove Confederate monuments, advertisers boycotting Facebook until it more strongly addresses hate speech, long-running brands dispensing with racist imagery and icons, Mississippi voting to remove the Confederate symbol from its state flag, nationwide calls for police reform, and even the Washington Redskins finally agreeing to change its “racist” name (the Cleveland Indians are also considering changing its nickname).

While we don’t yet know the extent of real change that will leap forth from this moment, it does seem that a large number of White people are willing to come to terms with some of the more racist aspects of American history, re-examine their own feelings (or at least learn more and acknowledge its existence), and are willing to actually do something about it.

The real world is starting to overshadow, overpower, and overwrite Trump’s scripted reality show.  Trump supporters are starting to have friends and relatives get sick or die.  Trump campaign workers and Secret Service agents are testing positive for COVID-19.  Even Fox news is forced to report these facts (its primetime opinion hosts notwithstanding).  Protests for racial justice continue throughout the country, as more and more cases where unarmed African-Americans have died in police custody are being publicly reexamined.  Even President Trump can’t tweet or get on TV often or long enough to counteract the ongoing daily narratives (and his surrogates seem less and less willing to go anywhere outside the friendly confines of Fox News).  President Trump’s recent speech on July 3^rd at Mount Rushmore, where he mentioned the coronavirus once and George Floyd not at all, and defended Confederate monuments, might have been red meat for his base, but it made a lot of other people, including Republican politicians who are up for re-election, cringe.  TV is no longer Trump’s friend.

COVID-19 and the Resurgence of Local News - Why it Might be Bad News for President Trump

Former Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil was famously quoted as saying, “All politics is local.”  While all news is not local, it is certainly true that all catastrophes are local.  Whenever there is a major event or tragedy that strikes a local community, whether it be a mass shooting, a hurricane, or an earthquake, people in the affected city often turn to their local news station for updates and information. 

Local news reporters live in and are intimately familiar with the community, and people in the community are familiar with them and generally see them as on their side.  They are experiencing the same events at the same time, and there is an emotional connection.  I remember in the days following 9/11, while much of the country was tuned into national news, I tended to watch my favorite local news channel for updates.  They were more familiar with New York, I was more familiar with them, and we were all going through the same thing.

The COVID-19 pandemic is different from virtually every other tragedy or catastrophe in my lifetime.  While it is a national and worldwide event, it is also occurring in every city and every local community across the country.

As more people are forced to stay home, more people are watching television, and more people are watching local news.  Throughout much of March and early April, cable and local news have seen a spike in ratings, and not just among its regular older audience, but among younger folks as well (including kids and teens who are home from school as their parents tune to more local news to keep informed).

Local news viewership has risen most in regions of the country where the most COVID-19 cases have been reported.  The West Coast was hit earlier than other regions, and according to Nielsen, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Seattle had the most significant increases in local news viewing.  Then the New York metro area became the virus epicenter, and local news ratings climbed.

This might be bad news for President Trump and Republicans in general.

Ardent Trump supporters get much of their information about political and world events from Fox News or even more conservative outlets.  It often seems as though the President and his staff also live in this conservative news bubble, and tend to be surprised when exposed to a broader viewpoint.  They consider more liberal news entities, such as MSNBC and CNN, and much of the national broadcast network news to be fake.  Ordinarily, local news does not get heavily involved in fact-checking President Trump or his administration.  They often just report what he says and move on to other stories.  Most viewers, including Trump supporters see their favorite local news team more as family (or at least part of their routine) and tend to trust them more than they do mainstream national news outlets.  Numerous studies and surveys bear this out.

People are home and are heavily tuning in to their local news to see daily updates from their governors and mayors on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting their communities.  What they are hearing often conflicts with the national press conferences given by the President.  At the same time, viewers (including Trump supporters) are seeing their local emergency room doctors and nurses in dire situations begging the administration for more supplies and protective gear (as the administration is saying they don’t really need that much and look what a good job we are doing). 

While initial virus epicenters have been primarily in blue states (NY, Cal), red and purple states are starting to get hit hard (Louisiana, Michigan, Colorado, Texas, Florida…).  Even most Republican governors, who can no longer ignore what all their constituents can see with their own eyes, are walking a fine line between disagreeing and criticizing the Trump administration.  But the effect is the same – don’t believe what you hear from the administration, here’s the truth.  This dichotomy is certainly having an effect on potential Trump voters – and could soon start to impact even his strongest fans.

