Outside the Beltway

The Trump Show

The real media bias.

Steven L. Taylor
32

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Via The Atlantic: Did Media Learn Nothing From 2016?

The Trump Show is back. The former president’s arrest on felony charges of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to the adult-film actor Stormy Daniels inspired cable-news networks to return to wall-to-wall Trump coverage, once a staple of their programming.

But the answer to the headline question is that the media learned the following:

“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” the network’s former CEO Les Moonves said of Trump in a moment of candor in 2016. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and this is going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

I often like to point out that the main media bias, especially on cable news, is for cheap, easy-to-produce stories. The ability to go wall-to-wall on Trump’s arraignment was simply free programming that was guaranteed to attract eyeballs. Ditto his Mar-a-Lago speech. The exact news value of showing a motorcade driving to court is minimal, but it was cheap and easy to produce and it brought in the viewers.

We need to remind ourselves that news in the US is, with some exceptions, a business. And, moreover, they are mainly an entertainment business. Mass media makes its money by entertaining people, not by informing them. Indeed, Serwer notes this in his piece, but it is worth constantly remembering.

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32 responses to “The Trump Show”

  1. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    The day that Bret Favre signed with the Vikings and travelled to their camp, we happened to be in a “sports bar” kind of restaurant for lunch. The TVs were tuned to coverage of this momentous event, even though, well, the footage wasn’t inspiring.

    We mocked it – we still do – with the phrase “Bret Favre is on a plane”, which might have been an actual caption of one of the chyrons.

    I was thinking of this when somewhere I saw footage of the motorcade, which seemed frankly ridiculous.

    1
  2. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    Dominick Dunne once told me that an event that you knew ahead of time would be dull was always worth covering because…something…might…happen.

    Maybe cable news was hoping, in this case, for a nice car bomb or two. Talk about must-see t.v.

  3. JKB Avatar
    JKB

    I was looking up stories on how Trump saved NYC in the ’90s and came across this from a 2018 article on Trump

     

    Almost three decades ago now, Donald Trump explained his life and worldview this way: “The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere.”

    Those words, uttered in a 1990 interview with Playboy magazine, are truer today than they were 28 years ago.

    1
  4. Mister Bluster Avatar
    Mister Bluster

    @JKB:..the show is Trump…
    As long as there are lap dogs like you Trumps ego will never fail him.

    7
  5. daryl and his brother darryl Avatar
    daryl and his brother darryl

    We need to remind ourselves that news in the US is, with some exceptions, a business. And, moreover, they are mainly an entertainment business. Mass media makes its money by entertaining people, not by informing them.

    Well, yeah, of course.
    Just look at the emails and texts presented in multiple court filings for the Dominion v. Fox News lawsuit.
    They make explicitly clear that Fox Hosts and Executives were not in any way concerned with informing people of the facts, but only with providing their viewers the alternative facts that they wanted to hear.
    As the Judge stated in his ruling;

    The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true…

    …Even if the neutral report privilege did apply, the evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting.

    and granted Dominion a win on Falsity.
    Why people watch Fox news is beyond me…but I don’t get why people watch professional wrestling, either.

    2
  6. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @JKB:

    I was looking up stories on how Trump saved NYC in the ’90s

    For your sake I hope you meant that as a joke

    9
  7. JKB Avatar
    JKB

    @MarkedMan:

    Nah, you go back and read articles from the early 1990s, and even some begrudgingly up to 2018, Trump is only one who built in NYC with a look to the future. There were nondescript buildings being built, but Trump revived Manhattan with several big private and public projects.

    Go watch the first couple seasons of ‘Law and Order’, NYC crime and trash was a supporting actor. When they said, “Ripped from the Headlines” they meant the NY Times.

  8. daryl and his brother darryl Avatar
    daryl and his brother darryl

    @JKB:
    Apparently JKB has neither been to NYC nor seen a Trump building which are universally trash.

    13
  9. wr Avatar
    wr

    @JKB: “Nah, you go back and read articles from the early 1990s, and even some begrudgingly up to 2018, Trump is only one who built in NYC with a look to the future. ”

    Speaking as the only one here, I assume, who actually lives in a Trump building, you have no idea what you’re talking about. There is not a single building erected by Trump that has any significant architectural, historical or innovative value at all. In fact, his most famous feature as a builder was knocking down truly significant buildings to erect bland pieces of crap. The famed Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue, for instance, designed by the architects of Grand Central Terminal, was replaced by the hideous black glass tedium that is Trump Tower.

    Oh, and the Bonwit Teller building was topped with a pair of art deco freezes that the Metropolitan Museum wanted, and that Trump promised to them. And which he had destroyed (by his illegal alien Polish construction crew) because it turned out to save him a couple of nickels.

    So no, Trump did not save New York. But go ahead, tell us how he saved Atlantic City… and Eastern Airlines.

    21
  10. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @JKB:
    Trump also walked across the Hudson, healed all the sick kids in the Children’s hospital and filled Madison Square Garden with food for the homeless.

    How are you this credulous?

    15
  11. daryl and his brother darryl Avatar
    daryl and his brother darryl

    @wr:
    Well he was very innovative in creating an actual 10,000sf apartment that he claimed was 30,000sf.
    :/snark

    6
  12. mattbernius Avatar
    mattbernius

    @JKB:

    Nah, you go back and read articles from the early 1990s, and even some begrudgingly up to 2018, Trump is only one who built in NYC with a look to the future. There were nondescript buildings being built, but Trump revived Manhattan with several big private and public projects.

    What articles? Because as someone who grew up around NYC (and visited the City regularly) this is news to me. The biggest “public project” he was involved in that I can think of was the renovation of the Central Park’s Wollman Ice Rink. And the truth about Trump’s role in that project has been a bit exaggerated:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-09-29/a-1980s-new-york-city-battle-explains-donald-trump-s-candidacy

    3
  13. mattbernius Avatar
    mattbernius

    I suspect that JKB may be referring to this article from the New York Post:
    https://nypost.com/2016/02/07/how-donald-trump-helped-save-new-york-city/

    The author, Steve Cuozzo, is a restaurant critic and real estate writer for the Post. YMWIMV.

    Generally speaking, as with all things media, Trump has been far better at taking credit for saving NYC than actually delivering said salvation. And when he gets bored of a project or it isn’t bringing him publicity any more, well… https://www.fastcompany.com/90696000/trump-let-this-beloved-ice-rink-fall-to-pieces-a-new-partnership-is-bringing-it-back-to-life

    2
  14. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    According to the NYPD, Judge Merchan has received dozens of threats in the past few days: emailed death threats and harassing phone calls.

  15. Neil Hudelson Avatar
    Neil Hudelson

    @mattbernius:

    This tracks with JKB’s past behavior. He ‘cites’ something without ever providing the link, asserts the thing he won’t show you is widely accepted by most people, and when you find the source of his bs its just some editorial that confirms his priors.

    I believe a few weeks ago he cited “studies” (plural) about youth gender surgeries and when I googled the phrases he was passing off on his own it was all from the Bari Weiss article.

    In another age he’d be drinking weak coffee at a donut shop warning his fellow grey haired prediabetics about what “scientists are doing.”

    8
  16. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @JKB: Hoo boy… TV shows are accurate reflections of reality. You’ll believe anything, won’t you? trump saw you coming miles away.

    By the way I’ve got some beach front Florida property I can sell to you very reasonably.

    4
  17. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @Neil Hudelson:

    This tracks with JKB’s past behavior. He ‘cites’ something without ever providing the link, asserts the thing he won’t show you is widely accepted by most people, and when you find the source of his bs its just some editorial that confirms his priors.

    Yes, but this TRIGGERS. THE. LIBS.