You can only convince your true believers that a pandemic is a hoax until it strikes their community and affects them or someone they know.  During this type of crisis, people turn to more than just their go-to source of political agreement echo chamber (whether conservative or liberal) for information.  To be sure, there are many people who see Fox News as a purveyor of the real truth, an important counterbalance to what they have long believed to be liberal bias among traditional media outlets.  So, when Fox primetime hosts, such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, imply or claim outright that the coronavirus is a hoax, they believe them.  When a loyal Fox News viewer or one of their family members follows their lead and doesn’t take the pandemic seriously, what happens when they or someone they love actually gets the virus, and then hears Fox News hosts claim they never said it was a hoax in the first place?  Will their trust in Fox News and President Trump start to fade?  This remains to be seen, but I suspect the answer is yes at least for a chunk of them.   

This could also impact some Republican Governors, who delayed (or still refuse) implementing social distancing or stay-at-home policies for no other reason than to avoid annoying Donald Trump.  This type of sycophantic behavior might serve them well under normal circumstances, when a Trump tweet could make or break their political career.  But not when it negatively affects the health and safety of their constituents.  It will be hard for them to get away with denying they did this come election time.

Princeton University psychologist and public opinion researcher, Hadley Cantril, many years ago developed several “laws of public opinion.”  Here’s one that has always stuck with me.  “Events of unusual magnitude are likely to swing public opinion from one extreme to another.  Opinion does not become stabilized until the implications of events are seen with some perspective.”  A good example of this is the Iraq war.  After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, people across the country wanted a strong U.S. response, and were more likely to believe whatever “evidence” the government provided to support invading Iraq.  Several years later, with the perspective of time, most of those same people saw the invasion as a mistake.

There is also something known as the “rally around the flag effect.”  In times of crisis, Presidential approval ratings tend to be elevated, regardless of how low they were before the crisis or their political party.  Some examples – George W. Bush had an all-time high approval rating of 90% after 9/11, Harry Truman’s approval ratings rose to 87% at the end of WWII, George H.W. Bush had an approval rating of 86% during the first Gulf War, FDR’s was 83% after Pearl Harbor, Barack Obama’s approval rating was at his highest (in the 60s) during the financial crisis in 2009, and even Jimmy Carter had his approval rating jump from a dismal 29% to 58% at the start of the Iran hostage crisis.  President Trump’s approval rose from 44% to 49% from the beginning to the end of March.

So, while President Trump, his surrogates, and his media allies are touting the fact that his approval ratings are at an all-time high, it remains startlingly low at under 50% during a time of national crisis that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.  This should be reason for panic rather than celebration.

The longer this pandemic lasts, and the more television markets that continue to see local news viewership surge, the greater the challenge will be for President Trump to maintain his defense against the public perception that his administration did not act fast enough and is not doing enough to help the people now.

News Bias, Fake News, False Equivalency, and the Problem With Anonymous Sources

Several months ago, I saw an interesting story on MSNBC.  A new study had found that since 1994 the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who disapprove of the other party each rose from only about 15% to more than 50%.  This is a staggering increase in polarization over the past 25 years.

The anchor struggled to come up with a reason, seemingly oblivious to the obvious – MSNBC and Fox News both debuted in 1996. 

MSNBC and Fox News viewers are presented with opposite realities on a daily basis, alternate universes if you will.  Websites, such as The Huffington Post on the left and Breitbart News on the right (or alt right), are often even more extreme.  The problem is, a lot of people see them not just as legitimate sources of news, but often as their only source of news.  No wonder the two parties and their constituents dislike one another more than ever.  Rather than seeking real, objective, fact-based news, many search out only places that validate their own biases.

I suggest that no matter what your political leaning, you switch back and forth between MSNBC and Fox News for an hour or so.  If your head doesn’t explode, you’ll be shocked at the two different versions of reality they present.  But you’ll start to understand why the country is so divided on so many issues.

News Bias is Not Fake News – There is a difference, of course, between biased news and fake news (i.e., making something up).  MSNBC and Fox News are biased in both the way they present and analyze the news.  This mostly has to do with what they select to report, how much time they spend on a given story, what they choose to highlight, how they edit interviews and videos, who they get for their panel discussions, and how the anchors question guests. 

CNN is generally seen as biased (if you are right leaning) or more neutral (if you are left leaning).  Although since President Trump and his staffers began labeling CNN as “fake news,” the network has adopted a notably more strident anti-Trump tone – understandable but unfortunate.  While its anchors can claim to be more non-partisan overall than its competitors, their panels often have three or four anti-Trumpers to every Trump supporter – hardly unbiased.  And when they bring someone on to discuss something President Trump did or said, it is typically someone from the Obama administration or someone the network (and its viewers) know is ardently anti-Trump.  So, CNN has perhaps more unbiased anchors and reporters, but hardly an unbiased broadcast.

CNN anchors, are, in fact, far more neutral than those on MSNBC or Fox News, most of whom clearly advocate for a specific point of view.  It’s hard, for example, to imagine more biased reporters than MSNBC’s Katy Tur, Stephanie Ruhle, Ali Velshi, Nicole Wallace, Chris Jansing, or Andrea Mitchell. 