    And isn’t this what living is really all about?

    9
  18. Kurtz Avatar
    Kurtz

    @Neil Hudelson:

    In another age he’d be drinking weak coffee at a donut shop warning his fellow grey haired prediabetics about what “scientists are doing.”

    This made me laugh. Probably not the intended punchline. But I give credit for happy accidents.

  19. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @wr:

    I remember visiting Trump Tower on one of my early trips to NYC in the 80s and wondering why the building deserved any notoriety whatsoever. It’s classic Trump, a yokel’s idea of big-city glamour and sophistication.

    6
  20. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    @JKB:

    Trump is only one who built in NYC with a look to the future. There were nondescript buildings being built, but Trump revived Manhattan with several big private and public projects.

    OK, this clinched it. JKB is actually a LLM generative AI. The stigmata could not be more obvious.

    4
  21. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @JKB:

    Nah, you go back and read articles from the early 1990s, and even some begrudgingly up to 2018, Trump is only one who built in NYC with a look to the future. There were nondescript buildings being built, but Trump revived Manhattan with several big private and public projects.

    This is so ludicrous I don’t even know what to say. Trump was literally going bankrupt in all of his businesses throughout the 90’s. He was a nothing in Manhattan, with most of his businesses focused on NJ. I don’t know who is feeding this horseshit but once Trump burned through his fathers fortune and sold off the (Queens, not Manhattan) based real estate empire that the father had so meticulously built up over decades, he never built anything of significance in NY again. The examples you give are of Trump as a character in movies and television shows! Even during the 80’s, but even moreso in the 90’s, Trump was a literal joke amongst those that covered NYC real estate, and wasn’t even discussed in Manhattan Real Estate. It was an easy story to fill in a dead week for a business journalist to interview Trump and let him make a fool of himself. Trump never seemed to care that these guys were making fun of him, and was just happy to have attention focused on him.

    I don’t know why I bother, but FWIW:

    In 1988, Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan with a loan of $425 million (equivalent to $974 million in 2021)[33] from a consortium of banks. Two years later, the hotel filed for bankruptcy protection, and a reorganization plan was approved in 1992.[57] In 1995, Trump sold the Plaza Hotel along with most of his properties to pay down his debts, including personally guaranteed loans, allowing him to avoid personal insolvency.[58][59]

    In 1996, Trump acquired the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building, and renovated it.[60] In the early 1990s, Trump won the right to develop a 70-acre (28 ha) tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, Trump sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who were able to finance completion of the project, Riverside South.

    ….

    Trump bought a third Atlantic City venue in 1988, the Trump Taj Mahal. It was financed with $675 million in junk bonds and completed for $1.1 billion, opening in April 1990.[69][70] Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991.[71] He was forced to give up half his initial stake and to personally guarantee future performance.[72] To reduce his $900 million of personal debt, he sold his failing Trump Shuttle airline, his megayacht, the Trump Princess, which had been leased to his casinos and kept docked, and other businesses.[73]

    In 1995, Trump founded Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (THCR), which assumed ownership of Trump Plaza, Trump Castle, and the Trump Casino in Gary, Indiana.[74] THCR purchased the Taj Mahal in 1996 and went bankrupt in 2004, 2009, and 2014, leaving Trump with 10 percent ownership.

    6
  22. dazedandconfused Avatar
    dazedandconfused

    Jon Stewart nails it here.

    1
  23. JKB Avatar
    JKB

    Oh well, since there seems to be confusion as to how to use Google here.

    Here is a 2016 New York Mag article where they culled their archives for Trump stories

    Trump’s first appearance in this magazine was in 1976, a few months after President Ford told New York to drop dead, as an unknown real-estate developer with a plan to build a new convention center on Manhattan’s West Side. Never mind that the city was broke, that its subways were busted up and its streets full of muggers, or that Trump was just 29 and brought little to the table besides a land-development option purchased from a bankrupt railroad company with no money down. Trump had an idea of where New York was headed: up. He feuded over his proposal with Bob Tisch, the hotelier who chaired the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau.