Unless, of course, you turn to Fox News and see Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Sandra Smith, Jon Scott, Dana Perino, and Harris Faulkner.  MSNBC’s Kristen Welker and Chuck Todd at least try to appear less biased, while Fox News’s Shepard Smith might be the least biased reporter on cable news.  On CNN, some of their anchors, most notably Jim Sciutto and Jake Tapper, can’t hide their disdain for President Trump and his administration.

One problem with CNN is that while they pretend to be neutral, they mistake false equivalency for fairness.  There are numerous examples I can give, but here’s one that stood out for me.  A while back, CNN ran a segment that some guy claimed to have evidence of massive voter fraud.  The network repeatedly pointed out that there was no evidence to support his claim, and he was not willing to provide any.  Then the anchor says they’re going to talk to this guy anyway and let viewers decide.  I’m sure that people who were just tuning in thought there was credible evidence of massive voter fraud.  This type of thing is a major reason why so many people believe alternative facts (i.e., lies).  Cable news networks too often present them as just another point of view.  Every subject does not have two sides.

Here are some examples of bias.  Not long ago, Special Prosecutor Mueller’s court filings linked the President to campaign finance violations.  The following banners appeared on two cable news networks:  MSNBC – “Federal Prosecutors Are Alleging That The President Committed a Felony.”  Fox News – Critics: New Mueller Court Filings Offer No Revelations on Questions of Collusion.  Recently a federal judge denied the President’s plan to ban asylum bids for migrants.  CNN ran a banner that said, “Judge rules against Trump’s asylum plan.”  At the same time, Fox News ran a banner that said, “Obama appointee rules against Trump’s asylum plan.”  Both are true, but the implications are quite different.  When the deal was finally reached to re-open the government, a banner on Fox News read, “Trump: We are proud we reached a deal to re-open the government,” while on CNN the banner read, “Trump caves, announces deal to re-open government for 3 weeks.”  And, of course, when discussing migrants or migrant caravans, MSNBC and CNN most often show women and children, while Fox News tends to show more videos of young (potentially violent) men.   While unquestionably biased reporting, none of this crosses the line over to fake news – they simply cherry pick whom to quote and what images to show.

Fake news is not a new concept.  Liberals have referred to Fox News as “faux news” on social media for years.  President Obama and the folks in his administration wouldn’t even appear on Fox News or its Sunday morning shows during his first term because they believed it was simply an arm of the Republican party.  Since the other networks basically agreed, this never received the type of press coverage and scrutiny we’re seeing now (as President Trump only grants interviews to Fox News).  Although in 2010, when President Obama’s Justice Department implicated Fox News reporter, James Rosen, as a possible co-conspirator under the Espionage Act of 1917 (and gained access to his phone calls and emails), major news organizations were loudly outraged.  But it wasn’t until candidate Trump had a public feud with Fox News’s Megan Kelley, that most anchors at CNN or MSNBC would even refer to a Fox News reporter or anchor as a “journalist.”

When President Trump’s advisor, Kelly Ann Conway, coined the phrase “alternative facts” when being interviewed by NBC’s Chuck Todd, few people who had been following the news throughout the election season should have been surprised.  Numerous Trump and Clinton surrogates would be invited onto all the cable news networks on a daily basis.  They would lie right to the anchor’s faces and almost never be called out on it (and then be invited back the next day).  The anchor’s response would invariably be something like, “OK, that’s what she says, let’s see what someone with the exact opposite point of view has to say.” 

Given that these surrogates lied to reporters with impunity for a year-and-a-half leading up to the election, why wouldn’t they think they could get away with continuing to do the same thing after the election?  Why wouldn’t they continue to think that the facts don’t really matter to the news media (or to the voters who elected them)? 

All “News” Outlets are not Equal (or, Buzzfeed ain’t The New York Times) – One of the biggest problems with cable news is that they tend to create false equivalencies among more and less credible news sources.  CNN will often have panels that include a reporter from The New York Times and one from The Daily Beast.  MSNBC will often include someone from the Times or Washington Post, along with reporters from Mother Jones or The Huffington Post.  Fox News will have a panel with a reporter from The Wall Street Journal and someone from The Washington Times.  This tends to create false equivalencies between news outlets with dramatically different levels of credibility, not only among viewers, but among the news channels that present these panel discussions themselves.  How else to explain how quickly most news outlets were willing to accept Buzzfeed’s report that President Trump directly instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress (despite no one else being able to independently verify the story)?