    The city cut Trump out of the deal, but he prevailed over those city leaders who weren’t hot for investing in NYC at the time.

    Once completed, Trump Tower would become a symbol of New York’s resurgence during the Reagan era.

  24. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Michael Reynolds:

    How are you this credulous?

    What do you expect from someone who thinks Law & Order was a documentary and not copganda

    5
  25. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @Stormy Dragon:

    What do you expect from someone who thinks Law & Order was a documentary and not copganda

    Well, if you bothered to actually WATCH THE SHOW, you would remember Briscoe and Logan talking about how Trump saved NYC while they were on a stakeout. Season 3, episode 6 – “The Savior”.

    Do you expect JKB to do ALL OF YOUR RESEARCH for you?

    10
  26. Mister Bluster Avatar
    Mister Bluster

    @Stormy Dragon:..L&O…

    I do not deny that I am a Law & Order junkie. One of the things I like about the show is the New York City backdrop. Not that I recognize all the landmarks but since I am not likely to make the trip anytime soon it’s as good a travelogue as any. (I’ve seen Manhattan. I like it too.)
    As for “Ripped From the Headlines” be it Law and Order, Columbo or Car 54, Where Are You it’s not real life. It’s all TV fiction!

  27. becca Avatar
    becca

    @JKB: Oh, sweetie, your sarcasm detector really needs a tune up.

    2
  28. Just nutha ignint crackerd Avatar
    Just nutha ignint crackerd

    @anjin-san: The “Trump Saved NYC” myth is a little overblown in my mind. I recall reading an article about the “development deal” back in the day and IIRC, the deal was tilted in favor of the developer in that if the plan worked, the developer could keep the profits but if the plan failed, he could walk away from the loans without going banko. It was essentially a no risk proposition for the “savior.”

  29. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @Just nutha ignint crackerd: There are people who scan the internet to learn, but there are a hell of lot more people that scan the internet looking for confirmation of what they want to believe. The latter, in this case, can find one article that seems to imply Trump had some business acumen, but be completely oblivious to thousands more that mention Trump’s multiple and serial bankruptcies as he squandered his inherited wealth, his incredibly stupid business deals and the fact that we now know he wasn’t a self made man but took over his father’s real estate holdings and personal fortune when the elder Trump succumbed to dementia. One article versus a thousand. But such numbers don’t matter when you are literally incapable of registering anything that goes against what you want to believe.

    1
  30. Jax Avatar
    Jax

    @anjin-san: That response was the Chef’s Kiss for my night. Thank you for that. 😛 😛

  31. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    Speaking of research, I watched a lot of Letterman back in the day and Trump was a frequent guest. He was treated a lot more like a novelty/joke than he was a savior.

    Now, granted, that’s not as good as watching Law and Order, but so it goes.

    (I remember an ongoing segment called “Trump or Monkey” in which photos of tops of heads were visible and people guessed if it was Trump or a monkey under the covered part of the photo–it was a lot harder than you might think. One night it was “Trump or Wookie” wherein the photos were either Trump or Chewbacca–you know, as most saviors are treated).

    1
  32. mattbernius Avatar
    mattbernius

    @JKB:

    Here is a 2016 New York Mag article where they culled their archives for Trump stories

    Serious question, can you walk us through that entire article… not just the one selective quote, and show us how it actually supports your thesis? I also note that from the same article, you managed not to cite any of the counterfactuals (like the losses he took from projects like The Plaza or his failure to fund a number of projects like the World’s Tallest Skyscraper).

    In fact the only two major successes the article covers are the one from 1976 (which you linked to) and Trump Tower. Those two alone done really match the claim you made above.

    Perhaps I’m reading it wrong. Or maybe you were thinking of another article.

    Heck the NY Post article I linked to made a stronger argument for Trump

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