CNN, et. al., will, of course, try to defend themselves by explaining that before each analysis of how devastating this was to President Trump, they added the phrase, “If true…”  These are what the advertising industry used to call “weasel words,” words or phrases inserted into a commercial so you can say something that legally can’t be said, but which you knew most people wouldn’t notice (such as “this product helps make you look younger”).

They Just Report What People Say (the problem with anonymous sources) – In the movie, Absence of Malice, there is a scene where Paul Newman confronts newspaper reporter Sally Field, after she reports a false rumor that he is under investigation for murder.  The story was planted by an assistant D.A. who wanted to put pressure on him for information on his mobster family.  Since she gives Paul Newman’s character a chance to deny the story, she believes she is being objective and just doing her job.  But he admonishes her, “You don’t write the truth, you just write what people say…Where did the story come from?  Knowledgeable sources you said.  Now who is that?  Somebody’s trying to get to me.  Somebody with no face and no name.  You’re the gofer.  You listen to them, report what they say, and then help them hide…”

This movie came out 30 years ago, at a time when daily newspapers and evening TV broadcasts were basically the only sources of news.  But it is just as relevant today.  Anonymous sources are obviously essential for the effective operation of a free press.  Without them, the public would never have known about Watergate and many other important stories over the years. 

The problem is that 20 or 30 years ago, anonymous sources were trusted more.  It was assumed, and reinforced by such popular movies as All the President’s Men, that sources were extensively vetted, and not used unless multiple independent sources provided the same information.  Today, half the country doesn’t believe much of what they see on Fox News, and the other half doesn’t believe much of what they see on MSNBC.  Each side has good reasons for feeling as they do.  One has been virulently anti-Trump (and before that, pro-Obama and anti-Bush), while the other has been pro-Trump (at least since the election) and fanatically anti-Clinton or anything to do with Democrats.  Each network’s primetime opinion hosts constantly bash the other as fake news.  Each network finds panelists, analysts, and experts that almost exclusively follow that network’s point of view.  When one occasionally expresses an opposing point of view, the hosts typically argue with them.  So why would either network’s viewers believe they wouldn’t use anonymous sources who are likewise biased?  CNN has somewhat more credibility among the independent minded, but not among conservatives or conservative media.

Lack of a free press, of course, leads to tyranny.  As succinctly and definitively stated by Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, in the 1971 decision allowing The New York Times and Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose the deception in government.  And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people…”

When anonymous sources are used to comment on less significant matters, however, is it appropriate?  I was watching CNN recently and learned that President Trump (according to multiple sources) was watching television all morning and “seething” and “ranting” over press coverage of the Mueller investigation.  What does that even mean?  At what point does someone go from annoyed to angry to seething and ranting?  Did multiple sources independently use those words?  Or is CNN, in its desire to embarrass the President, using words more likely to do just that?

Some find the current press obsession with reporting behind-the-scenes goings on at the White House disturbing, primarily because of the almost total reliance on un-named sources. There is obviously some discontent within the White House on how the Trump administration is operating, so the question of how accurate these leaks are does have some validity.  The problem is that reporters quote these sources and present the information as fact.  After all, how can multiple sources all be wrong.  But when anyone from the White House publicly denies the report, they are presented as putting a spin on the story, if not outright lying.  When CNN, for example, says they have confirmed a Washington Post story, have they validated that the reporting is actually true, or do they simply have the same sources telling them the same thing?  It’s easy to take things out of context, particularly if you have an agenda (whether conscious or unconscious).

A few months ago, CNN and MSNBC quoted The New York Times, which had no fewer than four sources “with first-hand knowledge” tell them that President Trump ordered the White House lawyer to fire Special Prosecutor Mueller last June.  According to this report, the White House lawyer refused and threatened to quit, so the President backed down.  CNN and MSNBC each said that they independently confirmed the story.  They’ve spent several hours reporting this as fact.  I switched over to Fox News, and lo and behold its White House reporter said despite what the other networks were reporting, his sources said this never happened.  The anchor then said, “Well the President calls it fake news, so let’s move on to something else.”  I tend not to give much credence to either Fox News or MSNBC, but when The New York Times and Washington Post say the same thing, I tend to believe it (they seem to vet their sources much more fully than any cable news network).  CNN, on the other hand, is often just sloppy.  I switched back to CNN to hear an anchor arguing with a Trump surrogate saying that even Fox News confirmed the story – again, Fox News all morning had been saying the story was not true.

At the end of “Absence of Malice,”, Sally Field’s reporter is ironically the center of a news story about Paul Newman’s character being falsely accused.  She gives a quote to a young reporter at her own newspaper who asks, “That’s true isn’t it?”  She responds, “No, but it’s accurate.”  We should all consider what that means.

I find it ironic that cable news networks continually deride President Trump for watching a lot of cable news, as though that makes him uninformed, misinformed, or mal-adjusted.  But I guess they know their product.